The Case of the Ruined Marble Columns

Frederick M. Hueston, PhD
Stone Care Consultant

It was a wonderful fall morning. I got my lazy butt out of bed, went over to the window and noticed all the colorful leaves. Made me think of some of the marble slabs I recently saw at a trade show.   
 
So many new types of stone out there, and with this, comes some new challenges. That’s what I love about the stone industry. Never a dull moment, and today would be no exception.  
I walked into the bathroom and jumped in the shower just as my phone rang. “Should I answer it or wait?” I thought to myself. I picked up the phone and before I could even say hello, the panicked, female voice on the other end started crying and mumbling something about her marble columns were all ruined. 

“Calm down, ma’am,” I said. “I’m here to help.” Now I felt like a psychologist instead of stone detective. I finally got her to calm down and she told me that her maid started cleaning several marble columns and,

“all the colors are bleeding! They’re ruined! Ruined!” 

My first thought was that she was using a caustic cleaner, so I asked what she was using. She said she was using a marble cleaner she bought at a local hardware store. I asked her to grab the bottle and tell me the name. 

I waited on the phone as I heard some clashing of bottles. In about a minute she came back to the phone and read me the label. It appeared to be your standard neutral cleaner. This puzzled me even more. I said, “Ma’am, this sounds like something I will have to see and try to analyze. Give me about twenty minutes.”

I jumped back in the shower and couldn’t think for the life of me what would be the problem with this marble.

I later pulled up to this huge mansion that looked like a replica of the White House. “Interesting,” I thought. “Guess I better not get into a political conversation with her.”

I rang the doorbell and a small, Latin-looking lady opened the door. “Buenos dias, Señor,” she said and motioned for me to come in. She was wearing a uniform, so I surmised that she had to be the maid.

Come to find out later, she was one of three maids. Must be nice. 

She brought me over to a large column and started crying as she was pointing at it. At first glance it appeared to be a black and gold marble commonly called Portoro. I really didn’t see anything wrong with it until I looked on the backside of the column. It appeared to have been smeared, as if someone had put some wax on it and then wiped it before it had a chance to completely dry.

There also were some black drip marks running down the column. I suspected that the column had been dyed and the cleaner simply removed the dye. I took a white rag out of my stain kit and wiped the area, then something did not feel right to me.

The rag dragged across a column that was not smooth like your typical marble. I took my knuckle and tapped on the column and noticed that it had a really hollow sound. “Oh no,” I thought, “now I know exactly what happened.” 

I asked if the lady who called me was around, and just as I asked, I felt a presence behind me.  When I turned around, there stood a woman in her 50s with her black hair tied in a bun.

She looked like she had enough make-up on to make Dolly Parton jealous. She had her arms folded and just stood there without saying a word. I looked at her, smiled and said, “Hello, I’m the Stone Detective.”

She unfolded her arms, motioned to the maid to leave and asked in an annoyed voice, “Well, is it ruined?” 

I didn’t know how to break the news to her, so I just looked at her and said, “Yes, Ma’am, I’m afraid it is ruined.”

She gave me a stare that could have frozen a pot of boiling water in seconds. I continued on. “Ma’am, the reason the marble cleaner ruined this column is that it is not marble. It’s a wood column painted to look like marble.”

She began to argue with me, insisting, “Yes, it is marble.”  I didn’t want to argue with her, so I took out some paint thinner and silently wiped the area that was already smeared, exposing the grain of the wood. I told her she needed to call an artist who could retouch the faux marbling on the column. I offered to recommend one, and when she huffed and declined, I showed myself to the door. Oh, well. Another case solved.

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com