Teresa González Díez - teresa.litosweb@gmail.com
There are marbles of all the colours, but perhaps currently the most used and in various applications are in the white colour. Blanco Macael, the whites from Carrara, Thassos, Volakas, from Vietnam… We find them in floorings, staircases, walls, counterops, bathrooms, restaurants, furniture, chimneys, or in the funerary monuments. It is, without any doubt, a beautiful material and has a long life. And the classical Greeks and Romans used them widely to give beauty to their great architecture works and their sculptures. A large part of the faces of the ancient Romans have reached our times thanks to busts sculpted in white marble.
But there is always a ‘But'. Marble, whatever be the colour always needs some maintenance. The white colour, not only has to be cleaned and maintained, but there is an additional factor, if it goes bad, it becomes yellowish. For the marble to be protected, after its installation, it is important that it be sealed with a good sealant that does not become yellowish with the passage of time. This way it will remain protected from the friction of our steps, the products that are thrown over it, or the changes of temperatura, above all when they are installed in the exterior.
One should also take care with adhesive materials that are used for the joints because they con complicate these types of problems, be the resins of epoxy and polyster can become yellowish after exposed to open air. The humidity or changes in temperatura (freezing/melting) are the reasons.
Sometimes it is the breakage due to unfortunate blows or other motives that leads to a situation needing restoration of the natural stone to the most optimum extent possible, without having to replace the whole stone piece. That is why it is important to choose well the different products and elect those that provide more guarantees of avoiding aesthetic problems.
In the restoration of some monuments done by the company LASA, the product Everclear 510 Transparent, made by the German company AKEMI, was used.
Everclear 510 - Transparente is the adhesive for interiors and exteriores that do not become yellowish and have good resistance to the ice/melt cycles. It has a caridad system 2-C-PUR or a combinación of time and tubos with relation to the mixture of 1:1. One can give colour with AKEMI polyster colouring concentrate. This does not need dissolvents nor any dangerous products.
Flaking, chipping and imperfections have a solution with products that, well applied, do the restoration without giving the look that it has been repaired. For this type of problems it is important to deal with a professional, a stonemason who, undoubtedly, will return our marbles to their previous splendour.
NOTE: information provided by Xabi Aldanondo.
