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My wife's cousin owns a marble company, so when they told us we could have free cutoff pieces, we thought it could make a cool patio.

Problem is, they're SUPER slippery.

Someone suggested pouring acid on them to 'etch' them so they'll roughen up.

I've bought and tried muriatic acid from a hardware store, and 1M sulfuric (available on Amazon, amazingly), but neither seems to do anything.

Any ideas what I can do here?

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    $\begingroup$ Mechanical abrasion. Sand paper and rent one of those big ones from Home Depot. Or go easy and use a belt sander, will give it a more random/natural-ish look. $\endgroup$
    – Todd Minehardt ♦
    May 7 at 17:35
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    $\begingroup$ Do you know anything about the polishing? There’s probably a sealant on it that prevents the acid from contacting the actual marble surface. You may be able to remove the polish with a solvent if you know what it is. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew
    May 7 at 18:40
  • $\begingroup$ Good question... I don't know, but I will ask. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Kevin Dedes
    May 7 at 23:04
  • $\begingroup$ sounds funny but is your marble "marbled" or uniform in color and material. If it has streaks of other material types in it (which is usually what makes it so attractive) then if you can find out what those other materials are then some thing that differentially dissolves one material over the other might be helpful. You can add a snapshot to your question here if you like - I think that would be quite helpful. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    May 8 at 20:15

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Any acid will dissolve some calcium carbonate. But you will still have a slippery surface. Blasting with very coarse grit may roughen it enough. It is impractical to make a non-slippery floor tile with the marble. I have some non-slip floor tile , it is very rough. It is so rough that it tore up any type sponge I tried to use to smooth grout seams. When the Amoco (Aon) building in Chicago replaced a thousand of tons of marble , some was made into floor tiles. It was done by crushing and making terrazzo. If there was some easy way to pour some acid on it to make floor tile, I think they would have done that. PS; the marble makes an excellent board for rolling pastry.

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