I'm looking for some hand painted pool tiles from Italy

[pooldude]

Hi Guys.

I have the task of locating some tiles made in Italy some 44 years ago. I doubt I will be able to but the owners really want the same tiles or they can look like the old ones.

The tiles are for a pool and this pool was constructed 44 years ago. The tiles are coming off so we need to replace them.

They say on the back that they were made in Italy. They also have this written on the back:

DA
SS

made in Italy

Here is a picture of the tiles. It takes 4 tiles to make the one big tile picture. I'm not a tiler myself but we are hiring tilers to retile once we can find these tiles. any help locating these tiles would be much appreciated. Many thanks!

[Colour Republic]

How many square meters are you after? Can you not commission them? I would guess it would be neigh on impossible to get a match.

Where are you from by the way? That doesn't look like UK architecture

[Dave]

From the Bahamas..

[pooldude]

How many square meters are you after? Can you not commission them? I would guess it would be neigh on impossible to get a match.

Where are you from by the way? That doesn't look like UK architecture

from the Bahamas.

The owners don't mind paying to get an exact match. Not sure how many tiles we need. I'm in the process of draining the pool and will check next time I'm there. but the pool is around 50,000 gallons.

was there or do you think DA SS was the name of the company that made these tiles. Thats all we have to go on and that they were made some 44 years ago in Italy. they also look handpainted. I can see brush stokes.

[Tomtiler]

could mabye try cosmos in glasgow give them a ring they get most of there tiles from italy mite be a longshot but worth a try

[Colour Republic]

It looks like a fair sized property so I would have a little dig around any disused outhouses first. Try and find out who the builder was and who they may have dealt with? who was the likely importer in the area? or if they came via the US?

Here is a link to Italian tile houses Italian Ceramic Tiles - Italian Tiles - Ceramic Tiles of Italy - ItalyTile.com

I suppose it really depends on how important an exact match is to the customer and how much they are willing to pay for either commissioning or research.

Good luck with you search

[pooldude]

Thanks guys I will check those out.

The house was built in 1840 but the pool house and pool was built in 1965. I'm pretty sure they imported the tiles direct from Italy.

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

tiled floor painted walls, are you going to clean tiles down, sand- blast walls and re-paint then dude or what!!loverly old pool there what's the shell construction ??

[pooldude]

tiled floor painted walls, are you going to clean tiles down, sand- blast walls and re-paint then dude or what!!loverly old pool there what's the shell construction ??

we are going to remove all the tiles and re-tile. We will paint the rim.

there's an old waterfall that needs fixing also. pretty big renovation job. looking forward to it though. should look real nice when finished.

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

hay pool dude any chance of posting pictures of progress and the finished job, it would be great to see, and you never know you might win the job of the month competition mate!!!!good luck with the job!

[pooldude]

hay pool dude any chance of posting pictures of progress and the finished job, it would be great to see, and you never know you might win the job of the month competition mate!!!!good luck with the job!

Thanks. Yeah that would be cool. :LOL:

I posted some pics above but will post some more in a sec. still draining the pool. some green water still in there...

[pooldude]

steps...


pump room. not tiling it but we are going to resurface it next week...


more pool...

[Max_Damage]

Find a suitable zircon white and a cobalt blue tile base. Then have the decoration screen printed onto the white tile and fired. This can be done in any tile decoration studio. Main thing is to find a suitable base tile for the pool. The design can be colour separted from the original design to give a prety good copy.
I used to do this at Maw & Co. for Victorian restorations.

Max

[basshunter]

hmm it looks like sicilian majolica,maybe try caltagirone

[Colour Republic]

hmm it looks like sicilian majolica,maybe try caltagirone

I see where you coming from with that, the first time i looked at it, it had a Sicilian feel, maybe it's the colours as well as the design.

You been to Caltagirone Basshunter? Half my family live not that far away in Palermo, beautiful place

[pooldude]

Find a suitable zircon white and a cobalt blue tile base. Then have the decoration screen printed onto the white tile and fired. This can be done in any tile decoration studio. Main thing is to find a suitable base tile for the pool. The design can be colour separted from the original design to give a prety good copy.
I used to do this at Maw & Co. for Victorian restorations.

Max

There's a local tile company that makes tiles as well. I'm going to see if they might be able to do this. good idea thanks!

[pooldude]

hmm it looks like sicilian majolica,maybe try caltagirone

the underneath looks a bit like clay. I should have taken a pic.

[basshunter]

yes colour i have connections in sicily too lol ....selinunte/castelvetrano... stayed in erice last time,the hand painting thing is alive and well there
Am more interested in pooldude giving me the nod to come and fix the tiles lol
Just as a side thought-do you guys think they are suitable for a pool?have they blown because of how they are made?

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

good point bass, but then again if they have been on that long!!!!!

[pooldude]

yes colour i have connections in sicily too lol ....selinunte/castelvetrano... stayed in erice last time,the hand painting thing is alive and well there
Am more interested in pooldude giving me the nod to come and fix the tiles lol
Just as a side thought-do you guys think they are suitable for a pool?have they blown because of how they are made?

The guys who used to service the pool didn't know the stabilizer level was too low and always shocked the pool with Calcium Hypochlorite which raised the Calcium Hardness level way too high. I found 2,600ppm in the pool. With a CH that high scaling happens and my guess is the scaling was the cause for the tiles to come off. So we decided to drain the pool and start working on the renovations.

[lucius]

Ide say that the tiles are a pretty standard pattern in Italy and possibly still available, they are very simmilar to Spanish tiles of simmilar pattern which are still made here but how you would go about finding them i dont know, is their an Italian tiling forum?
Lucius.

[pooldude]

Ide say that the tiles are a pretty standard pattern in Italy and possibly still available, they are very simmilar to Spanish tiles of simmilar pattern which are still made here but how you would go about finding them i dont know, is their an Italian tiling forum?
Lucius.

good idea thanks.