First Foray into Stone

[Old Coastie]

Using Cameron's disks and polish, we tackled our first stone floor today. Deep grooves, lotsa lippage and yet, a happy customer. $10/foot. Too bad I have to put it all towards the credit card debt we spent to learn how, hahahaha!

 

[Cleanworks]

You are braver than I am, nice job!

 

[steve_64]

I wish I could do that type of work. Nice!

 

[Mikey P]

The Liverwurst of flooring


Looks good from here Sir..

 

[Cameron DeMille]

Turned out great, I'm sure they were thrilled.

They should have that door trimmed.

 

[Old Coastie]

Thanks Cameron, but I know you spotted the broken reflection lines and pillowing. That floor tilts every which way and the poor pads were galloping along like mad. We cut with the metal 120's until we were fed up and couldn't kick edges any more. I mean there were tripping hazards! It could use a whole day of leveling.
The door I remedied by putting heavy 3 1/2" screws into the top hinge.

I think I still want some 3500's from you, as once it was polished we could see very fine swirl marks. Andrew elf thinks they were made by dried, re-crystalized polish that we may have buffed over the floor. Does that happen?

 

[clean image]

Looks good. Yes compound if allowed to dry may leave fine swirls. Often you can not see it even when you think it's dry, then bamm, where did that come from...

Also if you have wind coming in from door can accelerate

Often shirt water and wet to dry will get it, or use mb12

 

[Old Coastie]

Well, polished with a new white pad, we sucked what we could and triple-mopped it. There was a faint haze left. So, we used a bonnet to buff it up, followed by a new white pad.

What I meant by crystals looked like sea salt where polish had been sitting in the corners and in spots that didn't mop. They sort of popped out of the edges. I'll have to dampen some powder and then let the polish dry to see if it happens again.

 

[Cameron DeMille]

when you're polishing you area, check the polish as you go. When you get the shine you want, add more water and do a few really wet passes. This will break up any drying residue and eliminate any swirls that may occur, then vacuum right away and you're good.

The pillowing is normal, every floor that gets refinished with diamonds will have some sort of pillowing, unless it's ground flat. I think you did a good job.

 

[Cameron DeMille]

This is a weird agglomerate from Italy. It has a broken polish. Here is a floor I did with the same stuff. We replaced the grout in this one too.

You can see there is a lot of pillowing here too

 

[srosen]

That's Nice work Coastie-Good for you-
Now that you broke your cherry-welcome to a new addiction!

 

[Mikey P]

who or what caused those cuts?

Post the first and last photos on your site and a facebook campaign, Yelp page, Angies and on a sandwich board out in front of Admiral Clean's shop

 

[Old Coastie]

Those are drag marks caused by an age-hardened, stiff plastic sweep under the front door. I pulled the door up a little by installing long deck screws in the upper hinges, but also told the owner to get a man to change out the sweep.

 

[Captain Morgan]

Nice work Coastie..love it!

Could you explain pillowing?
Thanks
Capt

 

[Old Coastie]

Thanks, Cap. Pillowing is the rounded edges of raised tiles. These tiles had been laid at slightly varying angles, resulting in some edges being higher than their neighbors. That is "lipping." Some of these were actually bad enough to be tripping hazards.
Honing them down does not level the whole tile, it only averages the edges so the lipping is eliminated. Because of the high gloss, you can see how it breaks up a reflection, something that was not as apparent before.
Now if you pull in on the edges of the tiles, you'll see that lots of them appear to be slightly rounded. That is "pillowing."

 

[Cameron DeMille]

Here is an example of pillowing, notice the edges of the tiles look rounded. This is inevitable when refinishing without grinding. It's not as bad as it looks though, the human eye can detect quite a tiny amount of light deflection. I have never had a single customer mention or complain about it.

This is a severe example

This is another bad one

This is typical

As is this

 

[Captain Morgan]

Cool, that makes sense..thanks for explaining.
Capt.

 

[Mikey P]

@Cameron DeMille do you have any photos of Pillow Edge Limestone...the intentional tupe?

 

[Old Coastie]

Hey, no toupe jokes!

 

[Cameron DeMille]

@Cameron DeMille do you have any photos of Pillow Edge Limestone...the intentional tupe?

somewhere, yes. I'll have to dog. They might be on my frozen HD.