I have a customer who had Terracotta tiles put in her kitchen. The previous contractor stained the tiles then supposedly applied 10 coats of polyurethane. Needless to say 2 years later and it looks like a pile of dog squeeze.
Now they want stained tiles in the laundry room I’m renovating.
Has anybody successfully applied a sealer or finish that will protect the stained look they are after.
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Never done it, but traditionally you flood the tiled floor with linseed oil, literally flood like standing oil over the tiles. Then you clean that mess up and wax the tiles. That's how to get the real, old-timey warm look.
I'd look at flooring products. You don't want something real thick. I think that they are using clear acrylics to seal and keep shine on commercial floors. They just run a buffer and a spray bottle periodically.
We had a tile floor in So Cal that was soft and from Mexico. We had a small cheap buffer that we applied paste wax with when we wanted it nice.
Mike is close, or maybe experiencing regional differences.
In my earlier years I worked on a "few" TC floors.
Boiled Linseed and turps with stain if desired rubbed liberally on the tiles. Almost flooded as Mike suggested.
Keep in mind that this is a HIGHLY volatile mixture.
A day or three later the finisher would come in and pour melted butchers wax on and buff it out.
Sweat.
You can probably strip the old finish with a steelwool buffer.
You need to find some old guy who is half dead to work this stuff.
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I've heard of the linseed oil on it, but I'm curious what the durability and maintenance will be like?
Wax over the linseed.
Just like the old floors, needs a buff evry 6 mos. to a year depending on traffic and how you want it to look.[email protected]