Creating Your Own Practice Area

[Shuntstick]

Hi
I got a double (2 car) length garage on my home and I only use the front half of the garage for the car, usually in winter.
I was wondering how you go about creating a practice area at the rear that I dont use.

i.e:
What do you use for fixing onto ... ply boards, plaster boards etc ?
Do you remove your tiles after?
What do you do as practice?

Can anyone run through what you should do to use this waste of space for practice and what sort of things I should be doing?

 

[Home Tiler]

Well to be honest the 4 week course i did ...i felt quite confident to tile bathrooms ect.... friends and family (small tiling jobs) are great to build your confidence up....

now if your really itching to do some practice work then i would suggest a full size sheet of plaster board ..wall plug it to the garage wall....(make sure you secure it well because of the wieght of the tiles) and away you go...to test your self whack in some copper tubing here and there and also some wall sockets (15mm ply the same size of wall sockets will be ideal..you only have to nail it on then)

setting out for me is the most important part of the job...so i would maybe put a diamond pattern in the centre of the plaster board maybe 4ft sq with a border.... that way you can test yourself with your setting out...
so all in all you have alot of things to look out for on your project...don't be placing your tubing where it will be easy..... just place about five diff size diameters to and work too.



steve

 

[DHTiling]

As well as building the obvious flat area's..try building some boxing and window recess area's..this gives you some practise on tile returns and over window head tiling...building some curved area's to tile to on the floors..in fact any shape you can think of to give you practise at scribing tiles would be great...If you build the bays with plasterboard then it is cheap enough to replace when damaged.......dave..

 

[enduro]

Sounds like a new training school to me...

 

[Fekin]

Once thats built advertise yourself as a training school and charge £350 for someone to mess about on for 4 days, lol

 

[devonmark]

Once thats built advertise yourself as a training school and charge £350 for someone to mess about on for 4 days, lol

he,he

 

[Home Tiler]

Once thats built advertise yourself as a training school and charge £350 for someone to mess about on for 4 days, lol

yeah and don't forget to say you will be professional after you ripped them of...lol
steve

 

[Fekin]

We'd be great sales reps for a course company

 

[ryanbrown]

I would screw on 18mm marine plywood to the wall instead because you'll end up damaging plasterboard when you prize off tiles to re use it.

 

[Shuntstick]

Thanx chaps:icon14:

 

[charlie1]

Hi mate,

If i was building a practice are i would build the main wall with a bow in it and practice filling it out with adhesive to try and get a good finish, anyone can tile on to a perfectly straight wall. using cement adhesive might be a bit pricy though but you could mabe use cheap tub gear.
----
Had another thought, you could get the wife to tell you exactly what she wants done with the tiles and then when you are about 3 or 4 hours in to it get her to come back in and change her mind, and you could also get another guy to come in and ask questions every half hour this will make it very realistic .:wink_smile:

 

[Home Tiler]

nice one woody...lol
steve

 

[elliesdad224]

please dont take this the wrong way chaps (and ladies) how can you possibly be a professional tiler just because you have been on a 4 or 6 week course? until you have worked with all materials that are available, installed underfloor heating, be able to work on site to deadlines, be fully competent with movement joints,curved trims ( i.e. car showroom floors etc) worked with terrazzo and granite etc, know about all relevant h&s requirements, how to tile a floor to falls in shower rooms, tanking in wet rooms, installing thermal insulation, full knowledge of all sealers and protective coatings, i dont mean to put anyone down and when i read some comments posted by you guys i can tell that most of you know what your talking about, but others have professional tiler in their profile yet ask for advice on some really basic problems, any comments would be appreciated

 

[Fekin]

but others have professional tiler in their profile yet ask for advice on some really basic problems, any comments would be appreciated

I think you might have got the wrong end of the stick here mate, the "Pro Tilers" in peoples profile next to their name on the left hand side of their messages are simply forum based, and you get it added when you post a certain amount.

 

[DHTiling]

The "tag Pro tiler" just gives you access to the pro tilers forum and if you have an Elite tag then the same with this....A pro tag doesn't mean these members are pro tilers by trade ..some are and some are not...hope that clears things up for you mate.....dave..