www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

About a year ago we had a travertine floor/tiles laid the overall finish was great as the tile were honed and polished,
what we have now started to discover is small holes appearing in the tiles as if air bubbles in the tiles are coming through the supplier did offer to have our floor ripped up and redone but after having the stairs recarpeted and spending about a grand on redecs and new skirting this is out of the question, as this is a natural product i quite accept that some imperfections will appear and am quite happy to fill the holes myself with travertine filler but what do i use to polish up the surface again or even the areas that have been filled i'm quite prepared to buy any tool for the job as we are going to have more laid in the future and also the holes are not big (about 2mm) i think it gives it a bit of character but the other half is not happy.
Anyhow does anybody know what tool/s i could purchase to carry out the polishing of the surface.

Many thanks in advance
Leebwk

Hi Leebwk,

Imperfections in all natural stones are very common as you say, however its more down to the quality of the stone itself.

Travertine in particular does have very visible imperfections and either your supplier or there supplier filled the holes the first time before the whole tile was polished/honed.

You will need to fill these with the travertine filler however i would suggest not polishing the tiles back as-
A)you'll have to do the whole tile
B)you'll need to buy a polisher estimate £25-£200 then a 100mm velcro backing pad £10(M14 fixing) and then the polishing adhesive pads (marble rather than granite or siliconed paper) £70 = alot of money just to make your tiles shine.

The polishing pads will be cheaper if you can buy them individually i'd start from 200grit upto the buff(DRY POLISHING PADS)

other than that you can try a few liquids i've got which i use to give a high gloss to my products at the end of manufacture, that'll work for 3/4 months but then you'll have to repeat the process, i can send you a couple different samples and let me know what one works best and i'll get you a tin of it £10-£15 and its alot cheaper than buying the tools and pads etc.

Hope this helped

Phil

Hi Stone geezer,

That will be great i will PM you later also can you recommend a decent filler,

Again many thanks

Leebwk

hey leewbk,

I dont know of an actual travertine filler as this particular stone is something i dont work with, but i'll try and help!

First off if your tiles our honed then a general purpose filler or masonry filler finished off with a buff.

If there polished you'll have a problem as you'll need to use a type of masonry 2 part glu which is polish-able.

Or you can use a buff and add solid wax to the holes and finish it of with my sparkling stuff - Im not 100% if this will work but i think it will.

The hardest thing about using glue,filler, and wax, is colour matching! i use dyes to colour match with the glue i use and this does take some practise.

I think it would be easier to just replace those effected tiles.

Speak to Alan at A T Stone i know he supplies mainly tiles etc, and is in the know maybe a bit more.

All the above methods i have only done with granite and marble stones where-as travertine is lot softer than either though i dont see why it would'nt work.