Tony McC wrote:How would you advocate stripping the sealant, Roger? Scrubbing with xylene?
And you mention re-honing. Wouldn't this remove any sealant as part of the process?
I've not seen re-honing in-situ, so it intrigues me. I did oversee a sand/grit blast clean-up and the guy in charge was adamant that the sealant had to be removed first before blasting could take place, but couldn't explain why other than the usual "coz that's how we do it" reasoning.
You need to use a sealing & coatings remover for this, so something like Mira Strip (have given details on another thread for someone) you can scrub it but I use a floor buffing machine on Limestone (and other natural stone when needed) medium to soft brush attached so I have the scrubbing agitation working for me, yes honing powder might take off the surface of the sealer, but you still might have residues of the previous sealer in the stone, hence the sealing & coatings remover.
I use the Mira strip and honing powder together and start with 220 grit then 400 grit.
You really want all the crap sealer removed so a decent impregnating sealer doesn't hit any residues of the (usually acrylic ) old sealer when re-sealing, as you can again have another headache.
London Stone Paving wrote:Ouch, Dolomitic limestone from India is the most susceptible of all to any kind of chemical damage.
The only drawback of re-honing is that you would possibly remove the natural texture of the stone (In this case, maybe not a bad idea though )
Steve
Steve
Re the re-honing, quite fine grit 400 at the worst 220 to help with the crap sealer removal, so doesn't really change the surface texture, if anything helps open up the paving to accept a decent impregnating sealer after the smart seal rubbish that was used
)