Current tile cutter recommendations?

[Tim S]

Hi,

In about a week I'll be tiling the bathroom. Over the whole house I'll be looking at about 40m2 of floor tiling (eventually!) and wall tiling for kitchen, bathroom and shower.

Is it worth going to one of these:

saw)

or is it better to do as many tiles with a score n snap jig and use one of these for the awkward cuts:

time I did any tiling, I used a hand scriber and a pencil (or somesuch) to snap over, but that was the 80's and for one small space.

Cheers

Tim

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Tim S writes

Hmm.. cheap enough!

I have some 300x300mm 10mm floor tiles to do so might try one.

The Erbauer version has a more powerful motor and the blade is offset perhaps allowing larger tiles to be cut.

regards

[Dave Plowman (News)]

(Sliding saw)

It certainly looks a nice bit of kit and would allow you to do virtually any angled cut that can be a pain on an ordinary one. But how well it works in practice, I dunno. The storage space might be a problem too for some.

Last time I did any tiling, I used a hand scriber and a pencil (or

You'll get many views. Score and snap is much quicker - but doesn't give as nice an edge as a wet cutter. More difficult to do repeating cuts where you want tiles all the same size too. If you don't mind taking time - and I don't - wet is best. But I can see a pro preferring S&S where time is money.

[NT]

The tabletop type tile saw is more than enough, I dont see a need for the sliding type. And yes, they make tiling a joy, you get near zero wastage, perfect edges, and they're very quick too. And of course they do narrow strips and complex edges, which arent so easy with score and snap.

I'd sooner buy erbauer than titan myself, screwfix have them for not too much

NT

[mike]

Aldi were selling that model for =A370 around August/September 2007. The remaining stock was reduced to =A350 a few weeks later.

Assuming it comes round again this year, it should be any week now.

[Stuart Noble]

For ceramic tiles, yes, but a decent one if possible. I have a Rubi but it looks like this works on a similar principle.

the score handle also does the snapping, so that you only position the tile once. Doesn't sound that important but, after 40SM, you'll appreciate the benefits in terms of time and accuracy. It also easy to mark and cut tapers, which IME usually form the bulk of cuts. The edges are perfect (and therefore sharp) but, as these invariably go into a corner or behind skirting or whatever, it doesn't really matter. I usually do the tricky cuts manually with a diamond disc on a mini grinder (IIRC there were just 2 on the last room I did, so it wasn't worth setting a saw up outside for that).

[Airsource Ltd]

random B&Q special version of the latter.

We did about 20m2 of slate flooring, plus walltiles for a bathroom, plus my friend's bathroom floor and walls so far. Makes a racket, makes a mess with water spraying everywhere, still going strong, think we're on a new blade now, but not sure.

[NT]

The erbauer is noisy when cutting but hardly any water splash

NT

[F]

used the Focus version of that for around 60 boxes of tiles and it worked well. Certainly got my money's worth out of it!

Cutting tiles, in the garage, with the door open, in the middle of February, with the gentle spray of water hitting me in the chest...

...doesn't get any better.

[Tim S]

NT coughed up some electrons that declared:

Good opinion - ta.

The bloke in T Wells Screwfix was telling me that Erbauer is a test brand for one of the big boys to trial new stuff without sullying their own name if it turns out to be a lemon. I'll have to poke him and find out who the "big boy" is supposed to be. Implication is that Erbauer products

*might* be very good despite the no-name name.

I've found Titan not bad for odd things - my 9" angle grinder is one such. But it's not really a precision instrument :)

[Tim S]

mike coughed up some electrons that declared:

Hey that could be just in time. I'll look out for that - cheers :)

Tim

[Tim S]

Stuart Noble coughed up some electrons that declared:

That looks a nice cutter. Yes - most of our tiles will be ceramic, chosen as far as possible from the "clearance" section of various internet tile shops.

Got a few slates around the fire, but only a few.

I'm planning on using edging trim for external corners unless anyone can persuade me not to. Got some ali stuff, not the plastic.

Thanks

Tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am on my second diamond disc on mine.

The last straw after the 1" marble was the 1.5" sandstone paving slabs..

Its my angle grinder..

[Pete Verdon]

I've got the Topps Tiles own-brand version - seems more or less the same. As you say, wet and noisy but does the job. I repaired a missing tile in the kitchen floor by cutting down one that matched in colour but not in size, and you can't tell which are the cut edges and which the original. I bought a spare blade in case the current one gives up during the bathroom job.

Pete

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think they all splash if you don't set the guard correctly.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Cutting a tile at an angle? Although some of the table top types come with an angle guide to help with this, they're not as flexible as a sliding saw.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I cut some red concrete paving slabs on my Plasplug - wanted a perfect edge. And it came up like those polished mixed stone floors.

[Pete Verdon]

In that case, it's impossible to set the guard correctly on the Topps one - whatever you do it sprays everywhere. But still makes good cuts quite quickly and easily, so I'm happy with it.

Pete

[Steve Firth]

I've used one to cut fossils found on the beach and also to cut large terracotta pammets when replacing broken ones in the hall floor. The only comment made by the LBO was that the work looked "too good" compared to the originals.

[Bolted]

Repeatability is not an issue with a good score and snap.

FWIW, with glazed ceramic, I'd use a wet saw.

With hard porcelain, I use a manual cutter where I can, just because it takes so long on the wet saw if you have more than a few cuts to do, and the noise is hellish.