DIY Delipping,Grinding,Flattening and Honing Travertine Tile Lippage 

So happy to see that I can find a video that’s over a decade old and it answers my tile issue. Thank you. In my case I laid down a couple thousand feet of quarry tile and the lippage is massively annoying. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. Everybody told me I was crazy when I said that I wanted to grind my brand new tile floor but apparently I’m not the only one.

This is the greatest purpose RU-vid can be used for. Hard working individuals sharing their success for those willing. Thank you Dave, this is awesome. I have probably around 1500 sq ft of 20-24" travertine and am very anxious to get it redone. You have been of incredible help, I think I've watched the video for the 10th time and now have my grinding cups, reading to get the rest of the equipment and get started. Thank you again so much for all the helpful commentary you've given. It's a good gauge to measure how successful you are by how much opposition you get from "professionals". So, I consider it all a compliment to your thoughtful application and hard work!

Dave, thanks for posing this. I installed my floor about 10 years ago- about 1500 sq feet- to date no cracked tiles. They have held up great. Same color and size as yours. The lippage is minor but it has ALWAYS bugged me and now, the grout is just really dirty in spots- even after cleaning. I have some time off in a few weeks and the family is out of town- so I will do it. And your post is awesome- EXACTLY what i needed. So, thanks again for taking the time.

Dave, tremendous job on this video. I'm copying what you've done on the Marble floors I laid 22 years ago. I bought all of my pads from Tina Cai and she was great to work with. Thank you so much for posting this. It's so nice to have an intelligent person putting this together. Organized perfectly and executed perfectly!

Dave, Huge thank you for taking the time to answer so many questions from all the DIYers that have asked. You are fearless and smart! I am going to do this also, but I am looking at purchasing a floor machine, as I discovered your video when researching how to prep concrete for acid staining. I would now like to polish and acid stain some bedroom floors and delip/polish the travertine I had installed in my homes wet areas (about 700sf kitchen, two baths and hall). Thanks! I am also in ATX.

Dave, I had a very good medium shine on 800 on the white marble tiles (1'x1') that our local Home Depot store stocks. The floor got real smooth after 800 and I could not see any scratches whatsoever. With 1500, I did try more water as well as made sure that pads were firmly in place. Did not help :) I have to redo trim work because of the water damage it took but a different topic altogether. I have sealed the floor and loving the shiny smooth floor absolutely. Can't thank you enough!

Dear RU-vidrs, I wanted to give you a quick update, 12 years on. In May of 2022 I sold the house seen in the video at the very top of its Zillow Zestimate price range. These floors were a major factor in achieving the high sale price. The buyer completely understood the value proposition of having seamless stone floors, especially when it comes to pets and children, because there is no grout line to get dirty and they stand up to wear very well. And then if they need a bit of touch up it is cheap and easy if you have access to a floor buffer. I only wish my new home in the Bahamas had these monolithic floors instead of traditional ceramic tiles with grout lines. With the benefit of hindsight I can easily and honestly say that if you like this kind of floor AND have the energy and patience to DIY, they are worth the effort. I estimate that these floors added at least $25-$30k to my sales price while costing me a small fraction of that to do it myself. GL2A.

Many thanks for quick reply. It is the whole bathroom floor - apprx. 110 Sq. Feet. The process you showed in the video should apply to Marble as well, although I might run through the pads faster :) I will do one iteration with a pad higher than 3000 as you suggested for a very fine finish. I have not started the project yet as it might require 3 - 4 days of continuous involvement. Once again, thank you so much for posting the video with so clear instructions / steps.

Great stuff. I have actually purchased a hawk dual speed machine wit a water used for $350, I'm going to do my whole house in exposed aggregate concrete. One thing That will help the grinding process is more weight on the top of the motor, This will increase the surface friction, and stabilize the grinding wheel. Thanks again for giving us all the know how.

