darkening slate tiles

I recently installed two crates of slate tiles. We sorted each crate separately and did not realize that the different crates would have such different hues. One crate was dark and one was much lighter. Of course the two crates were installed on different sides of the room making a huge visible division between the two sides of the floor. I thought that the sealer would darken the lighter ones up by adding more layers of sealer, but the lighter tiles just soak up the sealer and lighten up again. I like the darker tiles better and I want to darken the rest of the tiles to match. I was reading a thread about linseed oil and mineral spirits on saltillo tiles. Would this method work on slate as well? Any advice would be appreciated.

Anything you do using a transparent sealer or stain or oil will only take each individual tile to another degree of color. It will not make all the tiles look the same no more than waxing a Ford will make it look like a Cadillac.

It is common practice when installing tile to use tiles from a multitude of tile boxes because of the color and shade variations that can occur. The same goes when using cribs of stone tiles. The cribs should be opened and mixed and sorted 100% before beginning the installation.

I know of no way to bring all the tiles to the same appearance without using a topical opaque coating and I have no idea how one would do that. Painting/coating any type of tile is not possible with any assured degree of success.

I don't necessarily want them to look uniform - I just want the hue to be similar. If I keep going over individual tiles with sealer or linseed oil/mineral spirits, will it continue to darken them? I don't mind doing this even though it seems tedious.

I doubt the use of any oil will darken a tile once it has been sealed. I think you are sailing in uncharted waters.

If you have extra tiles play around with your ideas and see what (if anything) works for you.

Tho mineral spirits may darken a stone tile at first what happens when the mineral spirits evaporates? In another vein, what will keep any oil product from becoming gummy and collecting soil/dirt?

Where did you come upon this mineral spirits/linseed oil information?

I got that idea from a thread on this site about darkening saltillo tiles (this method was recommended over using motor oil). Do you think that extra layers of sealer will work? Do I need to strip the sealer to try to darken them? I will try with scraps.

OK but the problem is you haven taken comments about Saltillo tile which is a man made clay product and applied those comments to a stone product. It's two different worlds.

The use of motor oil on Saltillo is just plain and simple stupid. The use of any oil on stone also isn't the most intelligent thing that could be done.

Do you think that extra layers of sealer will work?

I have my doubts because once the first sealer application is made the pores in the stone start to become closed. Subsequent applications will only close the stone more.

Do I need to strip the sealer to try to darken them?

I doubt you'll strip the sealer with any success. Keep in mind the stone is porous. How is a stripper going to clean the interior of the stone? It is likely it won't and the chemical used will only clog the stone with a chemical that would have a future negative effect on future applications of anything. How will a stripper darken the stone?

So there is nothing that I can do?

Like I suggested earlier: Play around with some spare tiles and see what you can come up with.

I don't know of any way to rewind on this one short of pulling all the tile and starting over with knowledge you didn't have back then.

Standby and see if anyone else can offer a good solution.