removing water stains on marble tile shower seat

I've read that a mixture of caustic soda and water over 60 minutes will remove the stains. Is there a process you would suggest? The tile is black marble and has white cloudy spots where the water sits while drying.

Dear Mark:

 

“ I've read that a mixture of caustic soda and water over 60 minutes will remove the stains. ”

 

You read so many things (especially on the internet), don't you?... J

Did you also ever read this?

 

“ A stain – a real stain – is always darker than the stained material. If it is lighter, it's either a mark of corrosion created by an acid (etching), or a caustic mark created by a base (bleaching). There are no known exceptions to this rule. In the case of natural stone, bleaching can't occur, and therefore they are etch-marks all the time: plain and simple surface damages, like shallow chemical scratches. ”

 

Well, if you didn't before, now you did. And now you know that what you have are not stains at all – no matter what they look like.

The caustic soda and water thing is a poultice (and in the case of marble a very wrong one!) designed to pull true stains out from stone. Example: imbedded coffee or cooking oil, and other stuff like that.

Most likely, if the etching is not too severe, you may be able to remove your “stains” with a consumer-grade marble polishing powder like MB-11 (assuming that your marble is polished). If it hone-finished instead a few different grits od good ol' metal grade sandpaper will do the job for you. (Start with 120 and finish at either 240 or 400 grit.)

After that, I believe that's time for you to get some real (specific) intelligence on how to properly care for your stone. By logging into the Helpful Hints section of our website at: http://www.marblecleaning.org/helpful-hints.htm, you will be able to get the short version of our maintenance guidelines at no charge. The full version of it – a 7-page document considered by many as an industry benchmark – is available in pay-per-download format in our Educational Literature section at: http://www.marblecleaning.org/literature.htm.  

And remember, every single penny of the cost of the literature will be used to support this site and its cause: your cause.

While you are in the “Helpful Hints” section, do spend some time reading all of the interesting FREE articles you'll find in there!

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Thank you  

Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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