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Home >>Professional Decorating>>Decorating Museum>>Removing stains from Marble
Decorating Defects - their cause and cure
Removing Stains from Marble.
The majority of stains on marble can be removed by means of a soda or sugar-soap solution, or by the application of fine pumice flour and water. If of long duration, however, they may resist this treatment, in which case the following method may be tried:
Make up a paste from quick-lime and melted soap, and lay it evenly over the whole of the surface to be cleaned; allow it to stand for at least twentyfour hours and then wash off, using an old brush for the purpose; lime will affect the bristles, so only an old, worn-out scrubbing bush should be employed.
If there is any way of determining the nature and origin of the stains the following advice, issued some years ago in a Bulletin published by the U.S. Bureau of Standards, may prove helpful:
" Linseed-oil and lubricating-oil stains may be removed by a mixture of acetone and amyl acetate. Old oil stains, which have turned yellow, can sometimes be effectively bleached with hydrogen peroxide. Copper stains from bronze statuary on marble pedestals may be removed by a poultice made from powdered talc, ammonium chloride, and ammonia.
Fire stains, due to pine wood burning in contact with the marble, can usually be removed with a mixture of trisodium phosphate solution and chlorinated lime, by keeping a layer of saturated cotton wool over the stain for several days."
General-service stains, which are generally an accumulation of various kinds of discolorations on marble that has not been maintained in a proper state of cleanliness, can usually be removed by applying a poultice of powdered talc, reduced to a pasty consistency with the trisodium phosphate and chlorinated-lime solution."