Medallion Cleaning, Sealing & Refinishing
Lets play a guessing game where you already know the answer. Here we go, everyone is greeted by them! Not all of them are like! Some of them are small while others are large! Did you guess it? Here is another hint, they are either fabricated templates or hand crafted! We're talking about the ubiquitous natural stone medallion, stone inlay and mosaics tile that are installed in the entrances of homes and businesses. Stone Medallions and Stone Inlays make a bold statement as family, friends and visitors.
THE HISTORY OF STONE MEDALLION & INLAY AND MOSAIC TILE
Stone Medallions and Stone Inlays were discovered in
Egyptian Antiquities. On the continent of Africa, the Egyptian's would chiseled Limestone, and Marble and precious natural stones and hand craved intricate Mosaics tile. Whether, mosaics or stone medallions and stone Inlays they all requires a level of craftsmanship to installed. Stone Medallions and stone Inlays techniques was exported to England and integrated with wood designs.
STONE MEDALLIONS, STONE INLAY & MOSAICS TILE
Today, stone medallions, stone Inlays, and mosaics tiles are either prefabricated or hand designed. If you purchased a prefabricated stone medallion, tile mosaics or stone Inlays created by hand. Both will require Stone Medallion Cleaning, Stone Medallion Sealing and Stone Medallion Refinishing.
In the image below, you will notice that the stone medallion or stone inlay has multiple types of natural stones in its design. Of all the natural stones, Granite is the hardest to restore and the easier medallions to refinish are Limestone, Marble and Travertine stones.
The good news it is more the durable medallion like Granite, flagstone, slate can withstand abrasion and chemical reactions to mopping solutions. Conversely, medallion inlays such as Limestone, Marble, Travertine, Terrazzo and Onyx will likely suffer surface abrasion quickly and etch from acid based liquids.
MEDALLION & INLAY CLEANING:
Stone Care of Arizona, the medallion and inlay cleaning expert, begins cleaning process by thoroughly inspect the stone medallion, stone inlay and stone mosaics to make sure they are 100% natural stone. The stone medallion, stone Inlay cleaning and sealing use the similar process to remove unwanted soil. Identification of Stone medallions, stone Inlays and stone mosaics is paramount to avoid creating issues when refinishing.
Stone Care of Arizona will create a stone medallion, stone Inlay, and stone mosaic cleaning, sealing and refinishing strategy. Our strategy at Stone Care of Arizona is to either preserve
the medallion or restore
the medallion. It doesn't matter the clients' preferences, the first step in the medallion floor refinishing is to thoroughly clean the medallion, why? Cleaning the medallion will help Stone Care of Arizona to get a sense of what type of medallion floor refinishing is needed.
The image below is of an example of our preserving
a medallion that is a candidate for Stone Care of Arizona's preservation cleaning and sealing process.
MEDALLION, INLAY & MOSAIC TILE CLEANING PROCESS:
Stone Care of Arizona, the medallion and inlay cleaning, sealing and floor refinishing expert uses the below steps as their baseline cleaning process.
- Stone Care of Arizona uses a specialty formulated cleaning agent that breaks down trapped soil in the small crevices of your stone medallion and stone inlay.
- Stone Care of Arizona, uses a bi-directional grout brush that assist in agitating the grouted areas. The trapped soil will become liquefied and suspended by micelles base on its polarity that creates a distinctive soil slurry.
- Stone Care of Arizona, then uses a specially designed buffer with a soft brush attached. The buffer and brush exerts downward force to evenly agitate the stone medallion or the natural stone inlay. This completes the mechanical scrubbing.
- Stone Care of Arizona, the stone medallion and inlay cleaning service allows the agitated aqueous solution to dwell on the surface to up to 5 minutes. Dwell time allows the completion of emulsification and will suspend the soil on the natural stone medallion and inlay.
- Stone Care of Arizona’s natural stone care technician will scrub the area again to assist in breaking away any latent residual soil.
- Stone Care of Arizona will thoroughly rinse the natural stone medallion and inlay. The high flow extraction flushes out the channels and micro-crevices that leaves the surface soil free.
- Stone Care of Arizona’s natural stone care technician places an airmover on the floor to speed of the evaporation process.
MEDALLION, INLAY AND MOSAICS FLOOR REFINISHING:
When a clients needs their medallion, inlay and or mosaics natural stone refinished it often is connected to scratches, etching and damage with an improper mopping solution. Cleaning the stone medallion or natural stone Inlay beforehand will ensure that unwanted substances are removed. This helps Stone Care of Arizona to differentiate if what appears as etching is in fact soil. Once we have confirmed that there is indeed surface scratches, etching and surface damage floor refinishing is necessary.
Please review the images below. Here is some background: The stone medallion and natural stone inlay consists of
Emperador marble and Crema Marfil limestone (Spain & Turkey). The stone medallion and natural stone inlay was integrated into a customized stone for a home in
Mummy Mountain. The 500 pound door was scrapping the surface every time it was open or closed. (See the surface variance where the finger is pointing. The repeated chaffing on the medallion surface damaged the Bielby layer. Last point, the homeowner did not want a high shine. The abrasion or surface damage required sublevel honing and subsequent mechanical polishing to match the existing shine,
STONE MEDALLION & INLAY FLOOR REFINISHING:
Stone Care of Arizona, the medallion and inlay floor refinishing expert hopes you have learned something thus far. The above natural stone medallion and stone inlay require surface honing to remove the damage:
Stone Care of Arizona, the natural stone medallion refinishing expert, will do the following:
- We masked off the area to protect walls and wood floor. (See the above image w/red tape. We mask all areas to protect all secondary areas.
- The water containment protective barrier helps to keep the water within.
- Since the abrasion was a sublevel surface damage. We begin are baseline grit level at a lower grit.
- Removing the surface damage will require using resin diamond disks that would allow the surface damage to be removed.
- The diamond resin disk may involve using 120, 220, 400, 800 hone the medallion.
- Polishing step involves using a polishing abrasive that assist in creating a shine.
Stone Care of Arizona, the medallion and inlay cleaning, sealing and floor refinishing expert can help. If you desire medallion and inlay cleaning, sealing and floor refinishing, give us a call
480-625-0557.