Tile cutting woes

Hi,

I'm tiling a "wet" area around my shower tray but I'm having a real problem cutting the 330mm ceramic tiles.

Every time I try to snap a tile, the break veers off away to the side - And it's always the same side!

I started off with a wickes tile cutter - the first twenty or so snapped fine, and then I went through a whole box with the snap veering off in the same direction at more or less the same place. I didn't know if it was my technique or the cheap tool so I went an bought a Rubi Pocket 50

Initially the Rubi was a pleasure to use! light scoring and a perfect snap every time! 🙂 But after about twenty cuts, the exact same problem is happening. The frustration is unbelieveable! :yikes:

Is it me? is it the cheap wickes tiles? is the cutting wheel wearing out?

The fact that the symptom is the same every time seems to discount the tiles being the cause and I would guess that a cutting wheel should be good for more than a couple of dozen tiles! So that leaves it down to me being the problem!

I have watched several online videos, but have not seen this issue being mentioned. Help me please!

The cutters you have don't really have a good breaking capacity. As Stef above says, score the tile and then break it by hand on the side of the cutter or on a raised flat surface.
My first tile cutter was bought from wickes in Gosport. Nice to here from tilers in Pompey.
 
It was the tiles all along!

I was putting in the last row above my shower tray tonight and the first three snapped fine. I then went to the next packet and the problem started again... I had oiled the runners on the cutter and fiddled with the angle of the wheel. All to no avail - I wasted another six or seven tiles. To say I was getting frustrated would be quite an understatement...

And then I remembered that the ties had a "good" pair of edges and a "rough" pair. I tried a cut making sure that the "good" side against the stop. Another wasted. The next tile I made sure that the "rough" edge was against the stop. It cut OK! So I did that with the next...
...and the next...
...and the next...
...all good!

Obviously I was always picking them from the box the same way and therefore putting them in the cutter in the same orientation, so it was just pot luck how I started each pack and, of course, the run of bad snaps would continue!

I guess that there was some strain on the tiles when they were fired and the stresses just manifested themselves when I snapped in a particular direction. Anyone else ever seen this? Any ceramic scientists out there?

At least I got the job done 🙂

And thanks again for all the advice!
 

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