I just ordered one from Coastal Tool, and am eagerly looking forward to it replacing my Skil jigsaw (won't go as far as to call it a POS, but blade deflection is routine - not capable of precise cuts at all, esp. in knotty or figured wood).
But I got to wondering if I could use it - w/ the proper blade - to cut
1/4" ceramic porcelain? What WOULD a proper blade be? And what would be the right type of bit (material) to drill a starter hole for cutting interior holes in a tile?
You bet. Get a carbide grit blade. Won't give you as clean a cut as diamond, but works fine for the occasional odd size cut.
If you've got a lot of tile to cut, and the cuts are straight, get (or rent) a real tile saw.
A carbide tipped masonary drill bit will drill a starter hole. Put a piece of masking tape on first to prevent the bit from sliding all over while you're getting it started.
We are borrowing a real tile saw from a friend who owns one for all the straight cuts. But for a few places where water supply lines come through, I was hoping the jigsaw could do the job. ... I suppose it might depend on how tight a radius I want to cut, eh? Any thoughts on the practical limit of how small a circle I could cut? ... I guess it would be good for the toilet waste pipe, but water supply lines might only require such a small opening as to make the jigsaw not practical?
You can nibble away a small hole for the supply lines using the grit blade. Because the grit is a bit wider than the blade it will sort of cut on the sides a bit too.
There are a couple of alternatives.
The pro's would use a carbide, or more likely, a diamond hole saw of the appropriate diameter. Might not be worth buying one for one job, but you can rent if you have a good rental place nearby. The diamond ones are pricey, but the carbide ones not so bad.
You can also get a carbide grit rod saw that fits into a hacksaw frame. It's a piece of heavy wire coated with carbide grit and it cuts in any direction. You would drill a small hole first, thread the rod saw through, and then attach to the frame and saw away. Describing it is more work than doing it; it really goes pretty fast.
Final alternative is a roto-zip with a carbide grit masonry bit. This will drill it's own starting hole and then allow you to make the cutout. A little tricky to control accurately, but for a rough hole for plumbing, good enough. The roto-zip will set you back more than a hole saw by several times, but it's a pretty handy tool to have if you are planning on a lot of remodeling or rennovation, especially if it involves drywall work.
"TheNewGuy" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Get the proper sized hole saw with carbide grit cutting edges. Use plumber's putty to make a water dam around the hole, and cut the tile on your messy bench, or on your drill press.
I'll keep that in mind. When I can, I do the highly-dust-producing tasks outside, and for the couple/few tiles I need to makes holes in, I can certainly do that. Sometimes I even setup a fan to make a forced cross-wind to whisk dust away from me/tool. Dustmask not optional (nor are earplugs and eye protection...)
Congrats on the bathroom remodel completion! Ours is hopefully not too far behind. Finishing the wainscoting, then on to the floor: self-leveling compound for the couple low spots in the ply subfloor; backerboard; tile layout and cutting and laying, (etc., etc., ...)
I'm sure that a powerful router like a 1590 could easily cut ceramic tile (with the right bit).
Heck, I just remodeled one of our bathrooms and for those tiles that needed odd cuts and round notches, I used a Dremel. That little Dremel chewed through the tile like butter.
He's a safety nut and he chewed me out for not having a dust mask. In retrospect, it was supremely stupid. That was two years ago. Now I look like a spaceman when I suit up to do dusty work like this. Then there's the roar of the shop vac and overhead dust filter running which is mitigated by my Worktunes hearing protection.
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