How to polish marble?? (1 Viewer)

[Mark Brewer]

I'm in process of building a "mini rack" for an audio only system. I'm removing all audio components from my HT setup.

I purchased some very nice marble tile at Home Depot, and only the top is polished. Does any one know how to polish up marble??

Thanks

 

[TedO]

They do it on LARGE wet grinders. Not a DIY project.

TedO

 

[Mark Brewer]

Clarification......

I am just wanting to polish up the sides which would be 1/2" thick of marble not the whole bottom.

 

[Steve Castle]

Mark,

To do the edges is not that difficult and can be done at home. It all depends on how rough the edges are. If it's really rough you have to knock down most of the pits and grooves with a belt sander using a heavy (if really gouged) to fine belt. Wipe or brush off the dust from the surface. Then use a combination of yellow (I believe sandstone) polishing stone followed up by a blue honing stone. Key is to do this wet - dip the stones into a pail of water and keep the edge of the piece wet. These stones will take out many more grooves. To get it finer, you may want to use a light grit wet sandpaper too. This will leave you with a nice honed finish.

To get the polish, shiny edge you have to use two different polishing agents to get this done. One is a granular material that you lightly wet with water and rub into the marble with a piece of burlap (what we use to use). Be careful not to let this drip onto the face of the marble because the material is acid-like and will burn the polish off the face. I use to place masking tape on the face, along the edge, to save it in case I dripped a little. Then the final polishing agent is applied (a powdery substance) in the same manner. When done you should have a nice shine to match the face.

When I worked in this business before we got the stones, agents, etc in bulk. Can't remember where from. You could probably find this at tile or masonry resellers.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mark Brewer]

Steve Thanks for the info, I knew part of the finishing step involved an acid type wash. My Step-dad is a brick mason, and I worked for him for a summer in college.

The roughness of the sides is not bad, there are some grooves from being cut but not deep. When I'm finished I'll post a picture of the complete rack. Again thanks.

 

[Dave Milne]

Mark,

I'm sure Steve's approach will work, but you can get the same results with ordinary products. Simply wet sand the edges with successively finer grades of wet-or-dry sandpaper. Start with something like 220g (depending on how rough the initial finish is) and go to 320...400...600. I finished sanding with 1200g (from a local auto paint store; AutoZone probably carries it). The 1200g will leave the surface almost polished. For the final polish, I used a buffing wheel with 10,000 diamond, but you could also probably use jewler's rouge or even hand-applied polishing compound from AutoZone.