Tiling tools

[curium]

Hi All,

I've been let down by a number of tilers. I guess they've got a lot of work on but it's disappointing when people don't attend to quote as agreed.

Anyway, the work still needs doing. I've done a bit of tiling before but I'm so slow and have few tools that it is not the most economical use of my time. Despite this I will be tooling up to get this bathroom done.

I'm after recommendations on a tile cutter (score and snap kind) that will work well with 600 x 300 mm, 10 mm thick porcelain tiles.

Last time I tiled I used BAL gear (single part flexible adhesive and micromax grout). This was back in 2017 and I know things move on so after advice on this. I'm removing the current flooring and will lay ply on to the joists and tile on the ply.

For the walls I'll remove the current tiles. The walls are brick (1934 property) so I'm assuming they were bonded/skimmed and then tiled .

Any advice on adhesive/grout and cutter is welcomed. Cheers!

 

[johnny2007]

Porcelain tiles can be a pain to snap, so my advice is to rent a Sigma cutter and avoid swearing like a sailor at every cut (and break).
For L cuts I've always used a cheap wet cutter with marcrist blades and got decent results.
I've recently used mapei tile adhesive and grout and they're better than bal in my opinion.

 

[RandomGrinch]

that will work well with 600 x 300 mm, 10 mm thick porcelain tiles.

When I was using large format tiles like that, I found I got much neater results by using a tile levelling system to avoid lippage.

 

[curium]

Porcelain tiles can be a pain to snap, so my advice is to rent a Sigma cutter and avoid swearing like a sailor at every cut (and break).
For L cuts I've always used a cheap wet cutter with marcrist blades and got decent results.
I've recently used mapei tile adhesive and grout and they're better than bal in my opinion.

£200-£300 to buy - ouch! Can't seem to find them available to rent in the big name chains like HSS.

Can anyone recommend a hire shop in London?

 

[johnny2007]

Go to local hire shops with a tile and ask to see how easily their cutter works.
I mentioned Sigma because I rented it a few times from my local hire shop, but there may be other brands just as good.

 

[drives]

I've used a Wickes heavy duty electric tile cutter for porcelain tiles (think they were 9mm thick). Worked well. I have a rubi manual cutter as well but I used the former way more and you can obviously do all the cuts you need with it.

I'd personally recommend epoxy grout, particularly for a bathroom. Kerakoll Fugalite Bio is good. Less prone to cracking, easy to keep clean and doesn't need sealing. It is tricky to apply but perfectly doable with a bit of forward planning and watching their video guide.

 

[cdbe]

I'm DIY tiling my bathroom with 600x600 porcelain, the floor is: joists, boards, 6mm cement boards fixed with flexi tile adhesive and screws. I'm using Mapei Keraflex S1 (gives you hours to get it right) and the Shmox twister leveling system, 10mm square notched trowel (I'm wondering whether to use my 10mm U notched for the walls as I think they're a bit flatter). I'll be priming the (newly rendererd) walls with SBR. I'm cutting with a Vitrex 102390 (only a few quid more than the 600 version). So far so good.

 

[robinbanks]

£200-£300 to buy - ouch!

yeah but a) paying a tiler is a boatload more than that and b) if you're happy to buy it at 200 quid, someone out there will be happy to buy it off you for 150 after you've finished one job with it. Keep the packaging and keep it in good nick

 

[AkiraDIY]

I bought a cheap score and snap cutter from Lidl for £15 the other week. I was looking at electric tile cutters but I had plenty spare tiles and the tiling job small, so I figured the saving was worth a shot. Considering the price, I set my expectations accordingly. Worst case, I'd damage a tile or two and take it back.

Surprisingly though, as long as the cut isn't a tiny piece/strip, it worked surprisingly well on 20mm thick brick slips and 10mm thick 100x100mm porcelain tiles. Score 2 or 3 times and snapped pretty easily with minimal pressure. Wasn't able to snap 15mm strip off either tile though, too narrow to get the pressing bit onto the tile cleanly. Not sure how well it would be on larger format tiles though

 

[robinbanks]

Wasn't able to snap 15mm strip off either tile though

Might need something like a slot cut into a piece of wood, so that snapping force can be applied to the entire length of the tile. You might also have some success by "chasing" the weakness with a hammer but at those widths youre probably looking at a blade cut for best results

That said, what necessitated such a thin rip of tile? If it's how the pattern ended up at an edge, then the entire layout of tiles should be shifted away by half a tile so you don't end up with thin rips at each edge (a wall that needs tile widths of e.g. 15mm, 300mm, 300mm, 15mm would perhaps be better done as 165mm, 300mm, 165mm - both are 630mm, but one doesn't require slivers)

 

[AkiraDIY]

Might need something like a slot cut into a piece of wood, so that snapping force can be applied to the entire length of the tile. You might also have some success by "chasing" the weakness with a hammer but at those widths youre probably looking at a blade cut for best results

That said, what necessitated such a thin rip of tile? If it's how the pattern ended up at an edge, then the entire layout of tiles should be shifted away by half a tile so you don't end up with thin rips at each edge (a wall that needs tile widths of e.g. 15mm, 300mm, 300mm, 15mm would perhaps be better done as 165mm, 300mm, 165mm - both are 630mm, but one doesn't require slivers)

Good advice, I just cut a line in with a multi tool and diamond grit blade (sprayed the tile first) then broke off the strip with tile nippers. Bit of faff but wasn't difficult.

I had a nook that was 2 and maybe a quarter tiles wide and the back is a different tile to the sides. The 15mm rip was throw-away as I didn't need to continue on the pattern onto the side walls.

So instead of going [300mm] [30mm] [300mm], where the middle tile would be too small and weird looking, I went [285mm] [60mm] [285mm], and the next layer was [165mm] [300mm] [165mm], and so on. (not the actual measurements, just an example, but you get the idea).