Removing scratch marks from stone

[crazyal]

The wife wants a small pond with a waterfall next summer. I have a large piece of ledge I removed from the yard that's just sitting around doing nothing. It's probably almost 2' thick x 9' wide x 6' long. It's too large (heavy) for me to pick up with my 580K but I can drag it with the backhoe bucket. The problem is that the teeth have already scratched it up in a few spots and by the time I move it to where I want it to make the waterfall I'll have a lot more. Has anyone have a good trick for cleaning up the marks? Being ledge it has jagged sharp edges. I'm hoping to try to remove a few this year so by next spring I can see how it looks after being weathered. Since it'll take plenty of work to move I want to make sure she's going to be happy with the looks before I try. If needed I can take a picture or two.

 

[CalG]

muriatic acid

brush it on with a natural fiber brush. Hose it off.

 

[crazyal]

I've used it to clean up some ledge before I poured cement on it for a deck so I have some around somewhere. I'll give it a try.

 

[sixdogs]

We have lots of big rocks that were badly scratched in our placement effort but we left them alone and the scratches started blending in pretty quickly. It wasn't 100% overnight but in a few months it looked much better and after a year or two it's hard to distinguish between what nature did and what I did.

 

[bigtiller]

A lot of scratches and gouges is better than one straight row of marks. Think of it like a piece of wood you want to "antique" to make it look old. We slap it with a chain, hit it with a hammer, and maybe even throw a screwdriver at it. So, don't be nice to it, mother nature sure wasn't.

 

[RichM752]

Sandblaster.

 

[jfh28]

if you're going to have water running over it those scratches will get worn away in no time.......Jack

 

[crazyal]

It's a large rock so I'm sure that I'll unfortunately end up with some big long straight scratches. The water will be on only one small section, maybe 2' wide. My plan is to drill a hole large enough for a 1" stainless pipe to feed water to the top through the center with something to disperse it then place another large rock on top of it. Because the piece of ledge has a flat edge it'll make for a nice waterfall. It doesn't have to look perfect as over time it'll weather and look fine. That being said it would be nice to clean up the marks vs waiting it out.

 

[PILOON]

Scratches will be nice clean stone.
To get it all the same hue use a pressure washer to get it 'like new'.
Time and elements will age it back to 'aged look'.
Not that I tried it, but they claim that milk or cream will propagate moss growth.

 

[clemsonfor]

Scratches will be nice clean stone.
To get it all the same hue use a pressure washer to get it 'like new'.
Time and elements will age it back to 'aged look'.
Not that I tried it, but they claim that milk or cream will propagate moss growth.

I was also thinking a very powerfull pressure washer. And the latter claim is true, algae and mold as well

 

[Cord]

I don't know what the ledge material is, but our rocks have weathered in so you can't see the scratches. The only scratch that I can still see is a bad one in a piece of granite where there was material removed from the rock. That one is permanent.

 

[1965]

To prevent further scratches can you pry it up to get a couple logs under it as sled runners and pull from those or would that cause it to break in half?

 

[MIkeWard]

When I was at the bluestone quarry they called it to thermal the edge
The cut edge was wet with water then they used an acyeteline torch with a rose bud tip to quickly heat the wet sawn edge.
The water would turn to Steam and pop little flakes of stone off so the saw marks disappeared and it looked natural
Obviously this would work differently on other types of rock

 

[crazyal]

I've been sidetracked on this, in part because it's not going to happen until next year. I did take a picture of the rock. I put a 5 gallon gas can on it to give an idea of size. The white marks are scratches from the backhoe teeth. I'm assuming it's a chunk of granite. I'm thinking I have some old fire hose around. I can run chain through it and just drag the rock into position.