Page 23 - Demo

Stone Restoration & Maintenance Corner
“This thing has totally transformed my dating life!”
Slippery rock Gazette
July 2021|23
be left holding the bag, es- pecially on a failed proj- ect. Also, evaluate whether a coating is necessary go- ing forward. I would defi- nitely recommend against it on most any polished or honed surface and even on textured surfaces, a color enhancer would normally be preferred.
As always, I recommend submitting a test area to confirm both the results and the procedure prior to starting a stone or hard sur- face restoration or mainte- nance project. Also the best way to help ensure suc- cess is by partnering with a good distributor, like BBI, that knows the business. They can help with tech- nical support, product pur- chase decisions, logistics, and other pertinent project information.
I pray you all stay safe and healthy.
Bob Murrell has worked in the natural stone industry for over 40 years and is well known for his expertise in natural stone, tile and dec- orative concrete restoration and maintenance. He helped develop some of the main products and processes which revolutionized the in- dustry, and is currently the Director of Operations for M3 Technologies.
Continued from page 22
In certain applications, it may pay to grind the coat- ing off, but normally we would want to use the least aggressive method that does the job. If it is a really hard acrylic, urethane or ep- oxy type coating, sitting on the floor with a razor blade has been required more than a few times. You will probably have to do corners and some detail with this method as well. You don’t really realize how much product there could be until you see it curl up in a pile, while using your blade. Remember to use a good razor blade holder and keep a fresh blade in as much as possible to help efficacy and efficiency.
Of course when you get the coating off of the mar- ble, it is then time to fig- ure out why it was coated and develop a plan to re- store it back to its intended
Remember to do cleanup on your equipment (like this floor squeegee) after the stripping process. Stripping clogs the channel and reduces pick-up effectiveness.
beauty. Maybe it was just normal foot traffic wear? Possibly some scratches that whomever decided that a coating would disguise? In any case, you must have the coating properly re- moved to proceed with the
restoration. Both diamonds (certainly resin type) and polishing abrasives do not perform as intended on top- ical coatings.
Regarding terrazzo and most concrete, there usu- ally aren’t any grout lines
Poultice paint stripper being applied to serpentine flagged floor (see below, left) to remove many years of ap- plied coatings. It was allowed to dwell for about 48 hours prior to removal.
Serpentine flagstone floor after restoration and color enhancement, with previous coatings removed.
or texture on the surface. So most all of the options are available for coatings removal on these surfaces, so it depends on the appli- cation and desired appear- ance. There is, however, stamped concrete that con- tains both texture and sim- ulated grout lines. Stamped concrete may be integrally colored or dyed so a coat- ing is normally applied to protect this coloring.
© MARK ANDERSON. www.andertoons.com
The moral of these stories is these coatings can be dif- ficult to remove. In some situations, removal may not be necessary as just clean- ing and adding more prod- uct may be sufficient. If the current product has in- deed failed and must be re- moved, I recommend doing multiple tests with multiple stripping chemical agents and methods (possibly with a brush) before agreeing to a price. You don’t want to