Anything I can get at the Homedepot(or like) for marble etching?

[jcooper]

Falling behind here, too busy to stay organized.


Cleaning a bunch of tile tomorrow and told the lady I'd try something "special"on her etched marble in the bath, even though it most likely need to be re honed/polished.


So, anything I can use/try on some marble tomorrow...? Hard to see the spots, looks not good in person.

 

[Bryan Thomson]

I wouldn't go to Home Depot......who do you buy your chemicals from?

I would go to your local professional carpet cleaning supply distributor and asked them for either marble polishing powders of diamond impregnated pads (DIP) for short.

The first thing to do is ask the customer
" how shiny" do you want your floor to be.
You can determine the original reflectivity / shine by looking at the " margins" ( 2-3") from the wall.
That maybe what she / he wants, or they might want a "higher reflectivity"

There looks to be granite accent tiles.... These tiles if they are granite will be extremely harder then the marble and won't polish at the same rate as the marble.

Find one of the accent tiles in an inconspicuous spot and do a "hardness test" eg. Try to light scratch the tile with a knife just barley enough to determine the hardness.....now do the same test on the marble.
This will let you know that they will polish at different rates based upon that test.
The only issue is that the DIP won't polish granite. There are powders that will but you need to know how to work them in order to polish both accent and floor tiles.

Be careful not to over work / dwell to long over the accent tile as you could create what is know as "window paning" where those tiles stick out like a sore thumb.

If the etching is mild ( hard to tell from the picture) and they just want a slight shine.... a 1500 DIP with work or a powder polish with a white or hogs hair pad and a 175 floor machine.

Make sure to rinse the floor extremely well between the different grits whether you the powders or DIP.

The DIP pads go all the way to 11,000 grit.
So the first order of business is to determine how much reflectivity do they want and make sure to tell them " ALL" natural stone floor should be sealed with a penetrating sealer to protect the floor and their investment.

Hope this helps

 

[jcooper]

I wouldn't go to Home Depot......who do you buy your chemicals from?

Not HD, lol...


Thanks Bryan, that's all something way beyond my ability.

Really not expecting it to look any better, just want to be able to say we tried a test spot for them. She's already been told we do not do honing/sanding/polishing.

 

[Mrice]

If there are a lot of spots no. If its just a couple etches and IF you're really committed to trying to find something at HD, the closest you're likely to get is wet dry sandpaper. Do not practice in the middle of the floor. If you must, try a corner in a closet if possible. Get an assortment, since you're experimenting, you might try making a small etch with an acid in the inconspicuous spot, to see if you can remove it with your wet dry.

 

[jcooper]

Yea, went today. Just needed to try something. I did find a product called Rejuvenate(?) at HD looked better til I wiped the product off.

Rest of the stone looked great.