tiling a wood window sill

[doozer]

Hi,

For some reason the previous owners of our place decided that it would be a good idea to tile the window sills after sawing off the front edge (e.g. cut them back so that they are flush with the wall - well roughly flush, they seem to have used a rabid gopher as their cutting tool of choice).

Anyway, at first I hated it and wanted to put back the wood but I have come to like the idea of tiled window sills but not the horrible brown tiles they have used. I have a bit of spare time today so I am going to lay some nice tiles. I have tiled onto walls before and know the basic principals but I was wondering if there are any special considerations regarding tiling on to wood. The last tiles were laid with tiling grout and it adhered moderately well to the wood. Would mixing a little PVA with the bedding grout (if you see what I mean) help stick them even better?

Cheers.

Graham

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It rather depends on whether the wood is going to 'move' at all.

I've got blockboard worktops which are tiled, and they've been fine. On the advice of the supplier I gave the wood a couple of coats of diluted PVA first, them used a mortar based adhesive about 1/4" thick.

[Bob Minchin]

You can get tile adhesive designed to tile onto wood which is tolerant of substrate movement. It aint cheap though. I've just done a bathroom floor and the adhesive & grout cost more than the tiles. Bob

[Nick Atty]

I (on others' recommendation) have used cork tile adhesive to fix ceramic tiles onto plywood in a narrow boat. This is on a "more than vertical" surface, and prone to vibration, flexing etc. They've stayed there for years.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive used car body filler to fix tiles that came off wood surfaces.

But mostly with decent adhesive, they don't come off.

Done lots of tiling over wood.

Flexible floor tile adhesive in a thickish bed works fine.