Page 22 - Demo

22|July 2020
Stone Restoration and
Slippery rock Gazette
Sometimes this is what the restoration job takes: carefully hand-scrubbing the grout with Majestic Deep Cleaner and a wire brush.
Marble floor after initial cleaning. Notice where the Rolodex cards had given some protection from the etching on the floor.
Maintenance Corner
The Tennessee Marble, Friendsville Quarry Office Gets a Restoration
ASof June 5th, 2020, the M3 Technol- ogies Inc. office in Massachusetts is still of- ficially closed. Here in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I have been operating from my home office, we are slowly re-opening most businesses. Many restau- rants, retail stores, and even more importantly, my local CrossFit gym are now open. Of course, most of these are at limited capacity with social distancing required. Unfortunately, because I was eating the same but not working out at my usual 5-6 days per week, I gained about 10 pounds during the
closure...
I was reading about the Hong Kong Flu (H3N2 virus) which struck in 1968-1969. There were about 100,000 deaths in the USA and 1,000,000 world- wide. The largest category of victims were people 65 years and older, and those with underlying health is- sues. There were no major
Bob Murrell
M3 Technologies
Photos by Bob Murrell
closings of any type, al- though some schools closed due to absenteeism. Oh, and Woodstock was held during some of the deadliest waves of the pandemic.
I know we are confront- ing a very serious virus and we must treat it as such. We also must open up the econ- omy again, for everyone’s sake. I am an optimist and believe that, with a common sense approach, we can do it safely. I also believe that we will have some good therapeutics and possibly even a shot or vaccine soon. That’s just my opinion, you’re welcome to adopt it, no charge.
Recently, Julie with Knoxville Marble Polish received a call from Monica Gawet, who is the owner of The Tennessee Marble Company. It seems the old Friendsville quarry office
had been broken into and vandalized a few months prior, and she needed the marble floors and other standing pieces of furniture restored. The office space had been ransacked and sprayed with the onsite fire extinguishers, which con- sisted of both dry powder and water types, along with no telling what else.
My first consultation with all parties involved was after they had done the initial cleanup. It was still in very bad condition and needed some intense resto- ration, but since the prop- erty was going to be rented, she wanted to keep the proj- ect as cost effective as pos- sible. So, a plan based on the “best bang for the buck” thinking, was devised. Of course, there were some caveats that could show up after the job started. These were discussed up front. Basically, if plan A didn’t work as hoped, then plan B would be engaged.
There were several types of Tennessee marble used on the floors. Each room had its own marble and in- stall design style. Various hues of pink and cedar were common throughout the fa- cility. Most were installed polished but now all had
become totally etched and dulled.
The chemistry behind the fire extinguisher chemi- cals– water, and the calcium carbonate of the marble – are somewhat interesting. These chemical cocktails were certainly no friend to the marbles in question, that much is for certain. The dry chemical fire extinguish- ers were composed of ei- ther mono or diammonium phosphate. When water from the other fire extin- guishers was sprayed onto either of these phosphates, it formed a dilute phos- phoric acid solution. It was this acid solution that was left to dry on the marble surfaces, which caused the extensive etching damage.
Another very interesting observation after the initial cleanup was that the cards from a Rolodex had been scattered everywhere prior to the fire extinguishers being sprayed. These cards acted as protection from the fire extinguisher chem- icals and thereby lessened the etching where they had lain. It turns out that these card outline imprints on the floor were indicators of just how bad the etching around them was.
So the main options were
discussed, such as hon- ing, honing and polishing, polishing only (which we knew would probably not be sufficient to remove the etching), and possibly some grinding due to picture framing concerns from ex- isting lippage. As I always prescribe, some test areas were needed to select the most effective methods.
After several tests were completed in each of the four main rooms, it was determined that the front entry room was definitely in the worst condition and also had the most lippage. They tried using diamond impregnated pads (dips) starting at 200 grit, which worked well for the back three rooms, but the front room required grinding.
Once the back three rooms were honed with 200 grit and 400 grit, they were pol- ished using Majestic 5X powder. They looked very nice, with the exception of some badly etched areas that were worked with 220 and 400 grit diamond hand pads before polishing with the 5X powder.
Keep in mind that costs were purposely meant to be minimized, as there was re- ally no reason to go all out for this project. Therefore, with the exception of the front room, use of the dips and polishing were satis- factory. The front room, however, required grinding, so M3 LT3 50 grit electro- plated lippage discs were used to flatten the floor.
Please turn to page 26
Back room where the stone floor had been severely etched. Notice different stones and pattern.
“OK, yeah, maybe it got away from me a little.”