When your terrazzo floors need refinishing, don’t look to polishing compounds and powders that will fade or swirl. The proper way to refinish terrazzo floors is a process, and will leave your floors looking brand new. The three steps are roughing, grinding, and polishing.
Roughing
Roughing is the process performed by a polishing machine with multiple grits. This grinds down a thin layer (usually around 3 millimeters thick) of terrazzo, completely removing spots, stains and blemishes, as well as matching any joints and leveling the floor. Roughing is recommended when the floor is new and newly placed to match, level, and close the pores of the terrazzo to be polished and shined for the first time, as well as on old floors that have gone several years without polishing and shining, have scratches and stains, or are simply worn, in a way that makes it look old, dull and worn out. At the moment there are buffers that spray water while scraping the floor to avoid dust suspended in the air, making clouds of harmful particles.
Grinding
Grinding is the next step in the process in refinishing terrazzo. It is performed by a polisher or rotary machine that cleans and polishes the surface with diamond pads. Occasionally, at this point an oxalic acid treatment would be applied to remove dirt and light stains on the surface, removing the possibility of a slight change in appearance caused by residues of the chemicals applied during the process. The floor is then cleaned with water and dried completely to brighten it.
Polishing
The floor is now buffed with the friction of pads of extremely fine diamond resin and the application of products that offer a natural gloss finish. This is done using very smooth buffing disks with a high speed rotary machine, without use of crystallizers or pastes. Bad application or excess of product on the surface can burn, obscure and mistreat the floors, as well as increase cleaning and drying time for the of terrazzo. If you would like more information on refinishing terrazzo, contact the pros at Trend Terrazzo.
