Pleasure mate
When it comes to grouting, make sure your
tile joints are very clear especially towards the surface of the
tile, it's best to keep these clean as your tiling with a damp sponge but if you have let it dry don't worry just gently run a stanley knife or similar down th joints.
You are only trying to clear the edges of the
tile so your grout has a good base to stick too (so don't waste your time trying to get the adhesive out that you can see at the back of
tile if you look in the joint, YOU ONLY NEED THE EDGES CLEAR AND MAKE SURE NOTHING IS PROTRUDING OUT THE SURFACE OTHERWISE IT WILL SHOW WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED)
Mix the grout by hand (put a surgicle glove on or rubber glove is also good) get yourself a normal sized bucket and put about half inch of water in it (oh yeah make sure the bucket is spotless) slowly poor your grout into the water, not too much just a little more than the amount of water you put in.
Now mix it up untill all lumps have gone and its very runny, now just keep adding a little of the powder (say about half a pint at a time) to that mix, keep mixing it up untill all lumps and bumps are gone in the grout.
You should repeat the above until you reach a consistency that is like a very thick custard or like errrmm you ever scooped the ice cream out of a mcdonalds milkshake and sucked it off the end of your straw?? well it should be something like that lol... you want it so you can work it on the walls rather than rushing around with your grout float trying to spread it before it falls off. Hope that makes sense mate. it will look nice and smooth and shouldn't be moulding into clumpy balls or anything.
Leave it to sit in the bucket for 10 mins to let all air bubbles come out (make sure no dirt gets in the bucket) after 10 mins give it one final stir to liven it back up. Then get a good bit of it on your float (just scoop it out, no need to load it up with a bucket trowel or anything) once you got a good bit on slap it on the wall (i normally slap it right where the 4 corners of the tiles meet) from there you should be moving it around with your float making sure that you are really working it into every part of every grout joint.
No cheating now and thinking it will be ok!!! you should be sweating!! or at least breathing slightly heavy, grouting is hard work Les so expect to get tired. If your not tired then your not working it the joints enough. Don't cover to big an area at one time you should be looking to grout up about a metre square or slightly less at a time. Once you happy (or not cos grouting really is horrible) that you have covered all the grout joints in your chosen area run your float over it again to collect as much of the loose grout as possible (don't worry about getting it all off, just whatever comes of when you run you float back over it) oh yeah, don't dig the edges of your grout float into the
tile joints just run your float in a sort of semi circle motion across the tiles working thick lumps of grout into the joints, letting the grout go into the joint and oozing out as you put pressure on it (this is where you should be sweating and cursing and swearing that your going to beat the next person up you see lol) keep doing this as you move your float along until that particular piece of grout has been used up.
Now leave it to sit on the walls for between 5 - 15 mins depending on your room temp. If it's a very hot day or your room is particulaly (however u spell it) hot then just leave it a few mins. Now with a clean damp sponge (tilers spong should be able to pick a few of theese up in topps or somewhere. not car washing spong!!) work the grout around the wall in a figure of 8 motion going gently over the joints (your not trying to wipe the grout off at this point you are just working it all around the area so the joints look like they are smooth and equall, don't worry about the grout on the face of the tiles just yet just work the whole lot round as one) any little holes that you see just fill with a loos bit of grout from anywhere (as long as its clen)
Now get a different clean TILERS sponge and rinse it out in another bucket of very clean watter. Now you need to clean everything off the tiles, wipe your sponge accross the area that you have just grouted, only do one wipe from top to bottom or bottom to top and if you can do this going in a diagonal motion accross the tiles thats great (but sometimes you will have to go in straight motion cos of the adjoining wall or something, when you do don't push to hard otherwise you wil pull the grout out the joints and and it will look rubbish when your done) what should be happining as you run sponge over the tiles is all the grout thats on the faces of the tiles should be coming off and the joints should also tidy themselves up) remember you are only doing one wipe with a gentle bit of force in one direction. Then turn your sponge over and wipe another section with this clean side of the sponge.
Once you have done TWO wipes with your sponge give it a good rinse out in your bucket then do it all over again until all the grout is off the tiles and they are gleaming at you.
Les, its fairly important that you work fast cos all the time the grout mixture in you bucket is going off.
Now do the whole process over and over and over again until you are completed or your grout runs out. If you have to mix more grout try to get it to the consistency as the first mixture (this is why its good to mix it by hand)
Once the whole shower is done, stand back and think to yourself that your glad you never took up tiling for a living :lol:!!!!!!!!!!
After about half hour or so you will notice a haze of dust coming on the surface of the tiles, you can either keep going over your tiles with a clean damp sponge using the one wipe system until it no longer appears or you can do what i do which is to leave it for a couple fo hours then come back with an old t-shirt (clean and lint free, so no little bits of fluff go in your joints) and polish the walls with it. You better wear a face mask cos this does get very dusty but i think its worth it cos it really does bring the tiles up to a beautiful shine. Go easy over the joints but don't be scared to put a bit of pressure on it either cos it would be pretty solid by now. Whilst you are wiping it over if you notice any of the grout in the joints looking rough or spilling over the edge of
tile just run your finger with the cloth arond it over that joint until it looks neat to you.
Oh yeh that reminds me when you are initially sponging the grout into the tiles (the first sponge over) try to make sure that the grout does not spill over the front of the
tile, try and get it so it sits just below or level with the
tile. Nothing uglier than grout spilling over the edge of a
tile.
If you gop have a look at you tube you might find they have a small video or something on there of a PROFESSIONAL grouting up and that should put a lot of what i said into a clearer contaxt for you.
Once again mate, just relax, take your time and enjoy it. And remember grouting is hard work you should be aching the whole time lol
Good luck mate and please keep us posted, if you got any photos let us have them please as there are a fair few new tilers on here who would be really interested to see how you got on.
Thanks mate
TJ
