Slate recoat thought?

[Gozo]

I was touching up a few dinged spots on the garage floor and my wife peeked in (uh oh). “While you’re doing floor stuff, can you fix the entryway?

We have slate tiles that were covered with some kind of clear coating that’s got some peeled/worn spots. Been that way for at least 40 years. Probably more peeling than worn from the look of it.


Tried to catch a good lighting angle. She wants a semigloss or satin finish ideally. Any thoughts on how to remove (if need be) the current finish, and what would be a recommendation of replacement coating? I’m hesitant to just start throwing solvents or wire brushing for fear of making it worse in an irreversible way.

 

[KenC]

I think the first option would be a commercial floor stripper, used to remove old wax from floors. Usually used with a buffer and special pad. Maybe try the stripper on a small area, corner or something. It's not a harsh solvent, more a wax remover. And that may be what you have, old floor coating/waxlike stuff. If it is a real varnish/urethane or something that's a whole different thing.

Years ago I did some slate floors and the final step, after a good cleaning was a liquid waxlikse sealer.

 

[duneslider]

It was really common to put a clear polyurethane over the top of slate. You could try a floor stripper to see what it does but if it is poly you would have to mechanically remove it. I have done a number of floors that had slate inset in hardwood and we just coated over everything when we finished the wood.

The floors we went back to refinish the wood the slate still looked good and we just hit it with the buffer before recoating with another layer of poly...

I would think you could do the same with this, hit it with something to "rough" up the surface and then recoat with fresh poly.