Hey Dave. I watched this about four months ago. I have since purchased all the Chinese pads as well as a marble restoration floor machine I found on Craigs list. I machine has weights as well as a water tank. The weights are really useful for stabilizing the Machine. It allows the Floor machine to glide much better. Although I have also found that the pads really grab any previous slurry residue. Thanks again for the inspiration

Thanks David. It's on my todo list for 2013 to remaster part 1 that only got me to 800 grit and then show the final product where I took the whole house to 3000 grit. It came out very nice and I'm impressed with the durability of the finish. But what a ton of work it was. Now, if all this had been done on the bare slab before walls went up then I bet I could knock out the whole job - tile, grout grind, fill and polish of the whole 2600 sq ft in less than a month by myself.

I did this on my entire first floor, about 1200 square feet, in the end it looked absolutely gorgeous, like a 5 star hotel lobby! BE WARNED though, it is VERY LABOR INTENSIVE! After the grinding I went from 50 up to 1600 then medium, fine, and then very fine diamond polishing pads (I bought a floor machine because renting would cost more). Worst parts for me, the absolute mind-numbing time behind the floor machine being patient and not rushing, and with so many passes. Next would be the filling of all of the holes with the travertine filler (just cream colored bondo actually) very time consuming and buy a respirator because the chemical reaction is so strong, also you can only work small sections due to work period of the filler. You could never pay me enough to do this job but it was fantastic when I was done!

Thanks Dave for posting the video with step by step instructions. The lippage had bothered me since install and flooring contractors would tell me to rip it out and reinstall new. I got the haze cleaned off last night and couldn't be more pleased. The floor actually looks better then when it was installed. I'm glad I saved the pads - there are some scratches left from grinding that I can remove with an orbital sander. BTW, Tina was great to work with - very quick shipping to CA.

Hey Rob, I'm very glad that you got the haze taken care of. Once you have the floors perfectly clean and dry, don't forget to seal them with "511". It's the ONLY thing I will ever use again. Everything else let me down. I'm glad Tina is still available to buy stuff from. I went to Harbor Freight in Austin the other day and they sell grinding cups for $30 each! I don't know what you paid but that is 5x what Tina sold them to me when I made the videos. Now enjoy your monolithic stone floor!

Thank you so much for this!!! This is exactly the information I need to finish my travertine installation in my house.

Thanks Dave, YES I was afraid I had the wrong grinding cups and those deep scratches would not eventually come out. I really appreciate the reassurance. Time to get back at it! Oh yeah, wow, can't believe how much it costs to rent the backing plate, it's almost twice as much as the machine!!!!!!!!

Dave, I finally got around to finishing my marble bathroom floor using the process you showed. The floor looks/feels AMAZINGLY beautiful. Absolutely no lippage. I started out with diamond cups and then used 50, 100, 200, 400 and 800 grit pads. By 200, all the scratches left by cups were gone. I could not even use 1500 and 3000 as the Clarke machine started jumping crazily like mechanical bull on 1500 :) Will post pictures soon. Again, Thank you so much. [Very big ouch for rental expenses]

At the same time, don't change grits too early or you will have visible scratches in the final product. Take your time. Check your work often by vacuuming up the water (it gets muddy from all the grinding dust). Keep in mind, you are grinding stone. Don't rush it and it will come out fine. It is not as fragile as you think. When you finally run the 3000 grit over it the shine will pop and you will understand everything.

Love this guy. Best Big brother I never had

Finally, many congrats to you for taking this on. This is not easy work. It's long, backbreaking labor. And there is a learning curve. And it's not cheap to rent the equip. But when you are done your floors will gleam. Hint (big ass hint): when done with wet hone #1500, do 3000 DRY. I mean bone dry. The shine will freaking pop on you. Then use the Miracle Sealer 511 to seal. Buff it out by putting a clean dry towel under the 3000 grit and then it will really shine w/nice reflection.

Hi Indus. I did try a test patch by hand on a marble inlay piece that was scratched. I was able to remove the scratch and get it back to about 95% of the shine of the normal marble. If it were a whole floor you would not be able to tell the difference. I could probably do better by using finer than #3000 pad but that's the finest I had and it was "good enough" because it was a small patch out of the normal view. Marble will be more difficult because of hardness. Travertine is soft. GL!

