# Forum Home Renovation Kitchens  Bunnings Ozstone - Can it be DIY installed?

## rwo

We have recently ordered a  Bunnings flatpax kitchen (due to be delivered wednesday) with the Ozstone bench top and I am curious how hard it is to install the stone as a DIY job? 
The people at the special orders counter in bunnings said it is best to get a tradie to install it, but the whole idea of using a bunnings kitchen is to keep costs down, so I am reluctant to spend $$$ when I can do the job myself. 
Has anyone here purchased a flatpax kitchen with the Ozstone benchtop? How did you go about installing it, was it DIY or did you get a tradie? 
What considerations would need to be taken into account with a DIY stone benchtop and which special tools would be required (if any) to do the job myself? 
At the end of the day, our bunnings stuff came to $5k delivered, basically half was cabinets and half went to the benchtop. This was compared with quotes for a similar setup of $9K DIY (with laminate bench) from kitcraft, $17K installed with 7mm stone from one custom installer and $18k installed with laminate from another  :Shock:  (mind you both of the custom installs were with overheads which we left off the bunnings/kitcraft quotes, but everything else was roughly the same). So IMHO, if someone doesn't mind getting their hands dirty check out the bunnings kitchens, I have seen a few installs and they come up well for the price, hopefully our does too!

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## wizard

I am hoping to do the same as you in the near future so I am interested in how you go! What is the shape of Ozetone benchtop...U..L ., How many joins are there? How much does it weigh? What system is provided to pull these joints together underneath. Some of the laminate tops I have installed have neat clamping devices which pull it all together! What sort of splask back are you doing? Whan allowance for iaccuracies in your walls have you allowed? 
Sorry about all the questions but if you can setup all the benches level square etc and the benchtop pieces fit together well and you have the ability to lift and maouvre the pieces, then it should be possible to do! But I have not done one of these.yet.Please put up more information
Cheers

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## rwo

Happy to give you all the info I can, here goes... 
Bench top will be U shape with 2 joins (3 slabs of the stone), 2 of these will be the 2400 x 600 tops and the third will be a 2400 x 900 island top. I'm not sure of the weight yet as it hasn't been delivered, the Bunnings rep said they were pretty heavy and going on the density of MDF and stone, I reckon they are probably right... 
I'm not 100% certain how they are joined yet, but the Ozstone top is not all stone, it's a thin stone slab (I found another post on here saying they were a 38mm top of which 20mm is stone, I know another manufacturer, granite transformations, does 7mm stone in the same way) that is glued to an MDF sheet. I don't see why the normal bench clamps can't be used in the MDF. The long U sides of the kitchen are 1.9m and the top of the U is about 2.8, so all 3 lengths will need to be trimmed to keep the joins near the corners. 
Splashback will be tiles with a stainless feature tile. 
As for inaccuracies in the walls, we had another kitchen company come out to measure up the walls for a quote, their response was that "these are some of the squarest/straightest walls we have seen" so based on that I am hoping there isn't too much of a gap behind the bench, if whatever is there can't be covered with the tiling then the bench will need to be trimmed accordingly. 
The bits that I am most concerned about at the moment:
1) the cuts and lining them up in the corners
2) the finish of the top when it's delivered (i.e. is it polished already)
3) are the ends of the slabs finished or does that need to be done after fitting the top 
I guess questions 2 and 3 will be answered on Wednesday when it's delivered. As for the cuts, the bunnings setup we saw with the stone was a U shape and they had cut the corners with a 45 deg angle that went in about 100mm then cut square along the bench. I have done some dodgey gimp artwork to give a better idea. So basically, getting this cut accurate and square enough so no gaps are visible is going to be the hardest part. 
Hope that helps a bit, but I should be able to post a bit more info on wednesday when it's delivered.

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## jags

hi rwo  
Kit kraft are a rip off they where one of the places i got a quote to .I ended up getting ikea cupboards and my essa stone bench tops from arca in osbourne park $3300 for the tops installed with sink install included and $3500 for the cupboards which i installed .   
As your the bench tops have a base of mdf i think the standard clamps should do the job well and you should be able to screw the bench top down to the cupboards . the most important thing is to get the cupboard straight and level if this is out the tops will not line up and you are screwed i would mark the level on the wall that you want and set the first cuboard then the second  and so on once they are all done go back and re check as by screwing them together and then to the wall the chances are the level will now be out so adjust the feet acordingly to fix the problem .as for cutting the tops i would ask for a fact sheet on the top specs a circular saw with a diamond blade may do the job 
best of luck  
P.s i have the name of a great ex cabinet maker that charges $40 if you need a hand .

