Sealing Marble Plaque - After Rub 'N Buff?

[Josh Heuerman]

I have searched the forums but was unable to find an answer to this specific question. I am planning on engraving some black marble plaques and using white Rub 'N Buff to highlight the engraving. I would like to seal the plaque to prevent damage from fingerprints, household cleaners, etc. I purchased some "Sealer's Choice Gold" that was recommended in a previous post, but am not sure how it will react with the Rub 'N Buff. Does anyone have experience with this combination?

[Frank Corker]

Josh I have heard of people putting Armourall on it which seemed to do the trick. I haven't tried it and I have not even heard of sealers choice for that matter. On a lot of my stuff I use 'MER' which is of course is the polymer car wax stuff, keeps most stuff clean and grease free.

Your best bet is going to be to experiment with a bit of wastage, make it go through all the trials that you can throw at it, if sealers choice doesn't work try the others.

[Darren Null]

I've never seen it mentioned on SMC, so it may be too obvious to talk about, but cleaning out the lasered bit on your marble is quite important. I just throw it in the shower and use a toothbrush; then wait for it to dry before applying paint.

When you laser marble, there's dust at the bottom, that paint etc doesn't stick to very well. I use car paint to colour fill, but it needs a good solid surface to stick to.

Temperature-wise, I'm in a kind environment here and the only real killer is UV, but I don't bother sealing marble.

[Bill Cunningham]

Any marble I have done ends up being a nice white on its own! The laser seems to bleach the marble, no matter what the colour, to a nice bright white. Then, I just seal it with a polymer stone sealer.. Black granite on the other hand should be oil colour filled and sealed to make it white..

[Josh Heuerman]

Thanks for the info. I didn't end up using the Rub 'N Buff. The lasering was brighter than some of the "laser-grade" marble that I had worked with before, but the marble plaques came with several small "chips" in the surface that give the plaques a dirty appearance. I had not run into this problem with the marble that I had worked with previously, but it was from a different supplier. Is this normal?