Super Black Polished Porc...... Faded To Grey

[Tile Shop]

Art'noon

Hoping someone can offer some advise on this one.

One of our local guys has fitted a Black polished porcelain on a shop-front. They've been up a year and they have gone grey. My thoughts are that the black pigmented wax used to seal and darken the tile during manufacture has affected UV and bleached them. The same tile has been used on the shop floor and its batted off everything that has been thrown at it and is still the same colour as when it was first laid, so I doubt its anything to do with the quality of them. The same cleaning products have been used both internally and externally.

Does anyone have any thoughts on making them black again, either cleaning solutions, a black polish, mechanical polishing of a combination of all of them etc...... and then once thats done, is there any form of UV protection that can be applied to prevent it happening again?

We have told him a glazed but frost proof porcelain won't fade, but he's looking at repair options before he considers it being ripped down and started again (not straight forward...... he hooked them all!).

He chose the tile for the customer so they're gunning for him to sort it out. Any help would be appreciated

 

[Spud]

It sounds like the pigments in the tile body have been bleached by sun , I dont know of anything that would work to bring it back, perhaps a colour intensifier but the pores are so tight on porcelain not sure if it would work

 

[Lithofin BOB]

You still at work Paul , have you got a photo of the back of one of these tile we can look at.
Is there a blue dye on the back on the edges

 

[Tile Shop]

You still at work Paul , have you got a photo of the back of one of these tile we can look at.
Is there a blue dye on the back on the edges

Nope. Back home now. I'll ask him about the blue. And i'll send you the pic tomorrow (and post it on here). He still has a loose tile which he used to compare and it looks pretty bad.

 

[Dan]

What was the outcome of this?

 

[Tile Shop]

The image he sent in was tiny. looked like two different colours of fuzz. I've asked for a larger close up but he hasn't sent it yet. He's probably gone back to his original supplier.

 

[Andy Allen]

Did they come from visage...