Cutting Tile?

[JonBoy]

Im thinking about redoing a bathroom with the cheap 12x12 in. tile you see on sale for about 78 cents each. How do you cut these? Cheap and easy way?

[fiasco]

home depot has a cheap wet saw ($75 I think) in their tile section (as does Lowes).

You could get a cheap score and snap jig but forget anything complex (going around pipes, toilet flange, ect).

[siliconbauhaus]

You could always rent a tile saw. For tricky cuts you can use a jig saw with a special blade. I know bosch makes the correct type.

[crokett]

From experience, a cheap score and snap cutter and For around the toilet flange a blade for your jigsaw is fine. If you want to use a wet saw, rent one.

[Pappy]

I used a diamond cutting blade on my 4 1/2" grinder. Messy and dusty, but it works.

[Santa Clarita Len]

I use the cheap score and snap from Harbor Freight (about $13 on sale) and it even cuts circles and I also use the 41/2 grinder with diamond blade (about $4 from HF) for other cuts, this combination works great.

[jAngiel]

When I did the game room in our addition I used cheap 12x12 tiles too. I went with a cheap handheld wet saw. It looks like a small circular saw with a water tube attached. It worked great.

I couldn't use the cheap table top type wet saws due to my wanting to lay the tile on the diagonal and the cheap table top wet saws would not accomidate a 12 inch tile. I just made a quick jig to hold the tiles and give me a straight edge to cut by.

[68KANE]

I would buy the $80 saw from HD as invariably your wife will love the job you did and think of other spots in the house for tile. Of course I look for ANY excuse to buy a tool and if you rent a tile saw, you'll be hampered by a deadline to get the saw back to them. By the time you rent it for a couple days, you could've bought the $80 one AND still have it for the next job.

[mrojec]

My wife and I used a Plasplugs ($90, I think) wet saw to do >1500 sq ft in our house and it worked great. In our area it was $50 per day to rent a saw, so it was much cheaper to buy one. A lot of the tile were 9/16" thick and the saw was able to cut them, albeit slowly.
Mark

[Curly Qsawn]

You could take the artist approach and break them into small pieces with a hammer and make a "mosaic" any place a 12x12 won't fit.

[lombard]

I just finished tiling my kitchen (13x13 tiles laid on a 45 deg diagonal). I ended up buying the Husky wet table saw from HD (next step up from their bare bones one). Came with a fence and a 45 adapter, but the 13" tiles were too big to use the fence and adapter for the angle cuts. Luckily, the blade guard on this saw has a laser in it, so I just marked my cut lines and cut away. Occasionally, I'd get down low and watch the blade, just to make sure I was cutting properly on the line, but I was probably lucky not to take a piece of tile shrapnel to the eye.

Probably would have been cheaper, faster, and less messy to just use one of the tile scoring cutters. Only had about 8 weird tile cuts where the saw came in handy. In which case my jig saw or a grinder would have probably worked.

Oh yeah, another piece of advice. DO NOT lay your tile with any of the pre-mixed "thin sets" or tile adhesives. I got over half of my floor laid with this crap. After three days, there was still movement in the tile when I walked on it...whould've trashed any grout I put in. I ended up popping up all the tile (VERY easy to do with a putty knife) a week after laying it. The adhesive was still just as wet as when I laid it. After soaking the tiles in water for a week, I spent two days pressure washing, scraping, and scrubbing the tiles. Then I went back and re-laid them using a real mortar based thinset. The bags were probably about 1/4 the cost of the pre-mixed for the same area and the thinset was much easier to work with and trowel properly.

[JimD]

I did several hundred square feet of floor in our former house, countertops in that kitchen and one bath, about 150 square feet of floor in our current house, a marble counter top on some cabinets in our current house, and some tile on the backsplash of our current house and above the one piece tub/shower units - also a tub surround in our current house. I am no pro but I have laid some tile.

All I use to cut is a "cracker" that is big enough to do 24 inch tile and a grinder with a dry cut abrassive blade. The cracker is a cheap one from Northern Hydraulic or Harbor Freight or one of those places. The fence is a bit challenging to adjust but it works. For more complicated cuts I use a cheap grinder bought as a "throw away" that keeps on working. I do not use a diamond blade, I just buy a cheaper abrassive blade sold for cutting bricks or concrete. Works fine. I made a picture frame shaped piece with the border about 1 inch wide putting a soap dish on the wall of a tub surround with my hand-held right angle grinder. I broke one but got what I needed the second time. I also cut a circular hole in the middle of a 13x13 inch floor tile with it for a toilet flange.

None of the tools you need for most tile work cost much. I did use a buddys wet saw to cut marble, however. I tried it a little with an abrassive blade but it wants to crack along natural fissures, especially as it heats up. I think wet saws are appropriate for natural stone tiles but for ceramic, a grinder or cracker will work just fine. A rod saw will work for wall tile but you better have a lot of patience if you want to cut a floor tile with one (I have tried and I do not have that much patience). I suspect a jig saw would be similar but I have not tried it.

For thinset, get the type with the latex in the dry mix. Should cost around $20 for a 50 lb bag. I have used epoxy and the dry mix with the wet latex additive but I see no advantage over the cheaper thinset with dry latex already in the powder.

Jim

[JeffG78]

HD Workforce

I bought the Workforce at HD for $88 three years ago. It is an awesome saw for the price. I had never layed tile before I did my bathroom, so I asked the tile guy at HD and he highly recommended that saw. He steered me away from the next few levels up (at the time) and said this saw would do a good job. I used it to do my whole bathroom including floor, shower walls, shower ceiling, edge trim, etc, as well as my current project which is tiling my entire basement floor of around 1000 sq ft. The saw cuts true and quick. My bathroom was all done with 12x12 DAL floor tiles and my basement is being done with the special sale 12x12 $.69 HD floor tiles. So far, I have done about 350 sq ft in the basement. Like 68Kane said, you WILL use it again after your wife sees what a nice job you did.

[emsmedic]

I've installed a lot of ceramic tile - from floors to showers to countertops. In my experience, the wet saws are worth every penny. I didn't have any luck with the score/breaker tools, just a lot of frustration and broken tiles.

Depending on the size tile you're using, you can probably get away with a 7" blade, table-style saw. I've only had a problem with diagonal cuts on a 16" tile, and then I just rented a larger wet saw for the day. You can also fabricate any number of simple jigs to hold your tiles at whatever angle you need.

If you plan on doing a lot of tiling, it may be worth it to bite the bullet and buy a wet saw. I split the cost of one three ways with a friend & relative and we've used it on a ridiculous number of projects. It's paid for itself many times over.

If the project is fairly small or a one-time operation, you can usually rent a saw for $50-75 per day from HD or any local tool rental. Policies vary - you may have to purchase/provide your own blade. Take the time to double-check their setup. The last saw I rented gradually worked its way out of square towards the end of the day and I wasted a couple of expensive tiles (did get a fat discount on the rental fee, though). Finally, lay out and set your uncut field tiles first, then rent the saw for the perimeter tiles. If you time things right and your layout isn't too complex, you can generally get all your cutting done in a single day.

The other guys are right about the thinset - buy the dry mix and stay away from the premixed stuff. It's bad news.