A polished stone floor in a D.C. office building
Concrete is a strong, durable and highly versatile building material that can last for decades if properly used. But concrete can be somewhat underwhelming in looks, often curing into a dull grey slab of stone. One way to improve on the look of poured concrete is to polish the surface. Polishing is a process that can be completed by any dedicated do-it-yourself enthusiast and can add beauty to an otherwise drab surface while cutting down on the maintenance required to keep the surface undamaged over time.
Polishing Basics
The technique for polishing a concrete surface is a fairly simple one, very much like that used for sanding wood. You use a polishing machine equipped with diamond-impregnated disks, rentable at a home improvement store or equipment rental shop, to grind down the surface of the stone in a process known as lapping. The machine used to polish your concrete surface is an upright tool with metal pads attached at the bottom embedded with shattered diamond pieces. By pushing the moving abrasive pads over the surface you'll smooth away the imperfections in the stone, leveling out rough or uneven areas.
Polishing the concrete will have to be done in several passes. You want to use a finer grit diamond pad with each successive pass over the surface, doubling the grit size as you change pads. Start with a coarse 32-grit diamond pad, then move to a 60-grit pad, and finally a 120-grit pad. At this point the surface should be fairly level, but the shine may still be somewhat weak. To polish the surface even further you should change over to diamond resin pads, starting with a 50-grit pad and moving upwards to a 3000-grit pad to get a finely polished surface. When moving the pad over the concrete, work in small circles.
Technique
After the first pass with the polishing pad, your concrete surface will be filled with small air holes left over from the slab pouring process. These holes can be filled in by spraying on a slight layer of acrylic tile adhesive before the second pass of the grinder. The second pass will grind a layer of concrete dust into the holes along with the adhesive, sealing them and creating a smoother surface. After this pass you can apply a reactive concrete hardener, found most places that supply concrete, to the surface, which makes the surface harder and better able to take a polish.
Before the final grinding is done you may want to spread a polishing compound over the surface. The compound not only gives an extra shine to the concrete, it also helps to clean the surface and provides a dirt-resistant layer as a finish.
During the polishing process you can add dyes to the surface of the concrete in order to enhance the concrete's color.
Finishing
Once you've achieved a finish that you're satisfied with, you'll need to apply a sealant to protect the polished surface from wear and tear. An epoxy coating is durable and long lasting, and when applied to your polished surface should provide years of protection as well as intensifying the shine you've managed to achieve from the polishing process.
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