Moving a Tiled top

You *could* tile & transport but you'd need to take great care that nothing flexed when moving it. All in all, it would be as easy or easier to tile once installed. __________

A. Tile over ply, use mastic B. Tile over cement board over ply, use thinset.

That's a 50-50 call. You're aceepting increased risk for increased convenience. You'd have to reinforce the plywood to keep it from flexing and popping off the tile. It'd also be better to do the grouting on site.

Tile on plywood is not a great way to go. A much better installation would be 1/4" Hardie backer board on top of the 3/4" plywood. Bond the Hardie to the plywood with construction adhesive or thinset, then tile with thinset. Both thinset and grout should be latex modified.

what production standards does your client expect?

if this is a low budget project go ahead and tile it yourself. a bit of googling should get you some decent advice about tilesetting. rec.woodworking is about, well, woodworking.

since this sounds like your first tile project, I'd recommend having the tile professionally installed if the client expects professional results.

Yes. It will be damn heavy which means it will tend to flex and crack unless well supported while being moved. That means even more weight for the frame that supports it to keep it from flexing.

As for adhesives etc, don't you suppose you should use mastics etc that are made for tile?

I recently installed ceramic tile in the kitchen and bath of a house I am rehabbing, this was the first time I ever installed tile myself, in the past I always contracted it out.

Comparing my tile job to the tile job in my current home (which was professionally installed), my work is far superior.

Installing tile is not rocket science.

The layout of the first tile, and making sure what's UNDER the tile is proper is actually the difficult part.

Bad layout and poor alignment is only ugly. A subfloor with too much deflection is the gift that keeps on giving.

Rocket science isn't rocket science if you know what you're doing.

As far as your work being far superior to the professionally done job in your current home, well there's professional and then there's professional. A builder hiring the cheapest tile sub is still hiring professionals, but it's extremely doubtful that they'll produce professional results. Then there's the professional that produces clean, consistently good quality work. Hopefully the majority of people you hire will fall into this category. The next level professional treats his craft more like art. These last are the people that will spend hours tweaking a layout to get it just right.

Think of it this way, if you achieved such nice results your first time out, think what you could do if you had fifty bathrooms under your belt. I've never met anyone who believed that the work they did ten years ago was of as high a quality as the work they're doing now (assuming they're not aged, injured or failing).

While I agree with you and I am sure I can do better, from what I have seen from other's work, mine was certainly "good enough". Of course it probably took me 3x longer than it would someone who has been doing it a long time...

Professional: One who gets paid to do something. There is no quality qulifier.

yabbut you had enough exposure to tilesetting to not need to ask the OP's complete beginner questions, I'll bet. I made a calculated guess as to the OP's experience level- I may have been completely off base, but if so the OP will figure that out for himself. if I'm right, I may have saved him from making a mess of things.