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Your Marble, Limestone, Travertine and other natural stone can be restored to get the look you desire. We use diamond impregnated pads of varying grits to restore your stone. No shortcuts are used. We can even flatten your floor by grinding if the tiles are uneven. Contact us for a complementary quote on your natural stone installation.
Natural Stone, Marble Polishing & Restoration
Below are definitions of terms normally used in Stone Restoration.
Grinding: Removes any uneven edges (lippage) from your floor. Once a floor is ground it will be flat and free of any lippage. Grinding disks consist of coarse grits composed of synthetic diamonds held in a metal binder. These are very aggresive pads and remove alot of material in a short time.
Honing: Resurfacing your stone to eliminate all scratches. This process will leave your stone with a uniform, satin smooth, slip resistant finish. We usually refer to two types of honed finishes; a low hone which is non-reflective and a high hone which is slightly reflective, satin finish. After honing with diamond abrasives the floor is finished with a honing powder.
Polishing: Consists of using diamond abrasives in a resin binder and polishing powders to deliver deep clarity and a shine to your stone's surface. Using higher grits will give the floor a more reflective finish.
Cleaning: We only use profesional grade cleaners designed for Natural Stone, this will remove dirt and contaminants from your Stone and grout.
Etching: Caused by acidic substances on a polished surface. They sometimes look like "water" spots. Powder polishing will remove light etching.
Sealing: Most natural stone will accept a sealer. The only exception would be some granites and soapstone. There are two types of sealers, penetrating and enhancing. We normally use a penetrating sealer on polished stone and an enhancing sealer on non-polished stone like slate and honed marble. Both types penetrate and fills voids in the stone. An enhancing sealer also penetrates and will leave the stone with a slight satin finish to bring out color and texture. Some enhancing sealers are topical which means the sealer leaves a thin layer on top of the stone. This type of sealer is not recommended because the coating will need to be stripped off in the future when there are multiple layers and the sealer will cause the stone to look non-uniform and plastic. The enhancing sealer we use are not topical and no stripping is necessary. This will cause any liquod spilled on the stone to "ball up" and not penetrate. You can easily test to see if your stone is sealed. Apply some water on the stone. If it turns the stone darker in that area then it is penetrating and your stone is not sealed well enough.
Slate Restoration: Slate is common in the New England area. Normally used in entry ways, hallways and kitchens. Slate does not polish. To get Slate to shine, a topical finish is applied. We think this should be avoided. A finish needs to be stripped periodically and is difficult for the home owner to do.
Also this finish penetrates the grout and can not be removed entirely. If a shine is desired we would recommend porcelain, marble, travertine or limestone. We normally strip any finish off the stone. This may take multiple applications to remove all the finish. The stone and grout is then sealed with a clear penetrating sealer.
New Hampshire
