When you cut black granite tiles with a wet saw, the edges look grey.

How best to polish them just enough so that they look BLACK? I don't have very
many edges - only 6 linear feet of 3/8" edge to do, so buying special machines
would be a waste.

Is there a simple polish I could apply? Buffing pads maybe?

You need to wet sand with 60 grit (if it has saw marks) then 120 grit then
240 grit then 440 then 600 all the way to 1200 grit to get a decent shine.
Ordinary Carbide wet sandpaper should work on most marble and granite but on
some very hard stones like Quartz (and some granite), you need diamond grits
or it will take forever and you will wear through too much paper.

You can get these grits for a belt sander down to 220 but will need to
switch to cut sheets on an orbital sander for the finer grits. If you want
shinier than 1200 grit gets you, then use a diamond polishing paste and an
orbital buffer.

You can buy a whole set of polishing pads on eBay but still need an angle
grinder to mount them on.

If you are not too particular, a coat of varnish will put a shine on it and
enhance the color but it can chip off in time and may yellow in sunlight.

A color enhancing sealer as opposed to a transparent penetrating sealer will
also add to the shine and deepness of the black color.

Enjoy!



"Apropos" wrote in message
...
When you cut black granite tiles with a wet saw, the edges look grey.

How best to polish them just enough so that they look BLACK? I don't have
very
many edges - only 6 linear feet of 3/8" edge to do, so buying special
machines
would be a waste.

Is there a simple polish I could apply? Buffing pads maybe?

"Apropos" wrote in message
...
When you cut black granite tiles with a wet saw, the edges look grey.

How best to polish them just enough so that they look BLACK? I don't have
very
many edges - only 6 linear feet of 3/8" edge to do, so buying special
machines
would be a waste.

Is there a simple polish I could apply? Buffing pads maybe?

I once made several planters for our home, using the same
marble tiles we had in our entry. The tiles were cut on a
diamond wet saw and had the gray edges you describe. I also
have used the same marble tiles to make 4" square coasters,
with cork on the back and a 3-1/4" recess ground into the
face.

I first took out the saw marks by holding the visible edges
on my table sander, using 120 grit. This might sound a tad
coarse, but the tiles quickly wore down the sanding surface
and it worked quite well. This was also used to put just a
tiny bit of bevel on the square edges. I then switched to
400 grit black wet/dry paper that I glued to the back of a
single 12" tile and rubbed the edges until smooth under
water. When the cut edges dried out completely, I added a
gloss to them by wiping on some Deft. The resulting tile
edges looked very good, and I cannot recall anybody noticing
that I'd not gone through the entire polishing routine to
get a sheen that matched the surface.

Mark