It was one of those mornings where I didn't want to get out of bed. Now, normally this old boy is up at 5 am every day, but for some reason it was one of those mornings.

Just as I was about to go back to sleep, my cell phone rang. I ignored it and the call went to voice mail. Within seconds, I heard that awful sound that indicated I had a voice mail. I tried to close my eyes and go back to dreamland but the suspense was killing me, so I picked up the phone and dialed my voice mail.

"Mr. Stone Detective? This is Benny at XYZ Granite. I hope you remember me. I was one of your students years ago. Anyway, I have a problem with some granite. We got several scratches in this top we were fabricating and no matter how we try to polish it, we can't seem to get a good polish. I was hoping you could give me a call to help us out. This job has to go out today."

My first thought was, this guy didn't know how to face polish, but from what I remembered, he has been in business for a while and should know how to face polish by now. I managed to pull myself out of bed, get dressed and headed over to the local greasy spoon for a cup of Jo. I'll call him on the way, I told myself.

I cranked up the ole Woody, started out the driveway and dialed Benny's number. The phone rang eight times before I heard, "This is Benny."

"Hello, Benny, this is your old Master, the Stone Detective."

"Oh, man, I am so glad you called. This piece of granite is driving me crazy. Every time we attempt to polish, it just clouds up," he said in a panicked voice. He went on and on at a mile a minute telling me everything he attempted.

"Hold on there, Speedy Gonzales," I said. "Let's take this one step at a time." I asked him to give me the low-down: "What diamonds and what grit sizes are you using? What's the stone type? How long did you work the diamonds? What kind of back pad are you using? How are you polishing? What powders?"

I must have asked him a hundred different questions and was satisfied with all his answers. Now, this was beginning to puzzle me but I had a few ideas, only it would require a visit to look at the stone. I asked him where he was located and, fortunately, it was only an hour from my office. Since I had nothing else to do, I told him I would be over there in a few hours to take a look.

I arrived at Bennie's shop and was quite impressed; it was a modern style building and looked fairly new. The equipment inside was modern as well. I expected to see your typical hand tools shop, but instead saw two CNCs, a water jet, a CNC saw, state-of-the-art water recycling system, and the shop floor was so clean you could eat off it.

Benny greeted me as soon as I entered the shop. I recognized him from a few years ago when he took one of my seminars. "You've come a long way, Grasshopper, since the class," I said.

"Yeah," he said, "thanks to you."

"Well, let's take a look at your problem." We walked to the back of the shop where a large island of a Giallo-type granite was lying. There were two workers looking at the top and discussing something about polishing it.

I walked over to the top and said, "Let's take a look." In the center of the granite was a large cloudy spot. I rubbed my hand across it and it felt kind of rough. I knew immediately what the problem was.

I told Benny I would be right back and walked out to my truck to get my Granite Test Kit. I returned and placed one of the reagents on the stone and told them we would have to let it sit for a few minutes. Benny gave me a tour of the shop while we waited.

After about 20 minutes, I returned to the top and wiped the reagent off. I took a close look at the results, looked up at Benny and said, "Well, that's why you can't get a decent polish; it's resined."

I explained to him that sometimes during the resining process of certain granite, the resin doesn't cure properly and remains uncured. While they were trying to polish it, they were doing nothing more than spreading uncured resin across the surface-not good.

I told him he would need to flood the top with a solvent such as MEK several times in an attempt to remove as much resin as possible. Once that is done, he might be able to polish it.

In the future, I recommended that they test their slabs for resin with the test kit. Another problem solved. Wonder if it's too late to go back to bed?

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com

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