Absolute Black Pitting

[H. Adkins]

Has anyone ever seen or have any idea what would cause these pits? This is in a million dollar new construction house that has sat for a year. Pits are so shallow you can only feel with the tip of a razor blade. We have 5 Absolute black tops in the house & this is all over 3 of them. Only the lower work tops. None on upper bar tops or pass throughs.

[Todd Luster]

Definitely weird to show up like that now?
Are they somewhere specific like near sinks?
Are you certain these werent there at original install and just masked by enhancer or something?

[H. Adkins]

The house has just sold last month & homeowners have not moved in yet.
Unfortunately the spots are all over the place. I'm guessing there are 50 - 75 of them.
I'm going to try some darkener &/or wax today. They are too shallow to hold chip kit.

[kevinp]

If they're to small to fill you might try a Sharpie. Just be careful, Sharpies are not true black. They are actually purple.

[Dave.Scott]

Akemi Darkener and their Black ink (colorant) then Super thin CA on the horizontal surfaces. Burnish with a razor blade held at 90 degrees to the surface.
I am guessing that they were there when you installed and only appeared after someone cleaned the home using some sort of multi-surface cleaner or wax.

[VThartzog]

The Akemi Akelux kit has an Acrylic Black marker that I think is perfect for this. You can buy the pen from Regent and it runs about $40-50. 065AD2030 Akemi Akelux Retouching Pen 1ml

The Fillachip might also be a good solution as well.

[Dan R.]

Fillachip.

It is odd that it is not occurring on the uppers and only on the lowers.
Perhaps all the uppers were cut from "good" slabs?
It looks like calcium spalling/flaking from the AB. In concrete, this is caused by litigens (sp). Is it possible here? The symptoms are eerily similar..

[H. Adkins]

The Akemi Akelux kit has an Acrylic Black marker that I think is perfect for this. You can buy the pen from Regent and it runs about $40-50. 065AD2030 Akemi Akelux Retouching Pen 1ml

Do you need to buy the light to cure?

I've tried Pectro, black pamir wax, chip kit & magic marker; nothing is working. I'm stopping back by this evening to try a penetrating acrylic. Wish me Luck.

[Joe Little]

I would use CA , even on the vertical ones, tape a piece of cellophane from below, fill it, smooth it out a little and tape the top. Let it dry and scrape. If its not too out of the way, run buy and fill them all, come back the next morning and scrape it off.

I'm a die-hard filachip user, but this seems excessive and filachip gets expensive with that many pits. , IMO and the vertical ones will be a pain no matter what.
I do not use the flashlight that comes with it, I have a blacklight that I used when I fished all the time , and its great to use, has suction cups to stay in place and will dry several spots at a time. They are about $ 120.00.

[ash20ash]

On small chips like this I usually use the real watery super glue. Anything in a gell form may not grab.

Black paint pens work good in place of a sharpie when your on a true black like this. Sometimes finger nail polish will do the trick as well. I keep many shades of colors in my man bag. Funny but it does work on some colors with light chiping

[luke getz]

whatever glue you use, if the glue comes out when you try to razor blade it off, refill immediately without touching the pit with anything else. I found that if the first glue comes out, it takes all the loose particles and stuff that makes it not stick with it and the second time it usually sticks as long as I dont contaminate it again

[luke getz]

sometimes I even purposely pull the glue out after it hardens to get it as clean as possible and then refill

[topshop]

I have had great luck with the acrylic UV scratch repair kits. The adhesive is thinner and seems to hold better than the super thin CA or its because of the curing sheets that make the adhesive smoother when you razor the excess off. If you have put all that waxy junk you listed on the tops to hide the spots you will have to aggressively clean the spots out with acetone before trying any CA or UV cure adhesive.

[VThartzog]

The Akemi Akelux kit has an Acrylic Black marker that I think is perfect for this. You can buy the pen from Regent and it runs about $40-50. 065AD2030 Akemi Akelux Retouching Pen 1ml

Do you need to buy the light to cure?

No the Retouching pen is merely a black acrylic Pen that needs no light. Also the Fillachip will flatten out nicely with the white sheet on top making it less likely to pull out when scraping.

[H. Adkins]

Well we ended up digging them deeper with a small diamond engraving bit and filling with chip kit. Long painful process but the homeowner is happy. Thanks for all the suggestions.