Hey Rob, Congrats on your accomplishment. Yes, it is a pain in the butt. It is also very messy and very dusty work. I used 50 on some of my floor after the metal diamonds and 30 on other portions as the first step. It's better to take smaller steps of course and there are no shortcuts. As for the haze, I used lots of water with a shop vac. I literally brought a hose into the house and with a spray nozzle to control not wetting the walls, I sprayed the floor and then vacuumed up quickly.

Outstanding! Thanks for sharing.

Couple things here. This is my channel and I will not allow any more troll postings. Period. Most people who have commented are interested in potentially doing something real, achieving new things for themselves, not just talking down others who do achieve things. I would rather focus on using my limited time for Youtubing on helping and encouraging those kind of people and troll monitoring/troll stomping detracts from that time. Thus, no more troll posts will be allowed. For everyone else, here is my new vid of the finished product. The floors have been finished for a long time but I just recently realized that I had not posted any pix of the finished product so here you go: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SOnuu8Dxl74.html

Interesting process. As can be expected the skill set of a person may prohibit this. Some people are unable to admit their limitations. Great results in the end.

As I said in the video, right up against them. Depends if you use the outer holes or more inward holes on the backing plate. GL with your project.

Great video... I feel confident that I can do the same on a floor with to much lip-page .

One more update - I wanted more of a shine than the honed finish i got from this process. I bought a polisher from Harbor Freight and some dia-glo marble polishing powder (both for $70). I polished 500 sq feet in about 6 hours. The shine is amazing, I can see my face :) The floor now looks absolutely amazing. It looks like one large slab of Travertine in spots. People come over and are amazed at the floor. Not bad for a complete do it yourself project from install to completion.

Yes it does help to weight down the machine a bit. I took an empty bucket of mastic (I think it was 3.5 gallons), filled it half way with water, put the lid on it and set it on the top. Don't go crazy with the weight because it can overload the floor machine and it can also dig in hard to the work and break free from your hands. Good luck.

I tried several products. The only one worth my time was Miracle Sealants 511 impregnator/sealer. It does not change the color or the gloss or the contrast of the tile. It leaves the tile looking the same as when you started but well protected. It's good stuff. All of the products that claim to be enhancers for color or gloss fell short of my expectations. I consider them to be a waste of money. But MS511 is well worth the cash and I consider it a must for porous travertine.

Hi dorin. I'm sorry to say that you should have figured out 1 the 80 or 120 grit level that the scratches from the metal diamonds were still there. You absolutely must go back to a rougher grit to take them out. Stay at 200 and it will take you a year of sundays to do it. leave it as is and keep polishing and the scratches will look really really bad at the end of the job and you will wish you never took that short cut. It's critical to not change grits too quickly!!!! Good luck.

Indus, glad that you "went for it" and had good results. Did you get a good level of shine by stopping at 800??? Hard to believe. I ended up going to 3000 on my travertine in order to get the medium shine that I wanted. Machine jumping around could have been several including pad holders coming partially unscrewed from the bolts. I would suggest teflon tape to make threads tigher in that case. You could also use more water for lube. But seems like you are happy as is. Fantastic!

Travertine varies in thickness so you have to build it up from the bottom so that you can make the top surface flat and also need to use a long straight edge That way you can eliminate lippage. Its more than just slapping thinset down like most people do when setting tile.

Hi Kathy. I assume your cups are connected to the aluminum back plate like I showed in the video. In this case, they will sit flat to the floor. I always tightened everything up snug - 50 ft-lbs on the metal diamonds. They never came loose and I would not advise running the machine if they are loose. If they fall off it could result in some really deep gouges that would be hard to recover from without leaving a big dip in the floor.

I was able to get a semi mirror finish using 3000 grit pads at the finish and without the mess of powders. One issue with going too mirrored is that travertine is a good deal softer than marble. So the scratches will show up over time and they will pop out at you more if the shine is very high. That's doesn't mean its a bad thing but it is higher maintenance as a less than mirror finish does not show scratches. But at least you can touch your own walkways up should they need it in 2 years.

Thanks for the feedback Dave. I finally finished the delipping process and have begun the honing part. I was wondering if you could share some of your techniques for that part. My pads start at 50, 100, 200, 400......so for instance I made 3 passes with the 50 changing the axis each pass, then made two more passes because I still had visible scratches and then made two passes with the 100. I still have some visible scratches but they can't be felt because the floor feels pretty smooth.

