Quarry blisters

[ChassyH]

Its me banging on about my quarry tiles again, I shall have to have a new user name, 'Beatle' perhaps ? (Is that too obtuse? - maybe)

Anyway, back to the question, the floor I am about to seal with linseed oil, now obtained, and thanks to all who replied to my earlier post, has been covered with carpet and lovely green rubberised underlay for some years, is now revealed in all its glory, and has some strange-looking 'blisters' on some of the red tiles, perhaps 10% of the floor.

Is this a normal problem, I thought that quarries were very resilient to this sort of thing ??

 

[Flyfisher]

I shall have to have a new user name, 'Beatle' perhaps ? (Is that too obtuse? - maybe)

Moondogs?

(not much help with the quarry men - I mean tiles - sorry :wink: )

 

[inwood]

When you say blisters do you mean they have small lumps on the tiles themselves. I have several area of quarry tiles/pamments. Many have small blisters or 'spalled' areas. This is particularly prevalent where the tiles were laid on sand/lime bed over earth. I presume these blisters are similar to spalling on exterior walls - either caused by frost action or by salts getting into the hairline airspaces in the tiles themselves and expanding, causing the face to blow.

I've now relaid the majority (except for the hallway) on limecrete and so expect the damp issue to be lessened. However the pamments/quarry tiles in the hallway (which remain on earth/sand/lime) do show signs of old blistering - i.e. the faces are fairly rough in areas where it would appear that the face has been eroded over the years by small bits 'blistering' off the face.

I wouldn't worry too much about it - it's a very slow process and in my opinion only adds to their character.

Do you have any pictures?

 

[ChassyH]

I can get some to post on here, if anyone can tell me the procedure to follow in order to do it.

 

[Moo]

If the blisters really disturb you, have you thought about lifting and relaying them the other way up?

 

[skier-hughes]

I can get some to post on here, if anyone can tell me the procedure to follow in order to do it.

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[ChassyH]

I shall get some pix here soon, I promise.

I have tried removing some of the blisters (in an inobtrusive place) they easily knock off - in fact I removed a little one with my hoover crevice nozzle (!!) - underneath is some chalky-white stuff which I assume is a salt which has caused the spalling in the first place. I wondered why there was a white ring round most of the blisters, I thought it was residue from the cleaning agent I had used - Grimex.

Nice to hear from you again Moo - or should it be Queen of the Danish ?

 

[Penners]

the quarry men

Oh, well spotted. I was trying to work that one out.

Moondogs has got me stumped, though.

 

[DaveBrigg]

Moondogs has got me stumped, though.

Johnny and the Moondogs was another name they came up with, before The Beatles (a reference to Buddy Holly and the Crickets I think)

 

[Flyfisher]

Full marks to Davebrigg! There was also a brief 'Silver Beetles/Beatles' phase before they dropped the silver.

 

[Penners]

I think I'd heard about the Silver Beetles, but Johnny and the Moondogs is new to me.

So today hasn't been a waste - I learned something new and important.

 

[ChassyH]

Apparently the Quarrymen changed their name for a talent contest in 1958, they had entered the previous year under their old name and done so abysmally that they thought a name change might help !! They dropped the 'Silver' bit from their name when John was announced on stage as 'Long John Silver' !!!