Case work

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 It's not like I wasn't warned.

Those spots on the top of the Japy case were identified as "blemishes" by the seller but he did make clear that there were a lot of them. That's his photo above.

Close inspection and extensive reading reveals that the white marks are what are called "etches" in the stone. They come from exposure to an acid (often in poor choice of cleaning solutions) that will eat away at marble. Here's a couple closer views.




As you can see the etching is all over the horizontal surfaces. 

I came to understand that the only way to fully remove etches is to sand the stone down to an unblemished layer. 

Well that seems like overkill and I'm not that obsessed with how this looks. 

What also came through on several posts is that with the right materials you can get those etches to absorb dye and wax and thus reduce their visibility dramatically.

That sounds like my kind of approach.

I won't bore you (I haven't already right?) with the details of what I researched but in the service of simplicity here's what seemed like the right way to go.

Removing any residual layers of wax and such on the case with fine steel wool and then using ordinary black shoe polish which both applies a dye and a wax.

It took me about 2 hours to get the old layers of goodge off the case with the steel wool.

Then two coats of shoe polish with an application of heat from a hair dryer.

Voila!



I did also summarize this in that NAWCC post on the stone case.


Comments

  1. SaknussemOctober 1, 2020 at 2:03 PM

    I am not usually in favor of makeup, but in this case, she does look much better.

    ReplyDelete

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