Marble Tips - Grinding, Honing, Shining

marble and terrazzo grinding

When the surface of marble is scratched and loses its original shine, the marble needs to be refinished and polished in order to restore the shine it had originally.
Restoring the shine simply means to smooth the surface until it shines.

Here are three different procedures needed in succession in order to restore the original shine.

1. Grinding
Grinding is the process by which large scratches and lippages are sanded to make the surface even. The abrasives used have grit sizes 60 or less.

2. Honing
Honing is same as grinding except diamond abrasives with grit size of 120 or above are used.

3. Shining
2 different methods:

(1) Polishing
A powdered abrasive is used. Powdered abrasives contain aluminum oxide or tin oxide and usually are white. Most powdered abrasives also contain a compound called oxalic acid which speeds the polishing process. Therefore, too much powder can burn the surface, so special care is needed for this process.This procedure is most widely used.

(2) Recrystallization
This process consists of spraying a fluid onto the floor and buffing it in with steel wool under a standard buffing machine. The heat generated by buffing with steel wool reacts with the chemical producing a new compound on the surface.This procedure is recommended when too much sunshine causes the uneven reflections on the surface.

marble and terrazzo grinding
source: http://www.findstone.com/marbtip.htm