J
Justin S
Dear Tilers,
I'm desperate for some advice from someone who may have made the same mistake I have and could turn around the situation if its possible?
5yrs ao I bought 50m2 of 600x300 polished porcelain in "super white" (although are more cream than white to be honest) from Topps. I suspect they are Chinese, but the box doesn't say, they give good instructions on the rear and we followed these really well!
i used half for an ensuite's walls without problems following the threads on here on how and what to do, this is a super forum and helped me loads!
So with the other boxes in dads garage and having moved we decided to put them in the kitchen, and over the last few weeks they have gone down on top of Slc with ufh and 10mm insulation boards under that. All using white mapei keraflex or keraquick as necessary!
All was good until I went to remove the transport wax, previously I used from topps a fila product they recommended Tile and Stone Stain remover, by Fila diluted at 1 part to 5 water.the wax wasn't to thick to be honest, so we gave it a wash over with a cloth and then allowed it to soak for a couple of mins and then washed and dried with clean water and more towels.
We could see no more wax but the tiles appeared to loose their shine, only really seen in the 50w downlighters, so we tried again and again and still no better, even neat it made no difference. The marks appear to be like tiger stripes, or leaf veins but larger and random. If you look into the reflection of the bulb you see a haze, like you have the wrong specs on!
We decide to press on thinking this was just how it is and the tiles must be poor quality, so I think we might have made the mistake worse by applying a layer of fila polished porcelain impregnating sealer, again from Topps, our thinking was this might bring back the shine when buffed off, but it hasn't at all. We left it for 12hrs before buffing off the residue with microfibres, it came off easy, but the marks are still there.
So now I'm really worried and on reading some excellent posts on here decide to try again with a cleaner, this time LTP Grimex at 1 part to 4, but again this doesn't seem to effect the marks at all either, even neat as well, even left for 15mins.
i haven't grouted yet, so it's not grout haze, and I was carefull with adhesive too, cleaning down as I laid, and the patterns are more random than the edges, I've tried to take photos but because its in the reflection it's neigh on impossible, you could almost say its a bloom.
Now I decided to try a spare tile, I have just buffed the wax off and have a good shine with no haze visable, I have applied the fila impregnating sealer to an area and have moderate markings appear, I have used the Grimex in another area and removed all the wax well but still had some markings appear, but the worst area is where I have removed the wax with the fila tile and stone stain remover (neat or diluted), this shows the same perception as the whole 15m2 floor!
All of the initial wax removal and sealer was exactly the same method and products I used previously, and we didnt have this problem, but being vertical and with poor lighting I don't think we would ever have known anyway!
The tiles had been stored in their boxes, face to face in a garage, stacked in a tower, so maybe frost or cold and damp could have effected them?
My wife thought it may be optical hazing (isn't google wonderful) but its too random for that in my opinion, and definitely influenced by the products I used to try to remove the little wax that was present before I needed to seal.
Does anybody have any ideas if I can bring back the shine and remove the haze, in natural daylight and different lighting its hard to see, but the downlighters make it unbearable to look at the reflections.
Ive looked through a 30x lense and I can't see anything at all, even tried a portable daylight made by 3M for bodyshops and I can see it worst in this light, so an idea is to change the temperature of the bulbs and increase to 60deg wide floods instead of spots.
Could maybe the markings have been present always but masked by the wax, or highlighted because the wax remover was so effective? Or damaged by the acid in the fila product even though topps recommended it and it was specified on the tile boxes to use it and then seal twice before grouting.
Or do we just have accept our fate and live with this problem for ever more?
Many many thanks for any advise and sorry to ramble on!
Justin
I'm desperate for some advice from someone who may have made the same mistake I have and could turn around the situation if its possible?
5yrs ao I bought 50m2 of 600x300 polished porcelain in "super white" (although are more cream than white to be honest) from Topps. I suspect they are Chinese, but the box doesn't say, they give good instructions on the rear and we followed these really well!
i used half for an ensuite's walls without problems following the threads on here on how and what to do, this is a super forum and helped me loads!
So with the other boxes in dads garage and having moved we decided to put them in the kitchen, and over the last few weeks they have gone down on top of Slc with ufh and 10mm insulation boards under that. All using white mapei keraflex or keraquick as necessary!
All was good until I went to remove the transport wax, previously I used from topps a fila product they recommended Tile and Stone Stain remover, by Fila diluted at 1 part to 5 water.the wax wasn't to thick to be honest, so we gave it a wash over with a cloth and then allowed it to soak for a couple of mins and then washed and dried with clean water and more towels.
We could see no more wax but the tiles appeared to loose their shine, only really seen in the 50w downlighters, so we tried again and again and still no better, even neat it made no difference. The marks appear to be like tiger stripes, or leaf veins but larger and random. If you look into the reflection of the bulb you see a haze, like you have the wrong specs on!
We decide to press on thinking this was just how it is and the tiles must be poor quality, so I think we might have made the mistake worse by applying a layer of fila polished porcelain impregnating sealer, again from Topps, our thinking was this might bring back the shine when buffed off, but it hasn't at all. We left it for 12hrs before buffing off the residue with microfibres, it came off easy, but the marks are still there.
So now I'm really worried and on reading some excellent posts on here decide to try again with a cleaner, this time LTP Grimex at 1 part to 4, but again this doesn't seem to effect the marks at all either, even neat as well, even left for 15mins.
i haven't grouted yet, so it's not grout haze, and I was carefull with adhesive too, cleaning down as I laid, and the patterns are more random than the edges, I've tried to take photos but because its in the reflection it's neigh on impossible, you could almost say its a bloom.
Now I decided to try a spare tile, I have just buffed the wax off and have a good shine with no haze visable, I have applied the fila impregnating sealer to an area and have moderate markings appear, I have used the Grimex in another area and removed all the wax well but still had some markings appear, but the worst area is where I have removed the wax with the fila tile and stone stain remover (neat or diluted), this shows the same perception as the whole 15m2 floor!
All of the initial wax removal and sealer was exactly the same method and products I used previously, and we didnt have this problem, but being vertical and with poor lighting I don't think we would ever have known anyway!
The tiles had been stored in their boxes, face to face in a garage, stacked in a tower, so maybe frost or cold and damp could have effected them?
My wife thought it may be optical hazing (isn't google wonderful) but its too random for that in my opinion, and definitely influenced by the products I used to try to remove the little wax that was present before I needed to seal.
Does anybody have any ideas if I can bring back the shine and remove the haze, in natural daylight and different lighting its hard to see, but the downlighters make it unbearable to look at the reflections.
Ive looked through a 30x lense and I can't see anything at all, even tried a portable daylight made by 3M for bodyshops and I can see it worst in this light, so an idea is to change the temperature of the bulbs and increase to 60deg wide floods instead of spots.
Could maybe the markings have been present always but masked by the wax, or highlighted because the wax remover was so effective? Or damaged by the acid in the fila product even though topps recommended it and it was specified on the tile boxes to use it and then seal twice before grouting.
Or do we just have accept our fate and live with this problem for ever more?
Many many thanks for any advise and sorry to ramble on!
Justin
