Tormented by countertops!

I think the countertops are tormenting me on purpose!

I was greeted first thing in the morning by beautiful, gleeming countertops. The sealer didn't cloud up or peel overnight. We are almost done! All that's left to do is wax. I started out by spending an hour cleaning the granite tile inlay. It had a film on it, probably from the grinding water and the sealer. I tried scraping, duct tape and a wire brush to no avail. I finally used 0000 ("4 aught") grit steel wool that did the trick. I was glad I had used it before and knew of it and had some because I don't know how I would have known what to use otherwise. How do you figure this stuff out if you haven't done it before?

I had purchased a buffing wheel for my grinder at a stone place that sells stonework supplies. They claimed to be well-versed in concrete countertops and told me this was the buffer I needed. The buffing wheel was hard packed fabric with edges and no matter how hard I tried, I could not buff the wax without getting gouge marks at the edge. I tried doing it by hand and that didn't work. After spending several hours on a 2' x 2' area, I decided to go to the auto supply store and get a buffing pad. I've seen huge, puffy things that look like gigantic powder puffs and I thought this would be perfect. I couldn't find what I was looking for and asked a salesperson who pointed the buffing pads out to me. The only thing I could find was a thin terrycloth cover for my pad that didn't seem thick enough. He insisted they didn't have what I was looking for, which seemed strange to me. I should have asked someone else (and I should have taken it as a bad sign that he didn't even remove his headphones to talk to me)........

Since we are on a time deadline, I really needed to get at least one coat of wax on today. The plumber will be coming to put the sink in and the contractor will be putting the cooktop in and we want at least one coat on the entire surface when these things are dropped in. I braved rush hour traffic and went to Home Depot, where they didn't have what I needed either. I had the grinder with me, and there just wasn't anything that would work, and the salesperson in the tool department didn't know how any of the buffing attachments attach to the grinder. Ugh....

I ended up finding a fabric wheel that can attach to a drill. You have to buy a special bit to attach the wheel to your drill. The bit looks like a big screw - it has a head and a threaded shaft. The head keeps the pad from flying off the shaft. I didn't understand how this could work - wouldn't the head touch the surface you are polishing? The guy insisted there was a recess in the other side of the pad that would keep the head off the surface. I asked three times and he insisted, so I purchased it.

I got it home and connected it to the drill, and I find out there is no recess! The pad an inch thick and the side is the part that polishes the surface! Ugh.... if you don't know the answer, just say so; don't make stuff up! I didn't like that the actual polishing surface was so small (compared to the area of a 5" circle) but I tried it anyway. The drill just doesn't have the power of the grinder, and it froze up frequently under almost no pressure. It also had very low rpm's, which made the process slow. In the end, I had to give it up because the drill just didn't have enough power to buff the wax.

I decided to go back to the auto supply store and buy the terrycloth pad cover. At least it would be better than what I had. As long as I could get one coat on tonight, I'd be okay. I can look for better solutions when there is time. I get to the store, and find out they had the big fluffy buffing pad in the size I needed all along! How annoying to have wasted all that time only to find out they had what I wanted and the salesperson couldn't be bothered to do his job.

I purchased the pad and managed to get one small section of the countertop done. I then called it quits for the night. The contractor isnt' coming until 11 a.m. tomorrow, and if the plumber shows up early, I can always just do the rim of the sink hole. At least C will have some counter space to use when he gets home and makes his dinner.