How to choose right Frankfurt abrasives for your marble polishing?

At marble factory, Frankfurt abrasives are widely in use for marble polishing, it is a public secret while Frankfurt has different bonds and grit sizes, that make us to make a choice on what kind of bond to use and which grit sizes to use to make a good polished marble surface.

As per bonding material and production technique, Frankfurt abrasives could be divided as

• Metal bond diamond Frankfurt (Grit size from 36# to 220#)
• Magnesium bond Frankfurt (Grit size from 16# to 320#)
• Synthetic resin bond Frankfurt (Grit size from 400# to 1200#)
• Resin bond Frankfurt(Grit size from 120# to 3000#)
• 5 Extra Oxalic bond Frankfurt (Grit size 5 Extra or 10 Extra)
• Resin bond Cleaner Frankfurt (Single grit size)
• Fiber sponge bond Frankfurt (Grit Size 2000#, 3000# and 6000#)

you may find it somehow confused but let us briefly introduce and compare function and application of above Frankfurt abrasives in different bonds

• metal bond and magnesium bond abrasives both are for calibration and rough grinding
• synthetic abrasives and resin bond abrasives both are for grinding and polishing
• 5 Extra Oxalic bond abrasives for chemical reaction with marble to get polished surface
• cleaner and fiber sponge pad both working as cleaning stone surface while sponge pad also helps to make surface polish glossy better

as you can see, some abrasives are with same function and could be substitute for each other, and therefore, we may have different solution or bond choice for marble polishing, for example, for calibration process, we can choose metal bond diamond Frankfurt or we can use magnesium bond Frankfurt as well. and for final polishing, we have one single choice, 5 Extra oxalic bond only.

to make it clean, we make a chart to show different bond sequences and their usage on different processes for marble polishing

Process	Bond	Bond	Bond	Bond
Calibration	Metal Bond	Magnesium Bond
Rough Grinding(up to 320#)	Metal Bond+ Magnesium Bond	Magnesium Bond	Metal Bond+Resin Bond	Magnesium Bond+Resin Bond
Fine Grinding and Polishing(400#-1500#)	Synthetic Bond	Resin Bond
Mirror Polishing	5 Extra Oxalic Bond
Cleaning	Resin Cleaner	Fiber Sponge Cleaner

1. for slabs or strip/tiles, if thickness tolerance is big, calibration is suggested and you can choose metal bond Frankfurt or mangesite Frankfurt. If you can afford for metal bond Frankfurt, it will free operators from changing abrasive tools frequently because it will last for long and aggressive in stock removal. However, if you are more used to traditional magnesite Frankfurt stone, you can keep use magnesite Frankfurt for calibration.
2. And for rough grinding, you will have 4 different choices and combination use of different abrasives. You will see resin bond abrasives produced in European suppliers mostly. It is with longer life and with less aggressive or sharpness than magnesite abrasive stone. In our production, metal bond and magnesite bond are available. And so if you buy from us, will suggest metal bond + magnesite bond grit sequence or simply use all magnesite bond abrasive stone up to 320# for rough grinding.
3. Starting from 400#, abrasives will start making fine grinding and polishing, synthetic bond is a good choice, with good sharpness but longer life than magnesite bond,
4. 5 Extra is widely used for final polishing, it will make an chemical reaction with marble surface and as per your stone color and hardness, you may tell your supplier to offer suitable quality of 5 Extra to get best polishing glossy.
5. Cleaning, in this process, fiber sponge cleaner is suggested, it is new to some overseas market but already in popular application in China for marble and artificial stone polishing. It is available in 2000#, 3000# and 6000#, some even use 10000# but it is mostly not necessary. If you have enough polishing head from your machine, you can put 1-2 steps of fiber sponge pad after synthetic Frankfurt and then use 5 Extra (1-3 steps) and then finally use 6000# sponge pad to make cleaning. To make full use of fiber sponge Frankfurt, you are suggested to adjust polishing head forward-backward travel distance, make it little bit bigger than slabs or strip/tile width, would be enough, because the sponge pad is easily get tear off from its sides, this will cause abnormal consumption and decrease the pad life greatly.

Above an introduction of material and function of each Frankfurt bonds, and when you decide to check supplier for your marble polishing, you may ask or offer information that may help your supplier to decide which quality to offer

1. What color and hardness of marble or other stone you will polish
2. Would you polish stone slabs (more than 120cm width) or strip/tiles (less than 120cm width)?
3. What grit size and bonds of Frankfurt abrasives do you use currently?
4. How many polishing heads for your polishing machine? And if it is manual, please advise as well. And if possible, please tell machine operation parameters to know running speed.
5. What kind of polishing issue you have from your current supplier? And which brands of abrasives do you use now, just for references.
6. Tell your supplier what kind of surface you want to make? Honed, brushed or polished surface? If for polished surface, how much glossy you expect and what’s the current glossy you can get?

These above questions will help your supplier to know more about your polishing and prepare some product solution for your references. A testing is suggested to check if it works for your marble and machines, and for first testing, maybe 2 different grit sequences or 2 different of quality group may under test to speed up testing.

Fullux is the biggest producer of Frankfurt abrasives in China, monthly contract with stone factories for marble and artificial stone polishing for more than 5,000,000 square meters and we are with daily production capacity of 3,500 to 4,000 cartons Frankfurt abrasives, hope that we can help you with our quality and experiences.

Feel free to check Fullux Team for your inquiry of marble and artificial stone polishing.