Newbie tiling: grout profiles

[bruce_phipps]

Just did my first ever grouting job last night -- tiling splashbacks on the kitchen wall and round the kitchen units. It went fairly well, I found I could work pretty quickly once I'd got the hang of the "squeegee".

A couple of questions:

• Grout profile -- I had a go at running a piece of wood dowel over the joints to create a grout profile, but in the end gave up as it was too fiddly. Is a proper concave grout profile really necessary on kitchen walls? When should I apply the profile -- before or after sponging over?

• I was thinking about giving the tiles "another coat" of grout this evening, to cover any bits I may have missed. Worth doing or will I mess up what I've already done?

Bruce

[Dave]

I've tried using dowel, etc but without success so normally reverted to using my index finger and coping with the soreness for a few days afterwards; HOWEVER, I recently bought a rubber finger(!) from Topps Tiles - fantastic widget and well worth the couple of quid it cost!

[zymurgy]

Indeed. Profilers are usually only any good for Mastic or sealant.

I usually use the rubber squeegee, then a sponge, then for final profiling use a wet finger

Concave just below the surface of the edges is the best profile.

Yep, don't worry about going back over, remove some old grout as necessary. I used some dodgy "adhesive + grout" [in one] from Wickes once that shrank as it dried, needing a second coat.

Using decent grout (like Bal with Microban) will make the job easier as you only need to do it once.

It's quite important to ensure you have to go over the grout line only once as it's a bad enough job as it is, without doing it twice .. !

Cheers,

Paul.

[Holly, in France]

me too until recently.

I recently heard about using electrical cable. After a bit of experimenting I found that a short length of cable about 5mm diameter curved vertically over the top of my index finger worked really well. My favourite bit of cable is now safely stored with the rest of the tiling kit :-)

-- Holly, in France. Holiday home in the Dordogne, website:

[bruce_phipps]

Its been 2 days since I did the grouting. There is a fine layer of grout on most of the tiles. How do I remove this...wipe over with a damp cloth?

Bruce

[zymurgy]

Use some of those cheap foam scouring pads. The neater you put on the grout in the first place (don't leave anthing proud or on the edges of the tile) the easier it is to finish off. This takes a bit of practice ;-)

I can't stress enough not to use cheap grout. Premixed is usually not the best product, as you can get the powder to a better consistency for application. The problem is estimating the right amount of grout powder !

Cheers,

Paul.