Natural stone advice needed

[Time's Ran Out]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - it’s morally wrong to charge someone for undertaking work that you have no experience in doing . If you ask if you can cut stone with a manual tile cutter shows your lack of knowledge.
Yes this forum is here to help our trade, novices and tilers, but using it as a platform of information without the experience that is gained over years can only bring my trade into disrepute.
There is no fast track to excellence, and every customer deserves the best possible outcome.
To infer that I’am the one who is not happy with your post is insulting to my 10 years of advice on this forum!

 

[ck9694]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - it’s morally wrong to charge someone for undertaking work that you have no experience in doing . If you ask if you can cut stone with a manual tile cutter shows your lack of knowledge.
Yes this forum is here to help our trade, novices and tilers, but using it as a platform of information without the experience that is gained over years can only bring my trade into disrepute.
There is no fast track to excellence, and every customer deserves the best possible outcome.
To infer that I’am the one who is not happy with your post is insulting to my 10 years of advice on this forum!

Yeah, but you keep going on about experience, which I get! I get that, it’s important! You think I want to walk in someone’s house and **** their job up? Of course I don’t. I just lack experience. But this natural stone job will lead to the next and the next and the next. If I don’t take the bull by the horns how else will I gain experience. I feel I’m being punished for wanting to be good at my trade

 

[Dumbo]

Yeah, but you keep going on about experience, which I get! I get that, it’s important! You think I want to walk in someone’s house and **** their job up? Of course I don’t. I just lack experience. But this natural stone job will lead to the next and the next and the next. If I don’t take the bull by the horns how else will I gain experience. I feel I’m being punished for wanting to be good at my trade

You are really not understanding what you are being told .

 

[Blunt Tool]

Yeah, but you keep going on about experience, which I get! I get that, it’s important! You think I want to walk in someone’s house and **** their job up? Of course I don’t. I just lack experience. But this natural stone job will lead to the next and the next and the next. If I don’t take the bull by the horns how else will I gain experience. I feel I’m being punished for wanting to be good at my trade

Do it for free then...! tell customer you’ve never done stone before but your willing to try, give customer the choice as it’s his tiles in his house. If you do a decent job then you’ve gained priceless experience and if you **** it up then customer was warned you were inexperienced and least he’s not facing a labour bill from you!

 

[DrJogo]

White flex adhesive. Seal before you lay. Don't seal after being grouted.
Manilla grout will be good for these tiles.
Wet saw with a diamond blade is always the best option for cutting natural stone. Especially this stone from Topps.

I spent 9 years selling from Topps and
3 years from CTD. If it's going on hardie, you want flex adhesive. Always.

 

[J Sid]

please don't seal before fixing
sound's like the sort of advice given out at my local topps tiles, hence, I don't use or recommend them.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

White flex adhesive. Seal before you lay. Don't seal after being grouted.
Manilla grout will be good for these tiles.
Wet saw with a diamond blade is always the best option for cutting natural stone. Especially this stone from Topps.

I spent 9 years selling from Topps and
3 years from CTD. If it's going on hardie, you want flex adhesive. Always.

Yes it’s easy this tiling lark!

 

[Sandi]

Good advice. Wanting to learn by doing is great, but charging a client for your learning curve could backfire! Until you’ve repeated the process a number of times over, you’ll not recognize the understandable errors of a “first-timer”. Even if the customer doesn’t recognize it, eventually, someone will point out to your customer the inexperience that will show itself in your work. You don’t want your name and reputation to suffer.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Welcome @Sandi !

 

[Steve6690]

FWIW I'm booked on a course with Darren at UK Pro Tiling Training after Christmas. It's not cheap but it's an investment.
I couldn't imagine doing paid work until I can turn it out to a professional standard. It's one thing to lack experience, but to also lack the theory knowledge is unforgivable.

 

[Lou]

Don't mind me while I bump up some older but good threads. If you can contribute to the thread, go ahead. But if it's nothing for you then don't reply and it'll soon drop off the What's New page etc.
Worth linking to our new forum structure while I'm doing stuff:-

• USA
• UK
• Canada
• Australia
• Ireland
• Tools
• DIY
• Courses
• Tile Import / Export