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MB6 Enhacer - Sealer or Not

Article Number: 756 | Rating: Unrated | Last Updated: Wed, Nov 7, 2007 at 12:00 AM

Hi - I recently installed an ABH countertop for a kitchenette in a game room. I have not yet added any sealer or enhancer to it but am interested in adding an enhancer to ease maintenance. Your site has been quite useful in helping me understand some basic issues but I am confused with your responses on the use of MB6 and sealers. Specifically in many of your message you state: 'No impregnator/sealer will ever be absorbed by black granite; therefore it won't do the first thing about doing what's designed to do, which is prevent stains' however in your descirption of MB6 you state that it is also and 'impregantor/sealer'. This is confusing to me - if I should avoid using a sealer on ABH, then by defintion should I be avoiding MB6 as an enhancer? Does it also just 'sit' on the surface as ABH is not porous enough to absord these impregnators? Is the key to this the fact that it is Ph neutral - evene hough it is not absorbed? Lastly - are there enhancers that are not also impregnator/sealers? I appreciate any insite you can provide me on these questions. Thanks, Tim

Dear Tim:

Okay, this is going to be a long one; but since it's a very good subject I will go for it and try to keep it... as short as possible. :-)

MB-6 is a color enhancer and an impregnatign sealer at the same time.

It will not get absorbed by any black "granite". (More on this later on.)

The reason why I always say not to apply an impregnator to black "granite" are actually two reasons - depending on the finish of the stone. If it is polished, no impregnator will ever go in, but an invisible film may be left sitting on the surface of the stone unnoticed, and if it just so happens to be an impregnator sensitive to acids - as many are - you're going to have all sorts of problems in the form of mysterious "ghost" stains that are tough to remove. Not to mention that if you call back the person who applied the impregnator to the wrong stone he or she won't even know what are looking at! End fo the polished black "granite".

With hone-finished black "granite", the granite is not black anymore and it will show all sorts of surface stains. Hence the maintenance nightmare. How to minimize that? Very simple: give up the gray and turn the whole thing into a totally black (though still honed) surface. How do you do that, by applying a color-enhancer. Now, how does the color-enhancer work with a stone that will not absorb it?

It will cling tenaciously to the roughness of the honed surface. (It may feel smooth to the touch, but if you look at it with a microscope a hone-finished stone surface is quite rough.)

What happens is that, if for any chance, the fabricator applied a regular impregnator to the stone, the color enhancer will not stand a chance to work.

Why?

Because even if the impregnator will not get absorbed by the stone, it will fill the roughness of the surface itself (just like a color-enhancer would) and not allow to color-enhancer to cling to it if applied afterwards. Moreover it will not prevent surface staining, which would compound the problem.

So, it is not the fact that a color enhacer is also an impregnator that matters: what matters is to make sure that no regular (not enhancing) impregnator is applied to the stone prior to the color enhancer, for the reason that I just explained.

The pH neutral thing has nothing to do with anything in this case. (Actually, it has nothing to do with anything in all cases!... But that's another story! :-))

Finally, I believe that there a couple of products that are color-enhancers and not impregnators. But even those wouldn't get absorbed by ABH.

May I ask you now to please read and e-sign our Statement of Purpose at: http://www.marblecleaning.org/purpose.htm?

Ciao and good luck,

Maurizio Bertoli

www.marblecleaning.org – The Only Consumers' Portal to the Stone Industry Establishment!