cutting porcelain tiles DIYer

[philipdayton]

I've got access to an electric tile saw, would this be suitable for cutting porcelain floor tiles?

 

[tiler-101]

yes go for it as long as the disc is suitable and its wet

101

 

[philipdayton]

What is a suitable disc??

 

[tiler-101]

It would need to be a diamond disc water cooled as porcelain can be hard as hell. What disk is on it ??

101

 

[philipdayton]

Whatever disk is on it, it will be a few years old.
The cutter has a water trough, so i'd better go buy a new diamond disk by the looks of it. :yes: Thanks

 

[tiler-101]

No hang on, the diamond on the disc is held in the soft metal at the outer rim can be anything up to 1cm deep on some discs. You should be able to see this rim and judge how much is left. it wears very slowly, if there is some left then try that first.

If it has a bath yes it is wet. As it has a trough I am thinking it was designed for your needs as long as your not cutting megga big tiles.

101

 

[redrhinoman]

Hello,
I was wondering if the diamond saw blade is anything like a diamond wheel used of flatbed grinding machines? When the diamond wheel gets dull (loaded up with debris from grinding dirt) it needs to be cleaned. Make sense?

 

[tiler-101]

Now then your right, its called a dressing stone or block and is used as u say to clean up dress the blade. The blade itself is like a thin grinding disk in form not as bulky as the one you have.

 

[redrhinoman]

:yes: I work in a Home Depot and sometimes a customer will come wanting to buy a wet saw or a replacement wheel. I usually ask them how do they know they need a new diamond wheel. Obviously they say its not cutting anymore. I ask them if they have tried to clean the wheel and they say what? My question to the forum is what type of stick or dressing device do you use? I know that we don't have anything in our store for this procedure.

 

[Jim Carlin]

They make a dressing stone for sharpening diamond blades. Rubi, Siri are a few. I have used a cement block to do the same thing. The trick is to reduce the volume of water over the blade so as to create a slurry mix and run the blade through the cement. It will remove some of the matrix holding the diamonds thus exposing new pieces. The blades are actually made for cutting different materials such as soft stone or hard porcelain. A porcelain blade is comprised of a soft matrix which will automaticaly wear and expose new diamonds. Softer materials have a harder matrix holding the diamonds in place. Another trick is to keep the edge flat. Once ot rounds over it has a tendency to wander and not follow the line. Hope this helped and didn't confuse the issue.

 

[tiler-101]

Here you go this is the stick its used to dress the blade ie it removes metal from the rim so revealing the diamonds. This makes cutting better as if sharpening, If you dont dress your disk metal spreads covering the diamonds and doesnt cut evenly this can cause heating up and damage to the blade,

http://www.contractorsdirect.com/core/media/media.nl?id=10367&c=494083&h=c962a5f6e59634ceb3e1

 

[DHTiling]

you can buy the dressing stones from CTD or try.. Rubi Tile Cutters, Scaffolding Tools, Tape Measures & Measuring Tools UK or just use a piece of sandstone..it might require a few passes of the stone to reveal new diamonds but is worth it in the end ..a good as new blade.....

 

[BuyBrandTools]

We do the Rubi ceramic block for £3.99. Hope this helps!

Rubi Diamond Saw Blades

 

[philipdayton]

Thanks to all for the advice, I bought myself a new disk from screwfix for £20 and it went through the tiles like a knife through butter!
Apart from having my pants pulled down by Topps Tiles for the adhesive.....£51.49 for BAL Rapidset Flexible!
All went well though, I've got until Sunday to get the bathroom finished. Long nights ahead I think...

 

[Perry]

Philip was that for 40 kg