I'm an avid DIY'er and am getting ready to embark on the same project. Thanks for posting this video. I laid approximately 1000 sqft of 18x18 travertine. I knew from the beginning I was going to have to grind and polish. If I went with a professional it would have cost me over $11,000 to have my floor laid. That figure does not include polishing. I wanted a gloss finish as opposed to a matte finish. This would cost me another $5,000. The final cost of my floor is going to be under $3,000 after I finish polishing. And this is because I plan to purchase a floor buffer as opposed to rent one. If you are handy, this task is definitely worth taking on yourself. Pro's will always find error with your technique. But the truth is pro's don't even agree with other pro's. They want your money. Proof: if they cared about you doing the job right, they would be on you tube giving you hints and tips to make the job easier/better, and not trying to bash your completely awesome job by pulling out a microscope and micrometer (then telling you to give them a call). Great job on the floor and I'll keep you updated and perhaps post a video of how my floor came out.

Yes, a large shop vac works quite well for that. It's what I used.

Where were you able to purchase 6 diamond grinding wheels for $50? Thanks

I think I spend about as much time behind the vacuum as I do behind the buffer! Should I go back to the 50 or move on to the 200? Also do you know you are getting there when the floor doesn't have any white when it dries...lol I have about 1600 sq feet to do so progress sure seems slow but I want to get a good feel for it before I move out of one room and into the next. Sorry about the double post and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us.

It looks like its not making that much of a mess when your doing it. Was all the water and debri getting all over the walls? Should I tape plastic up the walls? Will the machine glide over the areas that doesn't have lippage or will I need to sand all of the tiles evenly? Can you spot grind and then polish it up? Sort of like the way you did the hand machine but do the buffing process afterwards? How close were you able to get to the walls? Thanks for your help.

Hi Michael, I don't think hand buffing is a good strategy because it will leave unevenness where you apply it. It's good for corners and other places where the buffer cannot get into but I think it will be visible if you try to do this in the middle of the floor. The reason I think using metal cups first is required is in order to get down to the grout level. You want to end up with monolithic surface when done, not flat tiles with grout indentations IMO. The grout is the hard part to clean.

Thanks let me give it another shot.

@dirksworldtube You can indeed use a hand grinder for smaller areas. I have a variable speed Makita with 5/8" threads which the velcro grinding pad can be screwed onto. You have to use this to get into the corners with. But man, it's a lot of back breaking work to use that to do any real area at all. In addition, it takes some time to figure out how to use it to get a similar finish to match what you get from the floor buffer. Avoid the temptation to run the hand grinder at high speed.

You are a beast! Good work

Thanks so much for making this informational video for us! I can't wait to see your next video :)

I think true 1/8" lines will be OK. Get much wider than that and you start skating on thinner ice. The key thing is what was used for grout. If they used sanded grout then it might not turn out as well as unsanded grout. Of course, use unsanded grout on too wide a gap and it does not have structural stability. That's why wider than 1/8 is iffy. Be sure to fill those grout lines up to the top, over flowing even, before you start grinding. You might put unsanded on top of sanded line that.

I think a set of pads which is made up of 1 pad of each of the following grits (#30, $80, #120, #200, #400, #800, #1500, #3000, "buff") is good for ~ 700 sq ft. But it really depends on how careful you are. You can use them up on much less sq ft than that if you hang around in one area longer than needed. That's why you should polish a given area and then suck the water up and get down on your hands and knees and look at it. At least until you get a better feel for it.

Wow, so many questions I can't keep up and work my 14 hr per day job ; ) Look elsewhere in my comments and I showed which backing pads to use, gave a part number and a web site to get them from. Everything is 4".

@toocls2h8 By No, Home Depot does not supply the yellow backing pads. Those yellow pads fell apart anyway. The ones you want are item 4bh0000R. You need 6 of them. The bolts are 5/8 diameter x 2". The cups were 4". Don't get any bigger because then they will extend too far out from the buffer bumper pad. Once the floor is flat and polished, use 511 sealer on it. It is a penetrating sealer that does not change the appearance of the stones. The dupont stuff was pricey mop and glo...

