How To Restore Stone Floors.
At Blue Magic Services, we are Sydney’s stone restoration specialists. Our stone technicians are highly experienced craftsmen ensuring your stone receives the best possible care. We use a combination of stone grinding, stone polishing and stone honing to restore your stone floors to the best condition they have ever been. We have outlined our stone restoration techniques below to familiarise yourselves with our services.
Often it gets tricky for homeowners to draw a line of distinction between honing, polishing and grinding; more often than not, homeowners face this confusion and end up making wrong decisions. First off, it’s important to understand that honing, polishing and grinding all effectively do the same thing, that is, these processes help your stones regain their aesthetic value. The distinction comes when you consider the end-look of your stones.
At Blue Magic Services, we do not hesitate to go an extra mile to equip the customers with necessary knowledge so that they can make an informed decision and understand their desired look before carrying out the job. This is why; our results are always in align.
What is Stone Grinding?
Grinding is a process that can offer your stone surfaces redemption. It is an abrasive machining process which leaves your stone surfaces scratch-free, clean, beautiful, hard wearing, glossy, but not slippery. At Blue Magic Services, we grind down the floor with a heavy rotary machine with diamond pads attached to it. This leaves the edges and the line surfaces between tiles smooth and even, making the whole surface look even & intact.
There are many benefits for grinding a stone floor flat. Firstly, a levelled stone surface will have no lips for the dirt to accumulate into which is a blessing for you since lips are almost impossible to completely clean using household techniques, equipment or chemicals. Secondly, a completely flat floor eliminates all sorts of unevenness, giving the floor the illusion of being Monolithic (one piece). Lastly, a completely flat floor is also a lot more durable, so you can be sure that if you maintain the floor properly, you won’t have anything to worry about for years, possibly decades.
In this process, the surface is aggressively sanded to remove layers of the stone in order to level the surface. More often than not, stone tiles are uneven or have lippage issues. “Lippage” is the term given to uneven tiles that are set higher than one another, if your stones have Lips, it will allow space for dirt and liquid to accumulate, over time, these will stain and make the surface dull. Stone surfaces render a beautiful touch and look to your home, but over time these stone surfaces wear off and deteriorate if not taken care of properly. Scratches, spills & stains make them dull and unattractive over time. Even normal traffic and use can wear the stones down.
What is Stone Polishing?
Want to regain that same lustre and gloss your stone floor once had? If you do, stone polishing can be a great means of achieving that. Polishing not only reinvigorates the stone by removing scratches and etches but it also adds shine to your stone floors by rendering them a glossy finish and a supreme texture.
If you are someone who wants to enjoy the same aesthetic gloss finish of your stone floor over the years, polishing your floors should be a time to time activity because crystals in a polished floor surface eventually become dull after normal use. Also, during the time of attrition, due to bad floor maintenance or the surface wear, shine is lost and the reflected sunlight on the marble surface darkens. Polishing removes all the surface stains, scratches and other darkening factors and restores the lost shine, thereby, making the floor more reflective to light, glossier.
At Blue Magic Services, we use a combination of diamond abrasive and powder abrasive to hone the stone and make it reflective. The process is relatively simple compared to the more heavy-duty grinding processes; however, a lot of skill is required to carry out the job perfectly. It is, therefore, better to rely on professionals; if done wrong, it can damage your entire flooring.
Within its very essence, polishing is a multi-levelled, staged treatment process done with low-abrasive tools with an aim to achieve maximum smoothness of surface.
What is Stone Honing?
Honing is a less aggressive version of Grinding where the main purpose is to remove scratches and etches from your stone surfaces to achieve a fine and even texture on the surface of your stone. But it will not give you the glossy and aristocratic finish that can be achieved from grinding. Therefore, honing is for the ones who want all the scratches and etches removed from their stone surfaces and at the same time want to retain that classic look. Another basic benefit of honing is the fact that it makes your stone surfaces more slip resistant by providing more traction.
Honing can be done on bench tops, vanities, floors and walls, baths, pool surrounds, shower bases, bathroom floors, etc. and can be undertaken on all type of stones. It is usually carried out in steps; in the primary step all types of abrasions are removed from the stone surface. In the secondary step, industrial diamond pads are used to work the stone up through the grades to achieve the desired hone; which can be a low matte finish, mid matte finish, or high matte finish. In the final step, the focus is on bringing the natural colour and lustre back to your stone surface.
