Natural Stone

[alib103]

Hi, got a job with natural stone in a week. Went round other day to price up and have a look and looks like travertine mosaic to me......not an expert, smooth on top so guessing that is filled travertine (?) and the bill they have just says "natural stone".
I know to lay clean with a white flexi addy, going to seal before grouting and use ivory grout. Is this all correct so far?!!?
Straight forward job, only tricky bit is round the cooker hood, where they want it to curve underneath following the line of the glass hood....with ceramic this would be no probs but will i be able to cut trav to follow line. I have a wet cutter and grinder....prefer the wet cutter.
Anyone got any tips?

 

[DHTiling]

Are you tiling just up to the hood or all around it..?

 

[Colour Republic]

even if you get a nice clean curve on the tiles I still think it will look odd, even more so because the hood is glass, I would remove the extractor and tile behind then re-install the hood

 

[chris.tiling]

I prefer to cut mosaic trav with a grinder rather than wet wheel. Easier to keep tiles on sheet. Mark out curve with a template and then transfer on to mosaic sheet then cut - easy job...but would look better with everything removed first then fully tiled

 

[alib103]

Cheers for the advice guys. I said it would look better if hood removed and tiled all the way, also said may look a bit odd as it might look like the glass is sitting on top of the tiles. They can't be bothered to remove and want it just tiled up to underneath the hood. Not going above or around it. Will just do template and cut to underneath then ask if they are happy with it. As they don't want to remove hood only other option is to finsih with a straight line and leave a reasonable gap to bottom of hood. I gave them all options and this is the one they want.

 

[chris.tiling]

I have done one recently as I suggested above and funnily enough have another to start tomorrow. But both are ceramics though, not mosiacs. Good luck with it - would like to see finished pics

 

[doug boardley]

as Colour said, it would be best if cooker hood could be removed, if not, as Chris says, card template, cut with mozzys on sheet with angle grinder. Post some pics please when you've done

 

[milan11]

First rule when tiling mosaic - make sure your surface under is perfect - smooth and straight as possible.
Use small trowel - 5 mm,
don't forget to use grout for wide joints, it makes your job much easier and seal the tiles after grouting as well.

 

[alib103]

the tiles are 8mm deep. i was going to get myself a mosaic trowel from CTD, 3mm or 4.5mm, don't want too much addy coming through. Should i be using a felxible grout or is wide joint stuff fine? I was taught to use flexi addy too but seen a lot of recommendations for BAL mosaic fix....what would you guys recommend??