@eljrush DON'T BE AFRAID! Those metal diamonds are meant to remove lots of material. YES they will scratch the hell out of your floors but that's what you need them to do! You NEED them to remove material. Don't let the grinder stay in one place - keep it moving or you will dig a hole. Also, when the tiles are flat (cannot feel the grout line when you pass the palm of your hand over it, then move to the #30 grit. Only stay with a grit until it has taken out scratches from the last grit.

@DIYDaveT Thanks for the feedback Dave. I finally finished the delipping process and have begun the honing part. I was wondering if you could share some of your techniques for that part. My pads start at 50, 100, 200, 400......so for instance I made 3 passes with the 50 changing the axis each pass, then made two more passes because I still had visible scratches and then made two passes with the 100. I still have some visible scratches but they can't be felt because the floor feels pretty smooth

@marco: the steel diamond cups are very coarse. They scratch the living crap out of the stone which is, of course, what you want initially. Yeah I got them from the same place as the diamond pads and in fact they were a really good deal. Price to quality ratio was even higher for the metal diamonds than for the diamond pads.

I also looked at HD all purpose filler. Given the amount of labor and mess I chose to stick with Tenax. Why? Just feel the weight of the two cans. Tenax is far denser. This is the floor we are talking about. You want it to last. Tenax is more expensive but not nearly so expensive that I would consider cheaper alternatives. That's JMVHO and I know you and your wife are doing the right thing for your own situation. BTW, my wife didn't help at all, God bless her. You got a live one there.

First, the lippage really wasn't as bad as it looked. I took the photo with the sun as low in the sky as possible so that shadows would be really bad. I asked a respected installer company in the Austin area what acceptable lippage was for 18" format tiles and he said "thickness of a credit card". Well, my worst case lippage was about that bad. It will produce shadows. If the tiles are down "perfect" then all you still have to deal with indented grout lines. Grinding fixes even that.

Dave, Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the video very much. It was very informative. I've got about 1200 square feet of Travertine that has allot of lippage (for my taste). I'm thinking about tackling the job myself but am not sure just yet. I'm wondering about the diamond cups: I checked ToolCity.com and didn't find the set of 6. Is this where you purchased yours? Also, are they 3 inch in diameter? One more thing, where did you purchase the backing pads for the diamond impregnated disks? Did you get those from Tina Cai as well?

Dave, thanks for the instructional video. I just had a travertine install done in my kitchen and the guy seemed to do a decent job but there is definite lippage which can be felt especially when walking in bare feet. The folks at home depot are clueless about this stuff. Thanks for your help. BTW, was that the sealer you splashed down before grinding your floor?

Thanks for all your help. At what point do you fill in the holes and go to the next step? Directly after delipping? Before the first diamond pad?

Who is wearing sandals? I'm wearing nonslip boat shoes, Sperry Docksiders. I think an eye exam each year is a good idea.

Nice work shoes.

James and others who have asked, I will try to post links to the finished results this weekend. The floor is a lot of work. Don't start unless you are committed and do everything possible to keep the dust down. Don't take shortcuts and you won't be sorry. I bought Tenax from Markd7 on ebay. Search for tenax travertine filler and it should be $25 a liter+shipping. I don't know if Tina has a web site or if her company is even still in business. Email her.

Thank you so much for this. I definately want to do it right the first time. I'm going to get all these grits. How many of each do I need for 1300 sq feet?

@cayabrol123: grout first. If you do not do this then the heavy paste which you get from grinding gets into the grout lines and it can be heck to clean out so that you get a nice, binding, deep grout fill. Also, you want the finished result to be completely flat, including the grout. If you grout after flattening then you will not achieve this. My floors are as one great monolithic slab of stone - soooo easy to clean without grout lines which are indented!

@eljrush Ever taken metal shop or wood shop? If you move onto the next grit before the prior grit is done you will CERTAINLY see it in the final product. The # of passes is a vague indicator. It depends on the exact hardness of tile that you have along with the rate of speed at which you are moving the buffer. Feeling scratches is a poor indicator! If the grit is done you will know it because it will be even in appearance. In other words, more honing does not change the appearance.

