Terrazzo Pads Help Travertine Marble Show its True Colors – Michigan

In early 2015, one of our sales reps worked on a 5,000 SF travertine marble project in Michigan.

The condition of floor was really bad ”“ 30 years of wax build-up that had to be removed effectively from the soft marble flooring surface.

Travertine marble is widely used and characterized by pitted holes and troughs in its surface. Although these troughs occur naturally, they can have considerable wear and tear over time. In general, travertine can be polished to a smooth, shiny finish and is one of the most frequently used stones in modern architecture. It is commonly used for facades, wall cladding, and flooring.

In this case, the marble floor was badly neglected for three decades until STI came along with the solution!

The Cleanup Process

The client was concerned that using metal bond diamonds would open up new holes in the floor and chip the corner edges of the 60-year old marble tiles. Our rep chose the following method to preserve the floor as well as remove the wax residue effectively:

  1. Used a chemical stripper to remove wax from the floor
  2. 50-grit Terrazzos
  3. 100-grit Terrazzos
  4. 200-grit Terrazzos
  5. TPS Diamond System – pad #5
  6. TPS Diamond System – pad #6
  7. CASH pads #1 (wet)
  8. CASH pads #2 (wet)
  9. CASH pads #3 (wet)
  10. Sealed with EZ Seal
  11. Then, CASH #3 (dry) on electric burnisher

The floor was extremely soft, so throughout the process, the weights were first moved to the neutral position and then to the handle position to make a uniform cut as well as preserve the lifetime on the pads.

Thanks to our rep and STI products, they resurrected the original brilliance and color of the travertine marble that they had not seen in over 30 years! Just another example of STI ingenuity.