Polishing marble is quite a hard job, so if you want to perform it with your own hands, this article will teach you how to polish marble floors.
If you do not want to resort to harsh forms of marble floor polishing, it is necessary to maintain a constant cleanliness and prevent the entry of dirt into the surface. In case you need polishing marble floors, here is some very useful information for you on how to polish marble floors with your own hands.
You will need:
- sandpaper
- soft cloths
- pumice
- grinding equipment (or polishing machine)mold
- wax,
- a drill with a special nozzle
- abrasive tools
- products for stone care containing wax
Preparatory work
As a rule, for polishing marble people use so-called abrasive and diamond wheels. With a flexible range of diamonds, marble can be sanded and polished well. For smooth and flat surfaces use cutters. Abrasive cutting tools can be manufactured in the form of brushes or fiber-wheels.
To begin, carefully inspect the marble surface removing minor defects. If the material has small cracks, you must apply the resin or cement-lime filling. You can also patch up liquid glass. If any part of the stone is broken, you should glue it with glue produced for synthetic resins. During gluing and filling cracks, it is desirable to apply additional bond pyrones or staples prodused for copper or stainless steel.
Marble floor polishing
Step 1 – Grinding
Grinding is one of the important stages of the marble coating processing. If you want to use the product for a long time, do not neglect this procedure which significantly increases the service life of marble. Before grinding, you must clean it with the vacuum cleaner, organic solvents or detergent. Rinse the surface with a cloth and water.
Just prior to grinding, the surface is moistened using a fine sandpaper. If there are irregularities on the surface and visible differences, you must first apply the coarse abrasives, such as grinding wheels and rails. If you want the marble shone to look smoother, use several different abrasives.
Grinding process can be divided into three steps:
- coarse grinding
- lapping
- polishing itself
To give the stone a monolithic view, it is necessary to remove a rather large layer of material (the recommended thickness is 3 mm). It is better to use polishing machine. Small items can be polished with fine sandpaper.
Step 2 – Cleaning
Before polishing marble you must clean the surface well. Use shallow erased iron and sulfur oxides. This powder should be applied to a high gloss and then you should rub the surface with a piece of leather. After that, the stone should be sprinkled with some wax and gently rubbed with a dry cloth.
If you are going to polish marble with the machine, remove the faceplate and the plastic body, and then rinse thoroughly with them. Then clean parts can be set back to begin carrying out polishing. For this purpose, you should fix polishing sponge and pour a pinch of powder on it for it to be wetted with water, then rub in circles.
Step 3 – Polishing
As a polishing powder it is recommended to use zinc, diamond dust, aluminum or chromium oxide. Then you can turn on the engine and slowly polish the material. Circles must be glued on cast iron faceplate with shellac or wax.
It is also necessary to lay rubber under the polishing circles. Before polishing you should slightly moisten the circles with a wet cloth. While working on the machine, the material should be carefully pressed. Move your hand against the rotation of the circles. For additional protection, the marble surface is coated with wax to obtain the desired result.
These means for polishing marble are more durable than the wax, but it is necessary to make a more thorough cleaning of the surface prior to application, because even the oil drop may lead further deformation and cracking of the marble coating. If you treat the surface in this manner, the material will provide additional protection.
In order to check the quality of polishing, polished surface should be wiped with a clean cloth, then stand next to it and turn on an electric lamp. On the surface of marble you must find a reflection of burning hair bulb. If it is, then you polished the material in a proper way – congratulations to you, good job!
