Nightmare Grouting Sealed Polished Porcelain wall tiles!!!

[p4ulo]

My goodness - what a palaver!!

So, I've been tiling my own wet-room with TOPPS 60x30 Polished "WHITE" (cream) Porcelain Tiles.
(nice easy cuts with my RUBI TR-700)
Sealed using FILA Polished Porcelain protector (2 passes with a sponge, great product and pretty fumey too!)
Grouting using BAL Jasmine.

First issue - whereas with a glazed or other tile you can spread the grout onto the wall and work it into the joints, no chance here cos of the sealing stuff it all falls straight off the face onto the floor.

So - here's what I did, what did I do wrong??

So, I had to push the grout directly into the joints, using a metal decorating scraper was pretty handy. Not a problem.
Then, once a section was done, I did a quick wash-over with a wash-boy sponge. All looking good, joints nice and full.
So, carried along the walls, then went back and did the old final strike with wash-boy sponge, diagonal, once, rinse, next down etc. All going well and I'm congratulating myself fairly regularly.

My mistake - I then let the final wash residue dry on the tiles. Whereas you could normally buff it off a glazed surface once dry, NO CHANCE here!!!!!! It dried hard onto the face, it was impossible to remove unless you buffed/scrubbed really hard with a cloth (very hot n' sweaty work) I discovered that if you wetted the surface again, you could then buff it off with a dry cloth.

So, I did the rest of the room, this time only doing one wash-pass with the sponge, and then moving to using a cloth to buff them up. This made the process quicker, but I did find the cloth kept disturbing the grout and I had to go over it afterwards with a "licked finger-tip! to even it up.

What did I do wrong. Any suggestions?

I had a look at it this morning, and it looks really good once dry, so I'm happy, but at half past midnight last night I was getting a bit sweary!!!

 

[cone]

My goodness - what a palaver!!

So, I've been tiling my own wet-room with TOPPS 60x30 Polished "WHITE" (cream) Porcelain Tiles.
(nice easy cuts with my RUBI TR-700)
Sealed using FILA Polished Porcelain protector (2 passes with a sponge, great product and pretty fumey too!)
Grouting using BAL Jasmine.

First issue - whereas with a glazed or other tile you can spread the grout onto the wall and work it into the joints, no chance here cos of the sealing stuff it all falls straight off the face onto the floor.

So - here's what I did, what did I do wrong??

So, I had to push the grout directly into the joints, using a metal decorating scraper was pretty handy. Not a problem.
Then, once a section was done, I did a quick wash-over with a wash-boy sponge. All looking good, joints nice and full.
So, carried along the walls, then went back and did the old final strike with wash-boy sponge, diagonal, once, rinse, next down etc. All going well and I'm congratulating myself fairly regularly.

My mistake - I then let the final wash residue dry on the tiles. Whereas you could normally buff it off a glazed surface once dry, NO CHANCE here!!!!!! It dried hard onto the face, it was impossible to remove unless you buffed/scrubbed really hard with a cloth (very hot n' sweaty work) I discovered that if you wetted the surface again, you could then buff it off with a dry cloth.

So, I did the rest of the room, this time only doing one wash-pass with the sponge, and then moving to using a cloth to buff them up. This made the process quicker, but I did find the cloth kept disturbing the grout and I had to go over it afterwards with a "licked finger-tip! to even it up.

What did I do wrong. Any suggestions?

I had a look at it this morning, and it looks really good once dry, so I'm happy, but at half past midnight last night I was getting a bit sweary!!!

Sounds like you had fun. I hate getting caught out like that when doing something your not used to 🙁

 

[Alan.P]

Sounds as if it were more grout than grout residue that was left on the tile.

 

[AliGage]

You had residue from the sealler on the tile.

 

[Dave]

Also leaving the grout to set up before final wash and buff.f

 

[p4ulo]

You had residue from the sealler on the tile.

Nah, I polished off the residue from the sealer before carrying on with grouting, and they were clean and shiny!
I think as others have suggested it was just grout residue, my issue was that where-as with normal glazed tiles you can polish off the residue at the end, it wouldn't budge from the face of these tiles. Not to worry!

 

[Billy Hunt]

I take it you used Bal Micromax? Goddam awful stuff is that for buffing off, don't know what they put in it but they need to be using less, gun metal and jasmine seem to be the worst imo.