"After the show, you break it all down, put it in the trucks and go to the next town. It’s the same thing every day. It’s a whole different world and not a real world, because you have all these people that love you and clap and appreciate what you’ve done, but when that’s all over with and real-life kicks in, it’s kind of a letdown, because you don’t have that appreciation until the next show. So some techs get hooked. That said, we had an incredible team that could do the concerts, the Academy Awards, the Grammys, the Emmys and the 1984 Olympics closing ceremonies in Los Angeles. A New Beginning Road- and production-weary, Dave’s last tour was with George Clinton and the Funkadelics, and in 1987 he created a cleaning business in Los Angeles. The company then moved to San Jose a few years later where it quickly morphed into doing restoration, preservation and repairs of natural stone. Currently known as the Marble Guy, Dave and his crew take on both small and large projects throughout California. Dave is also an industry educator, consultant and forensics guy that regularly diagnoses problems and specifies remedies. “Once I got out of rock ‘n’ roll, I wanted to do something different, and started my cleaning company," Bonasera continued. “From the very beginning, I wanted to use environmentally safe products and procedures to do the work, and named the company ESP, short for Environmentally Safe Products and Procedures.” About a year later, Dave met Tim from Multi Seal, who began teaching him how to refinish stone. “Tim didn’t just say, ‘Here’s polish and here’s a pad. Polish this up!’ No, he taught me about the stone itself, and what it can and can’t do, because they all react differently. I take pictures of all my jobs, and none of my guys leave here until they see the pictures, know what they’re walking into, and have all the right grouts, cleaners and sealers, because not one product is going to work on every type of stone. We have products that are made with water and products that are made with oils, and those are two different animals.” Dave employs nine very specialized technicians, and went on to say, “These days it’s hard to find the right people. Most of them have been with me for almost two decades. I supply medical, dental and vision benefits, because you want to take care of those who are taking care of you. If you don’t take care of your people, they’ll go somewhere else, and the worst thing you can do is train them to be your competitors. I don’t ever want to do that, because we are usually ahead of our competition as far as methods and technology.”

Although granite starts to melt around 1,100° F, it can be damaged at temperatures much lower than that. Some stones can start to show mild effects of heat damage when exposed to temperatures around 400Ffor an hour or more. There are four ways that heat can damage even the toughest granites: The minerals can undergo physical changes, the stone can become more porous, the sealer can react to the heat, and the slab can crack. We’ll set aside the last one for another time and focus on the first three.