Your essential guide to chemicals and adhesives for worktop installation
When it comes to fitting kitchen worktops, time and attention to detail are key – but even the best fitters face challenges without the right chemicals and adhesives. At Stonegate, we understand that every stage of stone worktop installation relies on using the best products, from the moment the slabs arrive from the quarry to the final clean and polish. This complete guide will help you achieve professional, long-lasting results in every client’s kitchen worktop installation.
Step 1: Clean your slab
Before installation, it’s crucial to ensure your slab is completely clean. Any dust, grease, or residue can prevent proper bonding and sealing, and ultimately affect the final finish. We recommend washing down your slab with mild soap and warm water. For stubborn pen or pencil marks, use acetone or isopropanol – both are highly effective at removing residue caused during worktop processing. If you’re dealing with rust stains or marks from metal racks, Rustex is great for removing those marks safely, ready for install.
Step 2: Secure into place
Once your surface is clean, it’s ready to be transported to your client’s kitchen for installation. Once on site, and the worktop is moved into position you will need to look at fixing it in place/ The adhesive you need for securing your worktop will depend on the material and type of bond required. For vertical joints running front to back, like securing an L-shape in place, you should look at a knife-grade resin such as Bondex – which can be coloured with a pigment to match the surface material. For lamination or creating mitred edges seamlessly, Invisabond provides a smooth, uninterrupted finish by matching the colour perfectly to your workspace.
For fixings such as backsplashes, Bear Grip is a powerful solution. It’s a beast of an adhesive with incredible strength that ensures it holds materials securely, both indoors and outdoors, making it ideal for challenging installations. This hybrid MS polymer is also available in a grab adhesive, making it perfect for fixing undermount sinks without mechanical fixings.
Step 3: Seal and protect
Now that your worktop is safely secured into place, your next step is sealing. Sealing the kitchen worktop protects the surface from stains, moisture and everyday wear – especially important in a busy kitchen where spills and splashes are inevitable. For long lasting protection on both natural and engineered stone, our sealers Safeguard and Safeguard Pro are popular choices.
Safeguard is an oil and water repellent that offers ultimate protection for granite, marble and natural stone, helping keep your stone worktops looking pristine. Safeguard Pro goes a step further, acting as both a primer and a protector, enhancing durability and ensuring surfaces are ready to withstand daily use. Using these dealers preserves the stone and makes cleaning and maintenance easier, giving every kitchen surface a professional, long-lasting finish.
Step 4: Finish the edges
Once the worktop is sealed, the next step is filling the gaps between the worktop and walls or upstands. Using the right silicone is essential for creating a watertight finish. For natural stone, our LMN Silicone is specially formulated to prevent staining or colour bleed into the material, and our colour range is a fantastic choice for granite and quartz worktops. With a wide range of colours available, there’s always an option to match each installation perfectly. As with using any chemical on a porous surface, we would always recommend trying a small amount first to ensure that it doesn’t mark the surface.
Step 5: The final clean
Before leaving your client with their brand-new kitchen worktop, you want it to look its absolute best. Stone Gleam is our go-to everyday cleaner and polisher designed specifically for stone surfaces. It cuts through residue and dirt without dulling or damaging the shine, leaving a flawless, streak free finish that really shows off their new kitchen worktop!
Every step of fitting a kitchen countertop relies on using the right products, the right way. Cleaning, glueing, sealing and finishing all play a vital role in both the performance and appearance of the stone surface.
At Stonegate, we stock the full range of chemicals, adhesives and sealants trusted by installers across the UK and Ireland, for consistent results. To guarantee performance our technical specialists have tested extensively across a range of different materials, and we have years and years of positive feedback from fabricators. If you’ve got a busy period of installs upcoming, make sure you’re using the best products for the job – our team is always here to help.
Visit our Innovation Hub for live demonstrations and product testing, or contact us on [email protected], or call +44(0) 1482 620400 for more expert advice.
