Stun Marks

[tbloh]

Hi All! I need to bounce some ideas off of the experts. We recently installed a Calcutta Gold vanity that has some stun marks that were visible when the customer picked out the material. Our customer is making noise and we want to present them with a possible solution. I will try pencil and gray felt-tipped marker on a scrap piece of marble. I wanted to know if anyone has some other thoughts. Polishing is obviously not an option because they are at least 1/16" deep and this customer is a designer that deals in millimeters. Has anyone tried grey, gold or white marker and then covering it with Pectro to fill the pit? I'm open to testing any option on a scrap. Thanks.



Tom Bloh
Akropolis Marble and Granite

[Stone Dude]

the problem with stun marks is they wont absorb anything, you cant stain them or enhance them. most of the time they cannot be removed even with grinding. the only solution usually is to drill a little bit out and fill it, but on this particular material I doubt it would look any better than the stuns themselves.

the Calcutta and other white marbles we have been dealing with lately all have stuns in the slabs, its just something we have to put up with for now.

[Nick]

Like Cameron said, grinding/polishing them will only open up other pits in clacutta and the best thing is nothing at all in my experiance. See what a waterclear looks like, but again, you can't do anything to it that is acceptable IMO if that is the gripe. Your custy is asking you to make one of the most unforgiving natural stones perfect and your not a magician.

[scott m]

Take it out and waterjet an inset into that area......Then inset it with some black marble or something.....

I know this is a longshot, but ya never know what can work......Maybe make a permanent pedestal with a soap dish or something.......


Better yet, just make another one and forget about it.

[Joe Little]

What kills me is the calcutta we are seeing, as Cam said, they all have stun marks, but the price is still stupid high

[Stonecuttter]

Yeah, AND like Cam said,even if you grind on down, you'll likely never get under them. If you do, you're in divot country. Stuns suck. Enhance, maybe grind/polish/enhance, explain & educate, and move on.

[Dan R.]

What about a color wash and some CA?

[Nick]

Glue looks like shite on calacutta, that is why I was hesatant to mention waterclear and said it wouldn'r be acceptable anyway. I would saturate it in enrich n' seal or ager and call that the best it will get.

[Stone Dude]

cutting or drilling it out and using water clear will just make it look like a stun mark.

[Ken Lago]

Egg holder, maybe

[dustinbraudway]

You can polish a turd all day, but a the end of the day it still is a turd!












With that said, you got no hope of ever filling a white wash pit or stun mark with Pectro or staining it. If the customer picked it out with it, then where is your customer signed material waiver telling her that "yes" in todays white marbles coming from Italy most have damn stun marks in them and we don't like it either. She viewed and purchased it for god sake man!

[Camzl1]

Cameron is exactly right. Yeah we learned the hard way on a tubdeck do not ROD the stuff as it creates the STUN marks, and enrich n seal + Tiger Ager + Pectro only made it more apparent. It got worse with those enhancers on it. The stuns will not take to enhancers only the rest of the stone will though. We had to re-do the tubdeck. We knew not to rod this stuff (Whie Carerra) already but the programmer forgot to remove the rods from the program and thew operator did not catch it either. Expensive lesson to learn. I had to buy another slab.

[Clyde Kingry]

Everybody loves this stuff and we've never gotten any that didn't look like it'd been dragged down the road to my shop. Send'em to go pick their slabs and when the slabs are delivered we point this stuff out and they always say it wasn't like that when they saw it in the showroom. HONE IT!

[clhilde]

i have fixed some with a acid bar depending on how bad they are

[stone seal]

what is an acid bar.

[Camzl1]

Acid Bars are those White and black "Brick" looking bars. They are the size of Gold boulen Bars.

[clhilde]

what is an acid bar.

what eric said and use a felt wheel the acid bar melts into the stone and buff off with the same pad kinda like wet to dry but with the bar gq sells them in the back of the cat with polishing powders makes marble bling

[stone seal]

aren't those mostly wax

[Stone Dude]

are you talking about a rouge stick?

[jonnyrue]

Don't laugh, but what's a stun mark? I'm only a simple Englishman

[Stone Dude]

Don't laugh, but what's a stun mark? I'm only a simple Englishman

a stun mark is a white line that looks like a scratch but more often than not, you cannot actually feel it. what has happened is something heavy has struck, or been dragged across the surface, fracturing the minerals/crystals of the stone in a domino effect down below the surface.

often, heavy grinding will not remove or even lessen the marks. they are compacted minerals, they will not absorb so they cannot be dyed or darkened.

I'll dig up some pictures.

[Clyde Kingry]

Don't laugh, but what's a stun mark? I'm only a simple Englishman

What Cam said, but I refer to them as a bruise because most of the ones I encounter are about the shape and size of a pencil eraser.

[jonnyrue]

Don't laugh, but what's a stun mark? I'm only a simple Englishman

What Cam said, but I refer to them as a bruise because most of the ones I encounter are about the shape and size of a pencil eraser.

Thanks Clyde, I call them bruises as well. :D