I found the 4" sanding pad backer. I'm assuming you used 4" diamond pads. I think I just need to know which grades and the order in which you used them. Thanks again.

I started doing this with process to my floors but when I started the grinding cups are scratching the heck out of the travertine, to the point that I don't think they will polish out. Did yours make some pretty deep scratches in the floor in the beginning also?

Per my video I rented the floor machine and the back plate from home depot. When I first tried to rent and told them I would be reconfiguring their hex plate that had carbon bits for concrete work, they said no. So I went to another Home Dumpo and rented the floor machine and backplate and simply did not discuss what I wanted it for.

Okay Dave. I have all the parts. The grinders and the backers. Can you tell me the order of the grits you used starting after the grinding cups? Thanks.

Dave, I got my blades in the mail today. They are smaller and more light weight than I thought they would be. My question is for the diamond pads did you use large ones or did you use 4" pads on those vacuum pads with velcro? Where can I get those vacuum pads with the velcro and do I get 4" ones? Also what grade of rubber pads will I need? And what grades do I need of those other pads? Once I have all the stuff and the machine and after I do the lippage removal what is the grade I use next?

Hi Dave. Great video! Just finished with the #200 and some of the scratches from de-lipping are still there. Do you think I should go back to the 50? I'm thinking these scratches won't come out with the next grits. Should i have stayed on the 50 till they all dissapeared?

We just had some travertine tile installed and they put the Dupont travertine sealer on it the floor really looks, bad; we have been stripping the tile to polish with a buffer. Dave would honing remove the last little bit of the Dupont product so a proper shine can be put on? Thank You Mark

Well, I did some research and I found the very grinding cups you used on Ebay for 10 bucks a peice. All of our travertine is layed by my handy man and it looks great except for some lippage. We did the entire house and then bought the lash system in the end for just the master. Wish we had that to start. But as soon as these cups come we are going to try this very process. We couldn't find rental machines anywhere. A question is. Do you need to weight the machine down at all? Thanks for this.

Those cups aren't in stores. I found the exact ones your using on Ebay though from Hong Kong. Waiting for them to arrive. Thanks for answering my questions. I'm going to let you know how it goes. This will be a first for my handy man. So I'm hoping it goes well. How close were you able to get to the walls?

We just finished 500 sq feet using this method with good results. The travertine had severe lippage, but is now perfectly flat across the floor. This is backbreaking, difficult work - be prepared. The first step after grinding, 50 grit, can be very frustrating since it takes so many passes to work out the large scratches. Patience :) While my floor looks good, I have a powdery haze covering the surface, which I cannot seep to get clean. Anyone have experience with removing this?

Looks nice. could I use 7" grinding cups with the clarke.

I would wait until you are into the 200-300 range. Why? Because while 60 or 100 are not as harsh as diamond cups, they are not gentle either. So you can uncover new holes by using them.

Hi Dave. Thank you so much for the video. I recently did my bathroom floor using 1x1 marble tiles and there is lippage (surprise** surprise) at a few places that I would like to get rid of. Any inputs on how to do marble floors? Much appreciated.

I think they were either 5/8 or 3/4 but I would not go by that. Instead, take the cup to the store and match them up to get the best fit possible.

Do I first do the blades, then a 100 rubber pad and then go to a 200 and then 400 and then 600 and then 800 and then 1000? Do I do the black rubber pads first and then go to the other buffing pads? Are they all 4". I don't want to purchase them until I know how many of what grade and size I need. Thanks again so much.

@williamsujjj I did twice that much and it took me a several months working PT on it. This is a long job if you are trying to do it on the cheap by yourself. If your wife will help manage the shop vac while you do the grinding then things will go faster. If you have 800 wide open square feet then it will go a lot faster than if you are doing 800 sq ft of tiny bathroom and hall spaces. The fewer the corners the faster it will go. Just don't go onto the next grit until done with the last.

Do you think a 5 or 10 pound flat weight would stay on the top? How much weight do you recommend?

