How do you polish a marble

["Charles Kibby" <ckibby@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Lets see if the experts have a easy way to remove the polish, without taking
up the floor.

I suggest that you rub it all over (wet) with 220 grade wet & dry paper to
make the surface uniform in appearance, then treat it with a penetrating
sealant to  stabilise it chemically.

Great comments and links from Simon, George, and JohnVC, as usual.  In
general I agree with everything said, and have some personal as well as
professional experience in this arena.  So, here goes:

1)       YES, you can grind and hone a marble floor in place (or countertop
for that matter).  It's just a messy, tedious experience, but with marble
surfaces in heavily used areas it's really the only logical response.  Check
out most floors in Europe and you will find that they are usually installed,
ground in place to a honed finish, and then left alone.  Probably some are
sealed as well, but no guarantees there.  But you do end up with a lovely
smooth stone surface that is much nicer to walk on because you don't have
all those concave grout lines to trap dirt, tickle the toes, etc.  Americans
have this anal need to have their stone shiny and reflective, and it's
really inconsistent with the natural properties of the material.

2)       When I was in the business, I used to always tell my clients that
the greater the shine desired, the greater the resources required to keep it
that way.  Honing a marble surface is a great way to almost eliminate the
heavy maintenance requirements and still have the wonderful qualities of a
highly figured marble surface in the home rather than (to my eye and feel)
the cold and homogeneous aspects of many granites.  So the bottom line is,
feel free to use marble, but knock the damn polish off and treat it
regularly (once a year in the kitchen doesn't hurt) with a good quality
oleophobic and aquaphobic subsurface penetrating sealer.

In my last house, we remodeled and made sure to have four extra slabs of
Negro Portoro left over after one of our restoration projects (it came off a
block that had been pulled from the ground 60 years ago when the material
still had lots of bright yellow veining against the black, not like the pale
white-veined stuff that is so prevalent these days).  During fabrication we
made sure to hone the surface with random orbital hand-held machines to a
#220 grit and sealed at least twice with a good sealer (chosen not only for
its protective qualities but also for its tendency to darken and enhance the
stone matrix).  It was beautiful and relatively easy to maintain, even
though the dark color did show etch marks a little easier.  Taking them out
was a simple matter of light honing with a diamond pad and water using a
carpenter's finish sander and then resealing the area.  Travertine on the
floor was treated the same way, with extra effort to fill the micro holes
opened up by the resurfacing process.

Anyway, don't despair, your marble surface is probably fine with the right
treatment to stabilize the surface (except if it's Negro Marquina, in which
case despair is appropriate).

Good Luck

Chaz

CK Arts, Inc.
P:310-877-3112
F:310-476-9216
E:ckibby@-----------
Website:www.ckarts.com