Caring for Zinc Counters or Tabletops

 Here's my big zinc experiment....after doing several table tops and reading quite a bit about the zinc I mentioned at the bottom of this post on aging it that the patina and wax is not permanent...it wears.
Anything acidic can take off the wax and patina...

If you leave the zinc bare it will darken and grey on it's own over time.  Or you can patina it yourself and wax the surface.   Either way the following things will still affect the surface....

 This is a piece I specifically aged and waxed for this purpose.

Anything acidic will eat through the wax and of course then the patina too....

 And pretty quickly...

 And rubbing the liquid off made it worse...blotting it seemed to affect the surface less.

 Another angle --it seems to look different from different angles but either way it's a definite "mark"

 Leaving it longer didn't really seem to make that much of a difference...

 The photo above is immediately after 

 I've had this piece on our kitchen counter in one spot or another for a couple of months now...
And the spots are darkening back up.

 If you are a neat freak this may not be for you!  I think that if I lived with it as my counter I would just let it just keep building some character of it's own....

You can use scotch brite to take it back to it's original (which looks alot like stainless steel) 
If I had a really huge spot or something that left a very distinct mark I'd probably use that to gently blend it all in and then let it go.

The place we buy our zinc from sells a clear coat that you can spray the surface with but we have not used that and I'm not sure about it being "food safe"...
The general information out there says to just use a damp cloth and mild soap to clean it.
I've also read that you should use a cutting board because it scratches and protection for hot pans or dishes.