first trial of the vibration machine

[Colour Republic]

Did you use it for the whole floor Gary? i.e. did you persist or give up and go back to your previous methods?

Scratching would be my main concern, it's grit (or sand from the addy) getting underneath that would be my main concern. Were they Rays tiles? As the ones I saw had a slight textured matt finish which would be harder to scratch than a glossier flat tile. I'm guessing at least.

 

[Spud]

Did you use it for the whole floor Gary? i.e. did you persist or give up and go back to your previous methods?

Scratching would be my main concern, it's grit (or sand from the addy) getting underneath that would be my main concern. Were they Rays tiles? As the ones I saw had a slight textured matt finish which would be harder to scratch than a glossier flat tile. I'm guessing at least.

yes Rob they are Porcel-thin tiles they are the new antislip range Ray has just got in with an extremely high pendulum test rating I would be concerned with scratch tiles too but I can honestly say that the machine did not damage the tiles in any way, I used the machine for the first day on the job but was under pressure to get it completed on the friday before xmas so I went back to rubbing the tile in to its bed and using looser adhesive on day 2 the job was 37m2 with Ditra and was tiled and grouted in 2 days with a labourer helping me

 

[Colour Republic]

Cheers. I'm sure if you get the method down then it shouldn't add too much time at all but it's always going to be slow going at the start.

btw how was the floor constructed? It looks like raised access flooring?

 

[Spud]

yes Rob raised access flooring ,metal tiles drilled and scewed to the posts overlaid with 18mm marine plywood, ditra stuck with Af 200

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

Yes it was just a cheap one Ray picked up from a tool market in china costing 20 bucks, we might be meeting Raimondi soon and will look into seeing if they will bring their hand held tool with them, theirs has a nylon base which will protect the tile from scratching, the plate on this device is metal ,vibration tools do play a big part in the fixing of the large format tiles and sheet porcelain products so I will carry on experimenting with this until I have a method worked out

Nice one Gary,there would be nothing stopping you getting some plastic-faced sponge and cutting to size and sticking it to the vibration plate underneath, it will take the risk of damaging the tiles away !i have been thinking of buying one of the ramondi one's for my mosaic work, as you can adjust the vibration rate on them,and this is more appealing to me on a tool so you can change to the different materials we work with,!! but looking forward to more on this m8........

 

[jonnyc]

not quite what to say really.
i can see what you are trying to achieve and this tool may do it .ie achieve a solid bed .
but i think one is assuming that the subfloor is dead level and even in the first instance .
then the tile is an even thickness and then the bed applied by trowel is even as well.
if this was the case then surely it would be as easy to get a solid bed just by normal fixing method.
but if the the screed is not quite level as is the norm and you need to bed tiles up a bit with extra adhesive then yes you need to still maintain a solid bed but you need to adjust tiles with oressure that i dont think you can do with a mini vibro machine like this

 

[jlktiling]

I think you would get a dead hand at the end of the day, same when you use a electric sander for a peroid of time.