I broke a tile today.

Two more casualties today! It took 3 of us to move the tiles into house. The first one broke whilst I was marking out where to make the cuts, then the other one broke whilst I was making my 2nd cut. I have searched the internet in search of pictures of techlam in a residential kitchen i.e. with cutouts for electric sockets, as the house i'm working in has several sockets some with only about 15mm gap between them. I'm using a Marcrist ck850 blade. Anyway, I'm out of there now.

Sean I was always told that when using fibre glass laminate tiles you need to have the fibre glass side always facing the floor to get full strength of the tile, turning it up the other way apparently it is weaker ,have you found this ?

Sounds like a disaster. Surely something like Mermaid board or PVC would be better for the job if it's just a form of cladding they want? Sounds similar to a 1800x1200 compressed cement dust 'tile' that we fitted to a Nike shop in the ROI a few years ago. Nightmare to work with, stuck with epoxy adhesive and they needed weights in every corner to stop them from curling up.

garythetiler said:

Sean I was always told that when using fibre glass laminate tiles you need to have the fibre glass side always facing the floor to get full strength of the tile, turning it up the other way apparently it is weaker ,have you found this ?

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Gary, I cut one tile in half whilst it was still in the crate outside on the building site. The cut worked, but the edge was really (I mean REALLY rough). So, I thought that if I turn the tile the other way round (good side towards the floor) it would be better. The first cut worked, but the second cut cracked the tile into what you see in the picture. I am still mad that I was sent on this job by myself, and given 2 days to tile 2 showers, 2 splashbacks, 1 side panel with 4 holes for taps, waste. The shower pieces were 2.4m x .75 with cutouts for hot and cold feeds. Ohh, I also had to tile 13sqm in 500x200 ceramics. The walk to the water supply was a muddy treck, the rain was constant, the dust in the house from the insulation was always in the atmosphere, but saying that it was still fun. I still believe this stuff is for commercial purposes. The architect wanted it because it was green (i.e. low manufacturing carbon print). He did not mind that we could not even get it up the stairs to the bathrooms. The plasters told me that had to cut all their boards in half to get them upstairs!

Wingn, Yes, a perspex board would have been better, but it was the architect that kept pushing for this. The site manager saw what I had to deal with and felt sorry for me.

Bumpy whites all the way

Something has been bugging me about this product. There was no fibreglass backing to these tiles. I've now found very similar products (Kerlite Pus and Slimtech). These products have fibreglass backing. Their youtube videos state that these tiles must be cut on a clean flat surface. Both videos show large tables in clean studios. I was working on a building site with no table! What a joke. The bloke that employed me to do the job is now asking who should pay for the 3 broken tiles. That's another joke. Time for a beer I think.

i see whats wrong.
plug in the grinder.

my prayers are with you .
the good news is at least you cover ground fast.

how about if you got a sheet of 3/4 inch ply the size of the tile with 3 x2 s screwed to the back and a lip to hold the tile.
that way you could cut it on the ply and carry the whole lot giving full suport.

i was offerd the 3mx1m sheets but turned them down far to big and flimesy to be used on your every day job i went for pocel-thin 1200x600 4.8m strong tile easy to cut and fit and handle on site .if you manage to break one its only 0.72m2 not 3m2 down the drain.:mad2:

Another tiler and his mate were sent to fit the tiles today. He picked up the first tile from the box and it broke! He did manage to cut them with a dewalt hand held wet cutter. They also managed to get the tiles upstairs out the window and back in again. However, the last tile they cut for the shower smashed when they tried to stick it to the wall (2.4m x .80). They had to cut a hole for the hot & cold feeds, this made the very fragile tile even more fragile. Another trip is planned next week when the replacement tile arrives onsite.