Question on stone slab identification

[Faith In Virginia]

I need some advice please. I just got finished building my bread oven and I had thoughts of making it portable. After layers and layers of heavy material I know that I will need my big trucks for moving it around. So I was thinking of building a comparably lighter pizza oven for the transportable oven.

Now I've had this slab of stone for years it's about 1-1/4" thick jet black with no variation in color. It's quite smooth like slate but not slate. It's very hard and does not scratch easily and you can tell the stone is quite dense. I'm thinking of using it as the floor to a pizza oven (I know one piece is not recommended)

Any thoughts of what this slab is and if its usable for a floor, This slab is big and heavy so I can't just through it in the car and find a stone identifying expert.

Thanks for your thoughts

[brokencookie]

Re: Question on stone slab identification

It is probably granite. 1 1/4 inch is the standard thickness for this material. It is not recommended for ovens. Other stones have a different standard thickness. Since is it smooth I am assuming that it is a "finished" piece of stone and thefore is the 1 1/4 inch standard granite slab. The difficultiy in creating a scratch also leads me to believe that it is granite. Search the forum for flame polishing and you will get quite a bit of info on why granite is a poor choice.

The other choices I can think of are

Quartize - artifical stone- generally 3/4 in
Marble - 1.5 to 2 in

Soapstone is usually the same 1 1/4 in thickness but it is not has common. If you can weight the stone and figure the square footage you can determine which you have

Granite = about 18 lbs per sq ft ( 1 1/4 in thick)
Soapstone = 20 lbs per sq ft (1 1/4 inch thick)

Good luck

[Tscarborough]

Re: Question on stone slab identification

All granite shows granularity. If there are no grains, it is probably soapstone. I still would not make a one piece floor.

As I tell people when they are considering the options of a concrete patio versus a segmental paver patio, "all of the cracks are engineered in" on the segmental pavers.

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Question on stone slab identification

Thanks for the reply's and the great information. I have been sitting on this 4'x5' slab for about 30 years and looking for some use for it. I can get a scale to it so that will be a great start. If it's soapstone then I could always cut it into smaller blocks? Thanks Faith

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: Question on stone slab identification

Faith,

I just found this thread and wanted to reply. If it is indeed soapstone, it is very easy to cut! I cut mine with an inexpensive 41/2" wet saw that was given to me (retail about $59 I think). The soapstone pieces that I bought (Craigslist) came in 3cm (1 1/2") slabs and all I did was trim the ends using a circular template. Maybe you can post a photo and we can all take a guess at what you have.

John