Cutting square holes in porcelain tiles!

[mikey]

Hi guys - any advice or suggestions welcomed!

I have been a keen DIY tler for about 10 years and a couple of months ago took the plunge to start doing kitchen and bathroom work for people other than friends and family.

Lo and behold, first time I have started working with porcelain, all is going well, then customer wants a shaver socket in the bathroom I am doing.

Question, how to cut a square hole in the porc tile to let the mounting box for the shaver socket into?? (size of a double power socket) I have done loads on ceramics and stone tiles by drilling through the corners then using a rod-saw and cutting hole to hole by hand - time consuming but neat result. But on these so and so's - which are as hard as the devil's toenails - what can I do?? TCT hardly touches it. Is there a diamond-based rod-saw? I have only seen the TCT ones I have used previously...... :mad2:

 

[faithhealer]

Do you know how to plunge cut on your wet saw?

 

[Peter]

Handiest way without getting into a lot of money is to remove the water catch off the wetsaw, draw your guidelines and plunge the tile onto the wetsaw blade. Takes a bit of trial and error the first few times you do it, so easier to cut a smaller square inside your desired size and then remove by smaller increments as you see the wetsaw blade.

 

[doug boardley]

if you don't have a wet saw, use an angle grinder with a continous rimmed diamond blade, plunge it into the face of your tile first, on all 4 sides, take the cut as far as you can into the corners, then flip your tile over and finish the hole off from the back side

 

[Alan.P]

Yep, easiest way is with a grinder as Doug says

 

[Homefront Tiler]

follow Doug, I always opt for the grinder.

 

[marke]

yep with doug as well theres not much a good grinder blade wont cut and accurately too :smilewinkgrin:

 

[mhtiler]

i use grinder to,but if your not confident in that method ,wet saw is the next option,taking off the guard to plunge your tile onto the blade,abit messy so no cutting near newly painted walls,water will fly everywhere.good luck.

 

[pete f]

as above above

 

[mikey]

Woo hoo! Thanks guys, I will give both the "plunge" options a try. I have got a new diamond blade on the angle grinder, and as the blade diameter is smaller than my wet cutter, I think I will try that one first. I was beginning to sweat that I would need to fork out for a RotoZip just before Santa time!

 

[doug boardley]

Mikey, clamp your tile down before you " give the angle grinder a go", I'd hate you to give us feedback with no typing fingers :lol:

 

[mikey]

Doug - thanks, I learned that lesson the first time I used an angle grinder..........damn near took my own ear off!!

 

[Deleted member 1779]

To achieve this....

Mark out tile

And...

Drill out the corners

Then use an angle grinder

To trim your lines

Press out middle

Job Done.
===============
Although ceramics were shown in demo the technique is really meant to be used for very LARGE fomat porcelain tiles.

On a huge tile (example above) the advantage of drilling out the corners are:

1) You can drill FROM THE FRONT
2) You can be accurate in your socket placement
3) On expensive tiles there is no chance of over running with a circular saw blade
4) You know exactly where your corners are - and end.
5) You can see through the holes if you use a plunge cut wet saw.

On small soft ceramics there is little advantage drilling out the corners because
1) The tiles are so cheap any mistakes can be thrown away - start with a new tile
2) The tiles are easy to manipulate so you can cut from behind and see the front
3) Its much quicker
4) If you make a slight error on the position you can grind open the socket with the blade