You can try to be careful but it gets difficult to always be careful when you are busting ass for hours on end. Some rooms I taped up plastic 4' high and it was a mixed blessing. If the tape comes off at the bottom when it gets wet then you are fighting a dangling plastic sheet all the time. But if you don't use plastic, plan on repainting the lower 2' of wall. Good question.

Hey Dave, I went to Home Depot they don't have the diamond pads so I'm going to look at your hong kong company. What are the grey pads for and the colored pads and how many do I need of each for about 1100 square feet. Thanks again.

Dave, Can you please answer this question for me. What grits were in the set you bought? And you said one set did about 700. How many of each grit come in a set? This is really what I need to know before I order my set and how many sets. Tina has multiple sets and some come with 6 of each grit. I don't know it that means I need 12 pads of each or your set may have came with less??

Would this work on limestone tiles? Contractor left grout haze and bad lípiage on my new limestone tiles flooring.

Hey Dave thanks for the video. I have same issues , my question is did you have trouble controling cutting depth? Thanks

Nice....

FW, thanks for bothering to leave your positive after the job comments. How many sq ft, how long did it take you? Everyone else will want to know. I am loving my floors. I did not overshine them and they are wearing very well. Cannot see scratches, etc. These floors will last longer than I will. BR, DIYDave.

hello, I am interested doing the same job you did in your video. Lippage is breaking my chairs and tables. My question: what size is the hexpin backing plate? I want to use a 20 inch buffer, but I only see a 15 inh plate that Fits 17" or 18" with 1.5hp 1.75RPM machines. will it still fit.

I’m having travertine installed into my house right now and there’s more than a few lipped edges that are already bugging me

Michael Carey one again the video show they when to much agressive in use the cup weel # 30 or # 50 metal you can not continue if you see the scraches of # 50 metal is onthe floor, if the scraches is from # 50 resin is fine continue to # 100 resin.Good Look! any question ask me i will help much i can

What size screws and washers did you used to attach the blades? Thanks Dave

Hello Rob and Dave, could you please let me know where you rented the machines and got all material needed? I tried renting a machine from Home Depot and they would not rent to me. Any help is appreciated :) I just installed around 500 sq ft of travertine but need to remove some lippage and polish the floor.

@eljrush Yeah that backing plate is a rip off. You can buy them outright for around $500 I think without the carbide teeth that home depot rents them with. On my first (long) rental, the person mistakenly threw the backing plate in for free. I then rented again for a shorter time period but this time had to pay the rip off charge for renting their stupid hunk of aluminun. Remember, until you get the hang of it, check your work frequently by vacuuming the water and inspect on hands+knees.

Dave, did you use any honing powders with the sanding pads? Or just the water?

While you are learning, do not be afraid to get down on your hands and knees and visually inspect each tile and each grout line. Can't tell you howmany errors I avoided like this. Clean the tiles with a wet vac sucking up the water and then get on your hands and knees and just look at it. If its all even in appearance then you are done. Any scratches left from the prior grit will pop when you see them clean and from 18" distant. Do not get in a hurry or you will not be happy with result.

Hey, guy..What's the material of grinding granite cup wheel? About hardness (HB) and Compressive strength (Pa)? Thank you! :)

I was actually able to color it to suit but it was just too lightweight. I spent way more time dinking with it than I should have. Sorry you had to go down that tangent. As you said, the job is big enough already even if you know exactly what you are doing. I'd wish you good luck but you don't need it because you obvously have good sense.

Hi. The grinding cups do not come with any grit rating but they really scour material off. Then you would go with something between a 30 and a 50 - no higher for the first pads. Then 80, 120, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 3000 and finally "buff". It's no different than sanding wood or metal. If you polish too long any any grit or take too small of steps you waste time and money. If you polish for too short a time or take too big of steps in grit the end job will look bad.

Honing will will take the top layer of the stone off and with it anything that is coating it. But honing is a big deal unless you were planning to do it anyway. In other words, if you are stripping dupont off just to prep the floor for honing, don't bother stripping, just go ahead and hone. At least that's what I did when I got screwed by that dupont CRAP. BTW, I'm not a pro so everything here is JMVHO. If in doubt, consult a pro.