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## totoblue

Wikipedia says granite weighs about 2.75 g/cm<sup>3</sup> and apparently all reconstituted stone is about 93% stone and 7% epoxy so it should be pretty much the same.  Hence your biggest slab should weigh in the ballpark of 120 kg plus the weight of the MDF and your smaller slabs about 80kg plus the MDF.  That's bloody heavy for something that is somewhat fragile and awkwardly shaped. 
If the stone is not finished, then you might find some useful tools here.   http://www.hoskindiamond.com.au
If you have to cut a mason's mitre (that's the name of the mitre in your picture) then I think that's beyond just a diamond-blade in an angle grinder. 
The sink cutout is likely to be a job for for you.  I hope you are planning on a drop-in sink and not an undermount, as the cut out will be covered by the sink lip.  I have not installed benchtops but from what I have read the sink cut-out is usually done in-situ. 
As an aside, there are other solid-sufaces (for example, Corian) that can be installed with wood-working tools.  They are not as tough as stone though but unlike laminate, they are solid and can be refinished to remove scratches.  Probably kinder to your dishes too.  LG Hi-MACS used to have a fabrication guide online but I couldn't access it just now.
consumer site www.lghi-macs.com
Fabrication go to http://www.lgchem.com/ and click on Hi-MACS.  If you try to look at the fabrication guide, depending on the browser, you either get nothing or a website error. 
Let us know how you go - I think you are bolding going where many of us fear to tread.  Good luck!

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## rwo

Well, the kitchen was delivered today, with mixed results! 
Apart from receiving the doors as half modern/half heritage (they should have all been modern) and a couple of packs damaged (including one of the 2400 x 600 bench tops) everything seems to be there as specified. I guess I could be partly blamed for the door stuff up, as I wrote up a list with all the heritage doors and part numbers. When we were standing at the counter about to order, my wife changed her mind and decided she wanted modern doors so I had to cross out the numbers and wrote "all doors in modern" on the order, obviously someone missed that! 
The 2400 x 600 bench top's are 63kg each (says on the packaging) and the 2400 x 900 top is 93kg. The poor old lone delivery guy was stoked when I answered the door and helped him unload it, he said "I spent the whole trip over here stressing about how I was going to get the top off the ute!" The top is also pre-polished with the edges moulded so the only visible joins on the top will be in the corners between the different slabs. The 7mm granite transformations top that we had quoted had the edge pieces stuck on prior to polishing, even though they were hard to see there was still a slightly visible edge the entire way around. I have measured the stone and it is 12mm thick. 
My next query with the 900mm island top is does the approx 300mm overhang "breakfast bar" need to be supported with legs or will the MDF/stone support itself? In one of the catalogue pictures they had it supported, but I'm not sure what with (it looked like a stainless steel tube. What do you guys think? 
totoblue: Do you know what tool/jig is normally used to make the "mason's mitre" cuts? I have ordered a "EZ Smart" circular saw guide from the US (still waiting for it) so doing a dead straight cut with a diamond blade on the circular saw shouldn't be a problem, but getting the 45 angle spot on so the slabs line up without a gap might be a bit more difficult.

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## totoblue

> totoblue: Do you know what tool/jig is normally used to make the "mason's mitre" cuts? I have ordered a "EZ Smart" circular saw guide from the US (still waiting for it) so doing a dead straight cut with a diamond blade on the circular saw shouldn't be a problem, but getting the 45 angle spot on so the slabs line up without a gap might be a bit more difficult.

  For laminate bench tops, something like this http://www.hendersons.co.uk/template/template2.html http://www.hendersons.co.uk/template/template1.html 
I seem to remember that (the one granite kitchen I have examined the joints on) had a butt join.  IIRC the join was parallel to the edge (they'd just taken the curved profile off the edge and butt joined it with the other piece at 90 degrees. 
Might be worth getting the set of 3 DVD's from http://www.hoskindiamond.com.au/category2_1.htm
You could always sell them here afterwards.  Maybe give them a call - the price of the gear you need might be less than the cost of getting someone to do it. 
The Hoskin Diamond catalog points you to www.ravelli.it who make machines for cutting stone benchtops.

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## AIRMAN

There are a heap of videos on granite installation on Youtube, most are american but alot of it is still relevant  
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlsbMWJrc0s&feature=related"]YouTube - Do It Yourself Granite Video[/ame]

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## rwo

I sent Nic Hoskin at Hoskin Diamond an email on which blade is reccomended to cut the slab. He suggested a "Segmented Granite Turbo" blade that sells for about $100 (for an 8" blade for my saw). I will order that from him this week, and might grab those DVD's too if I can't find any info on youtube about doing it. The catch with cutting it will be that I will need to do 2 cuts, one to cut the granite and the other to cut the MDF, Nic said the MDF will burn if cut with the diamond blade. 
When it comes to installing my bench, I will have about 30cm of offcuts from each slab, so if I cut those off first I will be able to play around and do some practice joins to see how difficult they are... 
Thanks for all the info guys, it has been invaluable and with a bit of research, I now feel confident enough that I can do this myself and hopefully save a bit of money and still end up with a decent bench! 
I will update progess when the work starts.

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## totoblue

Thanks Airman for the video on youtube.  That show is on the How-To channel for anyone with Foxtel or Austar.  That episode is described here http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/hi_kit...373839,00.html   

> I seem to remember that (the one granite kitchen I have examined the joints on) had a butt join.  IIRC the join was parallel to the edge (they'd just taken the curved profile off the edge and butt joined it with the other piece at 90 degrees.

  This video [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWP1Aht07I"]YouTube - How To Make A Connection Cut[/ame]
shows cutting the mason's mitre freehand with an angle grinder and a wet-cut circular saw.  As I suggested above, the 45 degree cut is very short, which would save on cost of granite.

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