Tenax wax

Vanessa Roth <vanessaroth [at] hotmail__com> writes

>I have been asked to provide recommendations on an outdoor marble
>sculpture. The sculpture was originally highly polished black and
>white marble. It is now quite dull in appearance and the black areas
>have faded to grey.  The artist recommended applying Tenax paste wax
>every six months to maintain the polished appearance, but this has
>not been carried out.  Does anyone know what this wax is made from
>and whether it can be recommended as a maintenance treatment for
>marble?

Marble polishes like "Tenax" are standard wax polishes used by stone
masons for decades. They contain waxes like carnauba wax and
solvents, usually hydrocarbons or trichlorethylene. You can not do
much wrong with such a treatment, but the protective effect for
outdoor marble is low. The treatment has to be repeated every year.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:12
                  Distributed: Friday, August 13, 2004
                       Message Id: cdl-18-12-002
                                  ***