Cutting porcelain tile?

[Nick Zentena]

I'm thinking of laying a small bit of tile outdoors. That means porcelain. Is it possible to cut this with a score cutter? Sounds like the answer will be no. The problem is the area is small and renting a machine for the day might end up costing more then the materials. So would one of the small wet saws they sell handle the tile?

It's not many cuts I need doing. Slow is fine.

[Lee DeRaud]

I've got a little tile saw from Home Depot, think it was about $75. Haven't tried porcelain tile but it goes through 3/8" granite like butter. They've got similar ones at Harbor Freight even cheaper.

[Rob Bodenschatz]

I did about 40 cuts on 12'"x12'" porcelain tiles using one of the cheapie wet tile saws that Lowes sells. Cut like butter. Don't remember the exact cost but it was probably between $80 and $150.

You could probably rent one for cheaper that that, though.

[Nick Zentena]

Thanks. I haven't taken the tape measure out but by eye it's no more then 20sq feet likely less. So it's a pretty small area without many cuts. Buying a saw I can at least rationalize it'll be usefull for the next time. But renting for such a small job just seem wrong. Okay maybe I've got a flimsy excuse to buy a tool :)

[Rob Bodenschatz]

Glad to be your enabler.:D

Where do you live? If you're close enough, you can borrow mine.

[Bob Childress]

You have gotten some good advice already. I just layed about 80 sq ft of porcelain 12 x 12 and scoring it would not have been an option. It is prone to chip out. If you were doing a lot more tile, I'd advise a better tile saw, but for your project, the $88 special ought to work fine.

Go slow, slow, slow. Especially at the end of the cut, which is when you get chip out if you push too fast. DAMHIKT:D :D

[Nick Zentena]

I'm in Canada. Might cost more in gas then the saw. But thanks for the offer. Buying the saw will just force me to find other uses for it.

Thanks for all the answers.