Advice on Cleaning Antique French Black slate marble clock

Hi I got a French slate marble clock in need of Good cleaning it has a white sheen all over it and no matter I tried cleaning it ,the stays the same I been told to put black shoe polish on it and it will look ok,

But I rather try and clean it and bring it back to its original state ,
Any advice how to clean it and get rid of the Awful white sheen ,

 

I have never found any economical way of repolishing the slate. I'd go with the shoe polish, well buffed.

 

Hi,
That white all over it seems to be scratches. The only way is to have it professionally sanded down. The black shoe polish is a very good way of fixing it. Just be sure to use a GOOD quality shoe polish. It is the carnauba wax that does the trick.
greg

 

This lovely black marble Holy Water Font was broken and in a bad state when I found it. Now it is back to its former glory.

If your clock is very badly scratched you can start by using very fine wet and dry emery paper. 240, then 400 and finish with 600. Take the mechanism out because you will need to use water. There are some good 'how to' videos on Youtube.

Polishing it is not difficult depending on how you do it. Boot polish is not the thing as it is a wax. What you need is polishing powder or the specific professional stuff for the colour of marble you have. Somewhere near you will be a stonemason who deals in marble and if you ask really nicely they may give you some and tell you how to use it.

I have such a stonemason and he was brilliant. He gave a me a big lump of the stuff and then showed me how he did it using a bunch of cloth discs that attach to an angle grinder. You start the grinder and hold the polish (which is really a very very fine abrasive) to the edge of the cloth and it picks it up. You then carefully apply the polish to the marble and just keep doing it until you end up with a brilliant shine. I first had to use epoxy resin to mend the marble and then grind that down flat before polishing.

My stonemason lent me the tool I needed and gave me the polish and would not accept any payment. In fact he sent me off with a brand new tool and said I should bring it back when I had finished even though he had never met me in his life before. You might not be so lucky.

Even without the tool it is easy to do, it just takes a lot of patience and elbow grease.

 

That is beautiful Vincent!

 

Thanks for that imformation Vincent had I like the font.