cutting wall tile; help

[John Packwood]

Want to tile the tub and shower. Have a gizzmo to score and break the flat tiles but how does one cut the trim rope piece. It is 7/8" wide by 1/2" thick. Will need to do two inside corners so a miter will be called for. Is there a blade that will fit a hack saw? Don't want to spend a lot of money for four little cuts. Thanks.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

John,

I would prefer to cut that with a diamond blade in either a tile saw or a hand held angle grinder. You can buy relatively cheap diamond blades for a hand held angle grinder at the local borg. I bought one at HD. It was the first time I'd tried them in an angle grinder. Until recently I owned a wet saw for tile. The dry diamond blade in the angle grinder worked well.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Ditto on the grinder. A small 4.5" model is light enough to be used with one hand, has a plethora of cutting/grinding tools available and is cheap. About $120.00.

Pick up a diamond edged blade and you'll look for stuff to cut with it. I installed the stone face on my fireplace, cut out and shaped 15 bricks to repair my front steps and scored 30+ pavers with one blade and it hardly looks like it's been out of the box.

I also used the grinder with 50 grit discs to remove paint/resurface the edge of my deck last week... 6+ hours.

I have the Dewalt, but they are all about the same and take the same attachments.
.

[John Packwood]

Have grinder. Will look at blades when I buy the tile. I am guessing the regular cut off blades for metal I already have won't work?

[David G Baker]

I would not use a metal cut off blade for cutting tile. The hand grinder with a diamond blade as has been mentioned is fine or you can rent a wet cut-off saw from Home Depot. I personally like the wet saw better than any other method of cutting tile. I have a wet diamond rock cutting saw set-up that I use for small tile jobs at home.

[Bill Cunningham]

A Lot of discount tool shops will have a wetsaw on sale from time to time.. I've seen them for as little as 50 bucks (Canadian) so their probably $39 in the U.S.

[Jim O'Dell]

If you know the cuts you need, your HD or Lowe's may have a wet saw set up you can make a couple cuts on. Some here do, some don't. Worth a looksee. Jim.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I've used the Harbor Freight diamond blades - they aren't too bad, and are cheap.

[Mike Cutler]

John

When I tiled my upstairs bathroom. I bought the DeWalt Compound Miter Saw, same saw for woodworking, to cut the tile and the aluminum for the shower.
If you look at a wetsaw blade at the borg you will see that it states that it can be used dry on cuts less than a certain # of feet.
I mounted a Tile wetsaw blade in the DeWalt and did the cuts dry.
I made a little "Miter Box" first for the angles I needed, changed the blade to the tile blade, adhered the tile to the miter box with double sided sticky tape and cut it. It worked perfectly.

If you do use your compound miter saw. be prepared to do some serious disassembly and cleaning. Those tile fragments and dust get every where.

[Tim Boger]

If you know the cuts you need, your HD or Lowe's may have a wet saw set up you can make a couple cuts on. Some here do, some don't. Worth a looksee. Jim.


This is the best plan for a couple of cuts, it's very likely that your local HD has a wet saw set up already.

They may want to do the cutting for you, not a bad idea as the rope trim can chip .... if it does while they're on the saw the replacement pieces are on them.

Tim

[John Packwood]

Thanks for the good ideas. I'll ask at Lowes where we will be buying as they are our local box store. I hate to spend $50 for miter cuting two corners of rope tile. I am wondering if I can build a holder for the angle grinder and dribbls some water on it while I cut. Or I can move the miter saw to the driveway.

[Joel Goodman]

Once I used the wetsaw I put away the scoring gizmo -- when I redid the shower I rented one -- it was worth the $.