Tile cutter gone wrong!

[Thomarse]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies yesterday. I went and bought the =A319.99 (reduced from =A329.99) tile cutter from Screwfix this morning.

set it all up as the instructions said, thought I'd give it a try at lunch time, started it up, waited for it to reach full speed... slwly pushed my first tile in and.... it made a horrible noise and started to rattle.

I stoped the machine, lifted teh blade guard to have a look and the silver diamond cutting edge? had broken up, leaving the blade looking like a large bike cog!!!

Has anyone experienced this with one of these blades before.. the diamond coating obviously just disintegrated at the slightest touch of the tile! I was extremely gentle as it was my first time etc and didnt kwno what to expect.

I'm guessing its a dodgy blade, 'm hoping Screwfix will give me a new one that wont do the same! It was quite dangerous as teh bits came flying out! Lucky I had my goggles on!

Tom

[George]

Cutting the tile at the opposite side to were it should be cut?

[Tim Downie]

Surely shouldn't make any difference. A dimond cutter should just laugh at tiles, no matter which side is presented.

Tim

[Thomarse]

I didn't check the blad direction, as it was brand new, i assumed they had put this in the correct way round! now its happened I'm wondering if they did!!!

It does say in instructions thatit has to go a certain way...

I will be returning it for a swap - 30 mile round trip which is annoying, but hopefully this is a one off!!

[George]

So why do they have an arrow printed on one side indicating its direction of rotation?

[stuart noble]

I don't think there are teeth as such so I'm sure the direction wouldn't matter that much. Could be that the blade wasn't fully tightened or the washer wasn't in the right place or something. Then it would probably spin ok until it came into contact with something.

[George]

I didn't check the blad direction, as it was brand new, i assumed they had put this in the correct way round! now its happened I'm wondering if they did!!!

It does say in instructions thatit has to go a certain way...

I will be returning it for a swap - 30 mile round trip which is annoying, but hopefully this is a one off!!

Is the direction arrow showing when you lift the guard? ie the tray side, if so then its not the blade.

[Thomarse]

Im not near the machine now so cant check but will do later.

The bits that came off just looked like a graphite composite material, which were bonded/stuck to the metal part of the blade... Surely this makes them prone to this kind of thing as a weak point in the bond would cause a cracking at that high speed>?

Now it has broken and the coating has come off it makes me question hwo it would ever work, it doest seem strong enough. Screfix said they had never heard of it happening before and I guess all diamond disks are made the same way?

[matthew.larkin]

Surely good advice that applies in many situations ;-)

Matt

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I know some have an arrow etc, but are the plain types actually handed? They appear just to be a disc with the edge part diamond coated.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Normally label or printed side out.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I replaced my blade (wore out after a thousand tles or so, and a few sandstone paving slabs) for one that cost about 15 quid.

Now you now why the cutter was so cheap ;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I don't think they are. This was just a shoddy disc, and that's why it was being knocked out so cheap.

Top quality diamond would be over £40 in that sort of sze..that's for just the DISC..

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The Plasplugs ones are about 20 quid and seem to have a good life.

[The Natural Philosopher]

When mine went, there were replacements fro corundum at 7 quid, cheapo diamond at a tenner, decent diamond at 15, and the sort of 'I can chew through granite in a microsecond' diamonds at 40 quid.

On the bigger sizes it gets even more expensive for the really tough ones.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There's not much choice with Plasplug ones as they seem to have an odd fitting size.