Today’s technology allows for much faster marble polishing than at any time in the last two thousand years. Ancient Greeks and Romans used crushed sand, salt, and various fibers to polish marble. Today we use diamond pads, polishing powders, and chemicals. Knowing when and where to apply appropriate abrasives and techniques becomes the mark of a true marble polisher.
Fort Lauderdale Marble Restoration’s marble floor polishing, like marble polishing anywhere, requires a process of steps. Anything else fails to return marble floors to their best shine. Perhaps a floor needs polishing and little else. Knowing where to begin, which diamond-pad to use, and small details like revolutions per minute (RPM) returns floors to their best luster. This requires skills, knowledge, and abilities learned by practice and observation.
Often a floor requires grinding when first installed or after a catastrophic incident in a home or business. An entire marble polishing process begins with grinding to remove lippage. Removing lippage allows for easier maintenance. By grinding, marble floors become flatter and reflect their one-piece illusion, a monolithic image. Important too, grinding removes excessive grout from grout lines.
Every inch of marble floor or countertop receives the same expert care and service. Much like a manicure for your nails (calcium), your marble (calcite and/or dolomite) tiles have a potential for a unique and extraordinary shine and beauty. Because every inch of marble possesses a unique mix of chemicals that somehow pressed together over many years with great force becomes a unique mass of metamorphic rock.
Like a fingerprint revealed by fingerprint dust, marble polishing shows that every square inch of marble stone has a uniqueness, unlike any other square inch. Marble’s uniqueness arises from its chemistry, along with its part in the geological processes and compression below mountains over eons. Our polishing reveals the outcome of these incredible forces. Not only do they show the signs of compression forces; they have their beauty and hygienic value.
We enjoy bringing out marble’s many qualities. Sometimes these qualities create a bit of confusion by their uniqueness. Becoming an expert at identifying natural marble takes time, and marble sometimes throws us a curve with its distinct veins, swirls, and bands. Sometimes when we count on these tell-tale signs of a marble stone, we find veins adding to their exotic beauty as light veins meander to-and-fro, showing the compaction of quartz and feldspar in their ancient compositions.
Our job becomes much like manicuring your floor, bringing out these unique qualities, more ancient than the great pyramids. Sure, we may need to grind, hone, and polish; yet we do so with the same care and concern a manicurist would use with your hands. It may seem odd that marble polishing uses similar principles today that were used in the age of the Pharos; yet, the similarities remind us that we share a craft with marble polishers accustomed to using various grits of sand for marble polishing two thousand years ago.
Although marble polishing’s principals remain the same, it’s the technological innovation that has brought about mass-produced and mass maintenance of marble floors. Technology made marble polishing a more democratically experienced practice for all. It seems odd that we remain so much like the earliest marble polishers in our methods and outcomes. However, our clients live with beautiful marble floors surpassing that of kings and queens’ marble floors.
So we do have a long heritage, an ancient craft that we take great delight in sharing. We glory in our craft, a craft producing works of art from newly installed or re-polished marble. We work hard to stay abreast of technological changes. We focus on staying informed of industry trends and technological improvements and do our best to bring out those hidden delights in every marble tile’s potential.
Maintenance for a marble floor means paying some attention to who comes through your doors, what’s between their shoes’ soles and your marble floors. With that said, beware of acids. Acids will take away your floor’s homogenous, monolithic shine rather quickly. In other words, if you must have lemon aid, try not to spill any on your marble floor. And if you do, call us, and we can help with a quick shine. Your small floor polishing needs have our utmost attention, too. We will find a way to schedule you into our regular maintenance routes as soon as possible.