Installing 2"x2" tile on "built" shower stall floor -- how to cut?????

[Richard Holliingsworth]

Hello: My latest project is to remodel my mother-in-law's bathroom. She wants a built in shower stall that has no curb at all so as she gets older, she will not trip on it getting in or out of the shower.

Ok, fine. I can do that. I have very detailed instructions on building the shower pan and then it's just a matter of tiling the walls and floor.

Thence the problem. She wants to use the 2"x2" tiles that are bound together in a 12" grid. The shower pan will be inclined 1/4" per foot to the drain in the center. Since the shower pan will not be flat, I expect to have to cut the tiles to fit the contour of the floor. Not a problem if you are using 4x4 of 6x6 tiles, but these things are a bunch of 2" tiles netted together into a 12" grid.

What problems will I face getting them to match the contour of the shower pan, and how do you cut them to fit? Just use a wet saw?

I would greatly appreciate any info on this.

Thanks, Richard

[Charles Spitzer]

all the ones you have to cut, you take them off the netting, and use a wet saw. you might have to lay them out dry to see which ones these are.

[oo Mike oo]

I recently did some tiling with similar tile. Didn't want to go to the expense of getting a wet saw but I suspect it would have save quite a bit of time.

I started out using nippers which was ok. Later discovered that I could use a tungsten tipped tool to score them, then lay the tile on a thin piece of dowel and snap it by putting a wood block on top and whacking it with a hammer. Got pretty clean breaks and that sped the process up immensely.

If your tiles are held together with a paper material then apparently they'll fall apart using a wet saw.

Mike

[RB]