Is there an entomologist in the house?

[pastrygirl]

I have a slab of stone, I think it’s quartz, that I stored in my garage over the summer. The garage is kind of gross and buggy, there used to be a ton of old books in there so there were silverfish and the spiders who eat them. I don’t store paper goods out there but I figured stone would be safe. Yesterday I dusted off the bug poo and dragged the stone into the kitchen. Now I’m noticing tiny little perfections all over it, little spots where the stone has been etched into and catch when I run a fingernail across. I’m pretty sure they weren’t there in May. Is bug poo caustic enough to cause this? Or am I imagining things?

[gfweb]

Marble will easily etch .  IIRC quartz is pretty inert

[pastrygirl]

It might be marble, I don’t remember. White with grey veining. The little spots are only a few mm, and won’t affect much, just odd.  

[HungryChris]

Marble and limestone are slowly eaten away by acid rain, so too, I bet, with acid bug poop. They can both be sanded smooth again. When I worked in construction, I used to collect the scraps of marble left over from marble door thresholds to make little chess pieces, so I know that it can be easily sanded smooth.

HC

 

Edited October 7, 2018 by HungryChris (log)

[pastrygirl]

27 minutes ago, HungryChris said:

Marble and limestone are slowly eaten away by acid rain, so too, I bet, with acid bug poop. They can both be sanded smooth again. When I worked in construction, I used to collect the scraps of marble left over from marble door thresholds to make little chess pieces, so I know that it can be easily sanded smooth.

HC

 

 

 

Great, I might have to try sanding it smooth again for the sake of sanitation - to eliminate nooks for crud to lodge in. 

[pastrygirl]

@HungryChris what sort of sander do you recommend?  The stone is about 30” x 60” if size makes a difference. 

 

Thanks!

[HungryChris]

4 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

@HungryChris what sort of sander do you recommend?  The stone is about 30” x 60” if size makes a difference. 

 

Thanks!

I would just use a hand sanding block with 100 grit sand paper. It should go pretty quickly.

HC

[AlaMoi]

the marble is already polished - 100 grit will be too coarse. 

I recommend you research polishing marble and how to remove etching from marble.

there are a number of alternatives.

[haresfur]

5 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

It might be marble, I don’t remember. White with grey veining. The little spots are only a few mm, and won’t affect much, just odd.  

 

That's marble

[gfweb]

5 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

It might be marble, I don’t remember. White with grey veining. The little spots are only a few mm, and won’t affect much, just odd.  

 

Looks marble-y

[MSRadell]

I would definitely start with a finer grit sandpaper than 100, I probably start was nothing coarser than 400.  You can always go to something coarser if needed but if you start with something course and get deep scratches it's going to be hard to get them out.  As mentioned by a PP, look online for instructions for repairing marble surfaces.

[gfweb]

If they catch your fingernail they are not tiny. I'm not sure hand sanding will be a practical way to smooth it out. Might be cheaper to go to a countertop place and buy a remnant 

[dcarch]

Regular sandpaper will not work very well.

 

Use silicone carbide paper, or lapidary  silicone  grits, or diamond grinding plate.

Polishing stone requires a lot of material and work.

Send it to a stone shop  instead.

 

dcarch

 

 

[pastrygirl]

It was a remnant, meant to be utilitarian and already has a few nicks on the edges so it doesn't have to be a showpiece as long as flaws don't harbor bacteria.  I guess it's otherwise non-porous and easily clean-able.  I got tired of the warped prep tables at my last kitchen and wanted something perfectly flat and level for truffle-making,  now in my new kitchen it's covering most of that weird not-really-stainless table that turns everything grey, so still an improvement.  I don't want to spend more money on it at the moment, maybe I'll see what the bottom, non-polished side looks like. Or probably just live with it

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Consider chocolate covered crickets.

 

[gfweb]

So I just started getting ads for granite on my facebook page. Right after this conversation. Now Google trolls eGullet?

[liuzhou]

18 minutes ago, gfweb said:

So I just started getting ads for granite on my facebook page. Right after this conversation. Now Google trolls eGullet?

 

No. Facebook and Google troll your computer.

Edited October 8, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[chromedome]

10 hours ago, gfweb said:

So I just started getting ads for granite on my facebook page. Right after this conversation. Now Google trolls eGullet?

Facebook follows you everywhere on the web, unless you use something like this Firefox extension.