£250 to spend - what should I buy?

[mpajones]

Hi guys

I'm tiling a bathroom over Christmas. Porcelain floor (30/30) and wall tiles (30x60), approx 10mm thick. Part of the floor area is a wetroom shower tray (1700 x 900), so will need to do a few tricky angular cuts too for the grout lines.

I currently have a small plasplugs score-snap cutter, and a £30 electric diamond wheel push-through-saw from other jobs I've done over the years, but fear these won't cut the mustard when it comes to neat cuts in porcelain. Got around £250 to spend - what would you recommend I get to do the above?? I quite fancy a TS60 / TS60 PLUS, but don't know whether this'll make a neat enough job of the grout line cuts (and possibly leave really sharp edges?), but the other thing I'm looking at (Vitrex 900w bridge saw) gets pretty mixed reviews.

Need to buy this tomorrow while the shops are still open....

You help is much appreciated!
Matt

 

[Ian]

For that budget I would get a big clinker manual cutter(topps tiles, screwfix £120ish) and a grinder with a decent 115/150mm diamond blade. These tools will be more than adequate fot your job. A decent wet saw will be far more than this and if you buy a wet saw on its own you will be going in and out of the house to cut all day long, its far too cold for that!

 

[Alan.P]

The Rubi TS and TS plus will both cut those tiles fine, just smooth the edges with a bit of sand paper to get rid of the sharp edges.

 

[tfs]

Have a look in the tools for sale section of the forum and you might find a cracking deal!

I personally dont rate the ts range for porcelain, although I have seen he ts60 plus cut porcelain, it left a tail on the bottom of a 60x60 tile on just about every cut (and this wa on a demo day by the Manufacturer, lol)

tx700 is what I use, big clinker is a decent bit of kit for the price but from time to time I have found this to be tricky on some porcelain tiles too but, what you cant do with a big clinker, you can do with a grinder (so I agree with Brian J with his reccomendation)

 

[Rich]

Good points above but I would go for the TS PLUS, I dont think the TS is able to cut porcy?? I have always had them and think they are great. Not a patch on the TX but brilliant for the money. It should cut your tiles as neatly as you need with a little help with some sand paper or a tile file to get rid of any shape edges.As said above, Id also buy a cheap grinder and a decent disk for it. Hope this is some kind of help

 

[Ian]

Ive got a ts60 and its not bad on porc but as tfs says on some hard porc it leaves tails on the cuts, plus most of the budget will be gone. Tx 700 is the ideal purchase, if you can get one for £250 or less you will have got yourself a bargain.

 

[Rich]

Fair enough, If you can get your hands on a TX for the price, that would be ideal

 

[Alan.P]

I use my TS50 on porcelain with no problems, ok, maybe one or two tails but if you take care to score the whole length of the tile it's fine, my TX700 is better but you cant beat the portability of the TS's, so much so that in the new year I'm going to have either a TS60 or a TS50L, I use the TS60 on other jobs that I subbie on with no problems on 600x600 porc, again, maybe the odd tail if you don't score it properly, but on the whole, they do the job.

 

[Andy Allen]

big clinker............£50 b and q.......... vitrex 750 wet cutter £100 topps........ dust sheet up well and you can use it in the house and £100 to spend on celebrating a job well done.

 

[tfs]

big clinker............£50 b and q.......... vitrex 750 wet cutter £100 topps........ dust sheet up well and you can use it in the house and £100 to spend on celebrating a job well done.

I saw the offer on the big clinker in my tradepoint catalogue and went in store to get one approx 2 months back. Turned out to be the old catalogue mate so they no longer sell the big clinker (i was gutted at missing out on that as screwfix is around the £100 mark now)

Still have a big clinker but thought a spare would be a good bargain at £50

 

[Andy Allen]

never mind just £50 to celebrate.

 

[mpajones]

Wow guys, thanks for the flood of advice!

You know - since I got into tiling I've always wanted to own a Rubi, but it seems that my budget unfortunately won't stretch to the one it seems will do everything no questions (TX700). Screwfix has conveniently just reduced the Big Clinker £74.95 (I think in the last couple of days, haha!!), so I'm going to go for that (and sandpaper for the sharp edges!) and the Rubi will have to wait for another project...

I have a small grinder with a diamond wheel, and will use my plasplugs tabletop for the two or three L-shaped cuts I have to do.

Thanks again!!

Matt

 

[mpajones]

...leaving £175 to celebrate!

 

[Alan.P]

Good luck and we luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurve pictures we do

 

[aph257]

taking all in i think you've got it right, only 1 thing i'd get a new good diamond blade for the grinder from the £175 left. see Tradetiler Tilers 115mm (4 1/2") Wheels (angle grinder) Marcrist CK850 115mm dia..... 22.2mm bore.