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Encaustic cement tile - colour variations

Asked by Kathy from Cambridge: Hi, These are actually new tiles, not Victorian, but are Victorian in style. They are cement encaustic tiles made in the old fashioned way in Portugal using molds. The problem is that when the tiles arrived, the colours were deeper on some than others, but I was advised that this was because the deeper-coloured ones had been sealed. I was assured by my tiler that after the tiles were laid, all I needed to do was seal the light-coloured tiles repeatedly to darken the colours to match the others. The tiles are now in place, and I have applied sealant repeatedly to the lighter tiles but the colour has not changed. The only exception has been one light tile to which I applied 'colour intensifier' before sealing. This one tile has darkened. Unfortunately I didn't treat all the light tiles in this way, as the darkening of this one tile only showed up after sealing. My question is: is there any way I can 'unseal' the lighter tiles to get back to a point where I can somehow intensify their colours, and do you know the best way to do this 'intensifying' of colour? Thanks for any advice you can give. Regards, Kathy

TileProf says: Hi Kathy, I have been in this trade a long time and the colour variations sound like different batches, not that they have been sealed or not, these tiles are always sent out unsealed, so In afraid you have been led down the garden path on that one and now they are laid you wont be able to have recourse with the retailer, but the Tiler should have noticed this before he set them out. The best thing you can do is to try maybe Tile Doctor Colur Grow see if this will darken the lighter ones, I fear though it will never be perfect though. Regards Russell at Tile Doctor http://www.tiledoctor.co.uk/Tile-Doctor-Colour-Grow-Sealer.asp

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