How to Restore Your Granite Countertops Using Diamond Polishing Pads

Every homeowner wants their kitchen to look stunning with a shiny countertop, along with other kitchen elements. If you have a granite countertop, it can look beautiful for years with a flawless shine, polished and perfectly cut edges and invisible joints.

While choosing the best countertop, it’s also important to choose the right Diamond Polishing Pads to get the best finish for your granite countertop and the desired value for money.

Wet or Dry Polishing?

Typically wet polishing is preferred to dry polishing because it offers better finish at lower cost. However sometimes dry polishing is more suitable than wet polishing because wet polishing forms water-based slurry which can squirt during polishing. However, for a kitchen countertop, often wet polishing is preferable.

Diamond Polishing Pads contain diamonds inserted in the resin. Running them over your granite countertop will file down the resin and uncover diamonds and thus the pads will become self-sharpening unless they are used on glass.

The pads have a Velcro holder, mostly having 5/8-11 thread. This fits any standard polishers unless they are from a very old brand or any foreign brand. It also fits on high-speed grinders. But using it with high-speed grinders isn’t recommended unless it’s a variable speed that you can run less than 5,000 RPM.

Dry pads, due to their higher concentration of diamond powder, can cut granite very aggressively. But slower speeds should be used for a longer life or little to no pressure should be applied to the polisher when using lower grits. Dry polishing creates more heat and friction and thus runs too fast or presses too hard on the polisher thus sheering off several diamonds before being entirely used up.

Diamond Polishing Pads for Polishing Granite

There are Diamond Polishing Pads that are versatile and can be used on all types of stone and there are specific polishing pads specially meant for granite. You can choose any of these. But choosing versatile pads like the ones by ibouteek is more useful because then you can use them for polishing various types of stone surfaces in your house, like floors and bathroom countertops, regardless of whether they are made of marble, granite or concrete.

Diamond Quality

Polishing pads come with either higher diamond concentration of higher-quality just like the Diamond Polishing Pads by ibouteek or lower-quality diamonds in lower concentration. Although the polishing pads with higher-quality diamonds in higher concentration are more expensive, they also give the best results.

Patterns Required

You will notice that some patterns are suitable to cutting while others are suitable to polishing the surfaces. If patterns are with coarse gullies on the surfaces, you should understand that it’s used to remove the deep layers. These are quite aggressive in nature. But if the pattern has narrow channels on it, you should understand that it’s for polishing. Typically granite polishing kit is available with a pad with narrow channels on it.

Once you choose the right polishing pads, find out whether the area of polish is wide and open or hard to access by tools, and whether you will be polishing a flat surface or edges, and then use the information for getting the best results.

How to Do Granite Polishing with Diamond Polishing Pads?

First the Velcro holder should be mounted to the polisher and a pad should be mounted on it. Shake the pad in two different directions to make sure it will hold.

Grits 50 and 100 are meant for rough cut e.g. removing the top cream layer or filing down rough surfaces. Move the polisher constantly around the granite surface preferably in circular motion like waxing a car. This is useful to dissipate heat. It will also prevent notching a circular pattern on the surface.

If the surface of your granite countertop is already smooth, begin with grit 200 or higher. This grit removes all big scratches, whereas grit 400 removes all small scratches. Don’t forget to remove the dust created from polishing because it may contain bigger diamond pieces and they will scratch the surface when you move to higher grits.

Once your polishing with grit 800 is over, the surface should shine. However, it’s recommended to treat it with densifier because it will fill in all the pores and stiffen the top layer. Without the treatment with densifier, further polishing may not bring much difference. The densifier will fill bigger pores and strengthen, densify and seal the top surface thus making the granite ready to be polished to achieve a mirror finish. The densifier treatment makes sure that the pores are filled in and won’t melt like epoxy or wax.

So, are you all set to polish your granite top with the Diamond Polishing Pads?