Polishing marble is necessary when a polish finish stone becomes scratched or etched to the point it becomes dull. The other reason marble requires polishing is if the customer has a stone that comes to him with a hone finish and he desires it to be polished. These are the only two reasons I can think of a stone should be polished. Refinishing to eliminate wear or changing the tiles from a hone to a polish.

Stone is available in two finishes: hone or polish. Polish is easy for most people to visualize - it is a shiny, glossy finish, and when viewed across a light source there will be a reflection. This is my definition of polish, I am sure there are others.

Hone finish is a bit harder for a customer to visualize. Honing is accomplished in two ways: with diamond or powder abrasives (there is another way, but lets just stick with the abrasives) These abrasives are available in different grits - from 30 to 3000. The hone finish will depend on the grit level of the process ends with. You cannot go to too high a grit level (usually over 220) or the stone will take on a polish look.

Which gets us back to the subject of polishing marble. Honing is a story for another day.

After the stone is taken through a grit progression (lets say 120,200,400,800) the stone will develop two things the stone expert looks for: clarity and depth of color. In the lower honing grits, the stone appears faded and white, with very little color. As the grit progression to the higher grits, detail in the stone (clarity) and color (depth of color) begins to return. As we approach the honing stage where the stone becomes recognizable again (all stone is different so this happens at different grits) we are getting ready to complete the final polish process.

There are several different final polishing methods available for marble. We sell one in our online store that is suitable for do it yourslefers. There are some applied dry and some applied wet. If the stone professional is experienced, they should be able to achieve a high gloss finish. The polish finish is accomplished through the use of heat and friction. One word of caution is not to allow a product called a crystalizer to be applied with a steel wool pad. This process will make it impossible to refinish in the future, unless more crystalizer is applied.