tiling my kitchen splashbacks and i waited too long before wiping the grout off and it has set solid (Gutted) i have used mapei anti-mould grout . Water and the  abrasive side of the sponge are not touching it.  they are only white metro tiles. what would be my best way to salvage the situation?, I tried scraping a bit of grout out with a 1" scraper and it left a grey scratch on the tile. are those abrasive grout rakes any good?

ive managed to get pretty much all the grout off the faces but the grout lines look terrible as they are really jagged. 

be gutted if i have to bash the tiles off and reskim the wall. 

Try this.   https://www.screwfix.com/p/magnusson-grout-rake-2-50mm-/428PG?kpid=428PG&ds_kid=92700055262507126&ds_rl=1244066&gclid=Cj0KCQjw7KqZBhCBARIsAI-fTKIaIzsIJ_nNIYaFkAqEo1lOLNL_yapboPAHHRWLs4gI7zhSP1jgHlYaAvXTEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Cheers for the reply,

I was looking at that one, roughly how long would it take me to rake out 4M of metro tiles? and does it knacker the tiles if the sides are abrasive as well?. it took me about a day and a half to stick these ones on as someone who has never tiled before. so wondering if it might be best to just cut my losses and bash them off the wall 😬 , whole situation is annoying as i did a real nice job of the tiles.

 

 

1 hour ago, gaz_moose said:

I tried scraping a bit of grout out with a 1" scraper and it left a grey scratch on the tile.

That 'grey' may well be steel. Ceramic (and some grout) is harder than steel so you're depositing a thin film of metal on the surface. It may well polish off with autosol or similar metal polish. I'd go at it again with a sharp blade like those used for scraping glass e.g https://www.screwfix.com/p/heavy-duty-scraper-4/16530 then see if you can polish it up.

I had tiles that the grout hadn’t been cleaned off properly, like you I tried water and abrasive sponge- no good. I ended up getting those little magic sponge things and used them dry , they were great although I did use a few as they wear down quickly.

A dremal works well

I once got colours mixed up in two bathrooms Charcoal and cream 

It took three days to take out a 100 m2 of grout 

Wall paper steamer, go gently or the tile adhesive will soften up as well.

 

Tip. fastest way to remove ceramic tiles and leave a nice clean wall. Only works on plastered block and brick work....... Don't attempt it on plasterboard walls.

i tried sponging over the grout with boiling hot water and it didn't soften it up at all.

 

i will try some abrasive cutting compound on the silver scratches see if it gets them off.

Edited September 22, 20224 yr by gaz_moose