What's the best top for Galley counter

[Lesmusic1]

I love this site!!! I think all this.."checking things out and learning to do it myself" is scaring my husband..LOL..He's at Home Depo Now, checking things out for the Galley. Thank you for the pictures, the counters have the ..I don't know what they call it..the lips on the edges. I was trying to explain it to Doug....now he can see what Crazy blonde woman was trying to say.

[Moonchaser2304]

Another option may be precision cut natural material "tiles", 12" x 12" and you can butt joint them so the grout is barely noticable, no rounded top edge like ceramic tile, square edge...lots of options at Lowe's / tile stores from granite, marble, all sorts of colors, travertine, etc. If you have a very flat surface, and buy squares that are very consitent thickness (precision cut, not rough cut like slate would be), have/buy a $60 wet saw a person could do a DIY job very inexpensively that would look sharp but with butt fit joints you get past the grout concerns.

Depending on the material a sealer could be used on marble/travertine, likely not needed on granite squares.

Only thing this would NOT accompish is the under mount sink

These are pretty thin so I don't imagine weight would be an issue, and could easily cut round edges on the wet saw to fit inside fiddles.

just a thought

[Jackstee]

Hi Guy's
Im amazed.
So much an such a relatively simple thing. I thought until I read the full thread.
I remember when Corian first came out. Im in the Hotel trade and Engineering. It was billed as the new wonder material, could be handled similar to wood, welded like metal and was very hygenic. We only used it in public toilets, basically it looked rubbish. ( I was going to say crap but I didn't think I would get away with it.)
Our Galley looks terrible. 1960's formica and orange colour, I will, I promise, change it, but theres so many things to do, most seem more important, the new winch, speakers in the cotpit, led TV, you know how it goes.

Steve

[Steve Kidson]

I opted for Corian benchtops in my galley and head, but it was not a difficult choice; I own a joinery business and we were doing a large commercial Cafe job with white corian benches and counters at the right time. Just had my fabricator work his magic with some carefully planned offcuts.

Corian would be considered by some as too heavy, but the amount of benchtop on even a 40' boat is not enormous, and is reasonably insignificant overall - IMHO. The extra 20 litres of fuel in the jerry can on the deck would add more weight to your boat than the additional weight of corian over laminate on your benchtop. After all we are the "Crusiers Forum", not Racers Forum, and weight is surely less of an issue.

Corian is hygenic, easy to clean, and can be easily re-polished to remove scratches with a fine/mild abrasive such as cutting compound. If you want to you can have a splashback or fiddle integrated to form a complete unit. All joints are "welded" and polished to create a seamless, gap free wet area.

I had my galley sink undermounted and a corian lid made to infil to create more bench space when not using sink. When I next get opportunity I will photograph and post.

In the early days there were many awful examples of Corian installations, largely done by either inexperienced or untrained fabricators. In Australia, supply of these solid surface materials is strictly controlled and only to acredited fabricators - quality control is closely monitored.

Corian is probably not for everyone, but it is certainly worth considering.

Fair Winds

Steve

[Steve Kidson]

As referred to in my previous post, pictures below show corian benchtops to my galley and head. Galley picturs show with lid on sink and off.







Fair winds

Steve