Sanding and honing travertine

[Tile Shop]

Ola. Calling out to any guys that have ever had to profile or sand down a honed and filled travertine tile.

We've had a distress call from a Bathroom Fitter/Tiler. There is one single travertine tile that is lipping by only half a mm. Yes its within tolerance of of BS, but his customer is really grinding his gears over it.

I have suggested that with the right gear he could grind it down, but the concern is whether he can get it to the same finish (or at least acceptable to the customer)

He can get hold of either a wet or dry polisher. He already has a belt sander to do the main bulk. I've never done it before so don't know whether or not this is a good idea. We have a filler for him to fill any holes that get exposed, so just need the best method of adding the finishing touch and what grit will give a uniform honed finish.

Thanks in advance 🙂

 

[Old Mod]

If the customer is that particular, he's better off replacing it. It'll be just as quick, and less risky.

 

[J Sid]

yes you can, and I have a few times 🙁 . Not hard if you have a variable speed grinder and sanding pads.
@ATSDiamondTools will have all that's needed and advise on process.

 

[J Sid]

its not hard to do marc and quicker than removing

 

[Old Mod]

its not hard to do marc and quicker than removing

No I agree Julian to a point mate.
If you've never done it before, is this the time to learn, with a client snagging a half mil lip?
Not so sure.
Esp if he leaves swirl marks in the floor, easy done.

 

[J Sid]

No I agree Julian to a point mate.
If you've never done it before, is this the time to learn, with a client snagging a half mil lip?
Not so sure.
Esp if he leaves swirl marks in the floor, easy done.

know what your saying, but if there is the option to take one up what not have a play first.
he could always take an off cut home and hard a practice. It is one of the easiest stones to cut back

 

[Flintstone]

Take it out man and make sure the end result is 100 percent. No chance of an issue

 

[Old Mod]

know what your saying, but if there is the option to take one up what not have a play first.
he could always take an off cut home and hard a practice. It is one of the easiest stones to cut back

Yeah course, if time isn't an issue, perfect idea.
Only trouble is with playing in situ is that as he's taking down an edge it's very likely he'll hit at least one other tile.
Just the way I see it mate. Not necessarily the right way, but I wouldn't trust it to someone who's never done it before. I'd wanna do it myself.
What would you do Julian? Haha

 

[Andy Allen]

I would try anything rather than replace a tile.....you always end up damaging the next tile then the next tile......before you know it you've taken half the floor up..

 

[JMC tiling]

would like to see a picture of this "half ml lip" seems a bit harsh to me depending of course on grout gap width.

 

[J Sid]

would like to see a picture of this "half ml lip" seems a bit harsh to me depending of course on grout gap width.

1/2mm in the wrong light can look huge

 

[Lithofin BOB]

If they are that fussy with a lip, will a slight tonal/polish difference be acceptable, can be done, again as above working the edges/corners,how leval is the grout to the face of he tile , will this be affected if high, I would practise on a spare tile ,cut into half and polish up! Can you match it,

If you are cutting in to a test stone , I would test your sealer after you have polished out ,as the impregnator can also highlight colours/textures where you have cut.

Replacement could be easier, would you get issues with matching the grout joint?, would it be seamless?

 

[JMC tiling]

If they are that fussy with a lip, will a slight tonal/polish difference be acceptable, can be done, again as above working the edges/corners,how leval is the grout to the face of he tile , will this be affected if high, I would practise on a spare tile ,cut into half and polish up! Can you match it,

If you are cutting in to a test stone , I would test your sealer after you have polished out ,as the impregnator can also highlight colours/textures where you have cut.

Replacement could be easier, would you get issues with matching the grout joint?, would it be seamless?

good point made about the grout colour, that's why I would like to see a picture to see if customer is being reasonable. You could lose the lip but have a whole new world of issues with a different grout shade.

 

[J Sid]

if the customer is not happy the issue need sorting even if it is unreasonable....
customer is always right even when wronge

 

[J Sid]

🙂

 

[JMC tiling]

IMO sometimes in life a compromise has to be made, we do not live in a perfect world no matter how hard we try. What if you install a tile with a slight bow of say 1/2ml which is well within in tolerance and the customer pulls it, what you gonna do then? Experience also tells me that some customers ( a small minority) will try and take advantage if they feel like they could get away with saving a few quid. So no, the customer is not always right....

 

[Tile Shop]

Picture is available i think. Not at work at the moment. It was first raised 2 months ago but he's back and forth at the house doing other bathroom/en-suite/tiling jobs. But every time he goes back, the guy brings this one tile into question. Everything else he's done couldn't be faulted.

Grout joint is 3mm, and only looks bad if you look at it in a certain light. The close up picture he took if i recall correctly it only just came half way up a penny! But guess it can easily be felt with bare feet.

 

[On one]

If it was me......take the tile up and replace.
It's the only way you're going to keep this customer satisfied.
He wants his pound of flesh and he isn't going to happy until he gets it.(he wants to see you taking this tile up,no matter what)
Surely taking up the tile would be the lesser of the two evils.....soft stone....core drill it out from the centre with a series of small holes to weaken the tile and carefully chisel the rest out.