For this project, we will stabilize the holes and crack runs. Removing the weak edges in cracks and holes and then filling them with a travertine-toned adhesive epoxy will create long-lasting repairs that are even harder than the stone itself.

We will then hone the floor down to remove the soiled surface and open the pores of the stone. The very first honing pass will reveal the true color of the floor as you can see in the picture above.  After that, we will fill the holes and stabilize and fill the cracks after this first pass. Now that the cracks and holes are stabilized and filled we have a perfectly smooth and even floor that is ready to harden. At this point, the pores of the travertine are open sufficiently to accept a stone hardener. We can gain a full Mohs scale point on travertine making it function more like marble than the soft stone that it is. This adds increased durability that is unmatched to the stone and reduces routine maintenance. The step after the floor is repaired and hardened is to hone the stone to a smooth surface that will eventually yield a deep and Brilliant reflection. The lower grit diamond discs leave a level surface but also leave tiny grooves in the stone from the large diamonds in those discs. Each higher grit level removes a little more of the ridge of the grooves smoothing them out a little more with each step. This stage is the key to the quality of the reflection. The smoother we can make the surface of the stone the higher the reflective value will be when we polish it.

The next step is to polish the stone with ever increasing grit diamond polishing pads. At this point, the grooves from the original grinding are gone but there are microscopic grooves from the honing stage. The polishing pads remove those grooves and close the pores of the stone as much as possible. The final step is to seal the stone. While it looks fantastic at this point we need to give it every bit of protection we can. We use a solvent based impregnating sealer to penetrate into the stone to help it resist oils and water. The sealer has to be a solvent because the molecules of an aqueous sealer are too large to penetrate into the stone since we have closed all but the tiniest of the pores in the marble. The sealer closes those pores down to .03 microns so that air can pass through but liquids cannot. The sealer will also prevent soil from sticking to the surface making cleaning and daily maintenance easier, save labor hours, and maintaining the Brilliant reflection indefinitely.