Cleaning travatine tile

[Sortini@att.net]

We have just covered our whole bathroom from ceiling to floor including the shower with a dull finished travatine tile. It looks gorgeous, but the person who laid it used a pencil and sometimes a pen to make small markings on it. We are wanting to seal the tile, but these markings won't come off. Help! What can we do to get them off?

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[ob1kanobee]

Bar Keepers Friend. You can find it at the Dollar Store comes in a Commit like can. You can also use wet sanded grout gently.

[RedRockTile]

Acetone and goof-off are my favorites. Use a good absorbent towel.

The problem is that the ink and pencil is down in the pores of the tile - not on the surface. So all your scrubbing is in vain unless you can get it out of the pores.

[Stone Dude]

try a pencil eraser first, this works sometimes.

if you have some grout, take some in your hand, dry, and rub it agressively in the area.

you should get the tile setter to come back and clean up his crap. I could probably make a living removing pencil marks.

[ccarlisle]

Yup. Ball-point pen ink is a highly pigmented fluid that is predominantly organic-solvent based. Pencil lead not so...there we're talking microfine carbon as a physical form. Both require special cleaning/removal techniques that good stone restorers know about (that's why they don't use -especially - pencils)...

His goof-up - his problem to solve. Don't you do anything for fear of making it worse and owning the problem.

[ob1kanobee]

Ink (magic marker, pen, ink): Clean with bleach or hydrogen peroxide (light colored stone only!) or lacquer thinner or acetone (dark stones only!)

[doitright]

Hi Sortini, Welcome! :)

For removing pencil marks on travertine, I've had good success using an orange hydro sponge, or Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser.

The pen is a different story. It depends if it was a magic marker or a ball point pen. It's not often that I see pen marks on travertine. Magic marker, that's another story.

The good thing is that travertine is a fairly dense stone. Mechanical abrasion may work best with some 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper.