We have a travertine shower. The Installers used pencil as placement marks for angles and niches for shampoos etc. It has been sealed. What would be the best method to remove pencil marks that have been sealed over?

 

Dear Ken:

Nothing gets ever sealed over when it comes to stone. A sealer for stone is never topical, but it's rather a below-the-surface (of the stone) impregnating kind of sealer.

Second, it's never a good idea to seal stone in a wet environment.

Third, pencil-marks may be very difficult to remove.

That said, if the travertine is hone-finished you can use a product available at any supermarket made by “Mr. Clean™”, called “magic eraser” or something like that. There's no guarantee, but there are very good chances that it will work. If it's polished instead, try with a regular pencil eraser. It will seldom work, but it might. If it won't, your only option is to hire a stone restoration professional that will have to slightly grind (hone) the surface of your stone where the pencil marks are and then re-polish it to blend-in with the factory finish.

Now remember, it's never too early to think about the proper maintenance of your stone. The issue of what you'll be doing day in and day out to your stone is – as it should be intuitive – vastly more important than its sealing (if and when possible and/or advisable) and it's all too often neglected. As you can tell by reading many of this site's postings, you're not likely to get good information about routine care from your dealer or installer. Don't become another statistic! 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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