Which side to cut the tiles on

How to cut tiles correctly?

Tiles are very popular today, as they combine practicality and original design. It is made from different materials that give the element different properties. But no matter what product you decide to use, you should learn how to cut the tiles correctly. This will allow for laying with a minimum amount of material, achieving a pleasant appearance.

Types of tiles

Tiled materials come in different types depending on the raw materials from which they are made.

• Ceramic tile. The products are obtained by firing clay, to which various impurities are added. Depending on the composition and structure of these substances, the tile can receive strength, fragility, resistance to temperature extremes and many other characteristics. To give the material a beautiful appearance, its surface is covered with special glaze and paints. Some manufacturers give the top layer a raised texture. The material is notable for its low strength and ease of processing. It can be cut with both hand and power tools.

• Porcelain stoneware. Tiles of this type are characterized by high strength and solidity. This is due to the fact that it is produced under the influence of not only high temperatures, but also significant pressure. By its structure, porcelain stoneware tiles resemble natural stone, and some of their characteristics are even better than those of natural materials. Due to its high density, porcelain stoneware is difficult to cut. For such purposes, only very high-quality cutting tools are used that can destroy the monolithic structure of the stone.

• Clinker. This type of tile also consists of clay. Manufacturing technology involves firing the mixture at very high temperatures. Clinker tiles are quite fragile, but at the same time withstand severe frosts, and also do not lend themselves to abrasion and damage by various aggressive solutions.
• Plaster. A tile made from this substance appeared relatively recently. It is used only as a decorative element. The material is plastic and easy to process, but at the same time it absorbs moisture well. Therefore, it is better to use gypsum products only inside dry rooms with a minimum level of humidity.

Hand tools

Very often, tile processing is required at home, where there is no professional tool. In such cases, you can safely use several hand-held devices that easily cope with this task.

One of the most affordable and popular tile cutting products is the glass cutter. It should be noted right away that it can handle not very hard materials. Perfect for ceramic tiles. This is due to the fact that the product is covered on top with a kind of protective layer, which is easy to destroy with a glass cutter.

Working with this tool is quite simple and consists of several sequential operations:

• Place the tile on a flat surface before sawing. Then a cutting line is marked on the upper decorative layer.
• Having placed a metal ruler along the line, it should be carried out carefully with a glass cutter, without pressing it hard into the material. After that, you need to knock lightly along the cut.
• To break off a piece correctly, place it on the edge of the table. The cutting line is aligned with the end face. Then you need to lightly press on one of the edges of the tile. Do not do this too hard or abruptly, as you may break the product in the wrong direction.

Another popular tool is the manual tile cutter. The principle of its operation is very similar to the previously described processes, but only the structure is already equipped with a special frame. Already harder types of tiles can be cut with this mechanism. A quality tool is able to cope with relatively thin porcelain stoneware.

The technology of the manual tile cutter operation consists of the following sequential actions:

• Initially, a cutting line is drawn on the surface of the tile using a pencil or marker. After that, the product is fixed in the device with special clamps. Here you need to precisely match the cutting line and the path of the blade. If this is not done, then you can get a curved element.
• To cut off a piece, the blade is pressed against the tile, and with the help of a handle, it is drawn over the material. The pressure should be moderate in order not to destroy the tile prematurely. When cutting, it is advisable to constantly monitor the position of the knife, which should move exactly along the intended line.
• Breaking the tiles is done in the same way as described in the algorithm for using the glass cutter.

If you need to remove small areas on the tiles, you can also use standard wire cutters. They do not allow you to get smooth and beautiful edges. They can be used when you need to form a hole for a water pipe, but the tile itself will be hidden.

But they will be located only on the end side of the product.

Hand tools are used in most cases for simple tasks. With their help, you can even cut out small squares or rectangles if you want to. But they will be located only on the end side of the product.

Features of the

Tile cutting is a technique that allows you to divide a single piece into several smaller pieces of various shapes. In most cases, this approach is used when the size of the tile does not match the dimensions of the room.

The cutting technology of this product depends on the structure of the substance from which it is made.

Conventionally, such an operation can be performed in 2 main ways:

• Incomplete cutting and breaking. To break the tile, using a special tool, a small incision is formed on its surface, along which the material is broken. A similar approach is used in most cases for ceramic tiles. It is rather difficult to get a flat end on porcelain stoneware using this method, since the material is durable and solid. The deepening in this case should be at least 2/3 of the thickness of the product.
• Cutting. The process involves the complete separation of the material along a certain line. To do this, use tools that can destroy the substance without splitting the tile in half. This approach is the most practical and versatile, as it can be applied to almost any type of tile.

The better to cut?

The choice of cutting tool largely depends on the structure of the material to be processed. Today, manufacturers of finishing tiles produce several types of such tools, which differ in different technical parameters.

The facing tiles can be processed by various mechanisms. Each of them has a specific cutting precision as well as cutting quality. Therefore, it is important, before starting work with this material, to decide what tool you need to process tiles.

Many mechanisms are not able to process the surface without chipping. Therefore, in most cases, auxiliary devices for surface grinding are also used.

Oblique lines and curly edges

Very often, tiles are laid in non-standard premises. Therefore, you need to cut it not in a straight line, but to form a more complex shape than a rectangle. Bevel trimming can be done with almost any previously described tool.

The technology for cutting such non-standard products consists of the following sequential steps:

• First of all, you should accurately and evenly break the tile into several shapes. The main thing is that the final result can be adjusted to a specific installation location.
• Cutting is done with a grinder, tile cutter or other tool. If you need to cut along multiple lines, then the best option would be a tool that completely cuts through the entire thickness of the tile. The material is not processed to the end of the lines so that chips do not form. When all the elements are cut, you just need to gently break off or knock out an extra piece.

As for the formation of complex shapes, then only waterjet cutting will help you here. With its help, you can process almost any tile, both sprayed and classic. If it is necessary to remove the chamfer, then for such purposes special machines are used, which are equipped with circles corresponding in shape. In this case, not only the angle can change, but also the shape of the end.

Electrical

Cutting decorative tiles very often requires speed and surface quality. In some way, this problem can be solved with the help of electrical tools.

The simplest of them is the electric glass cutter, which works almost the same as its manual counterpart. But at the same time, it allows you to achieve a better cut, which minimizes the likelihood of chips or cracks.

You can also cut tiles with an electric tile cutter. Outwardly, it resembles a small circular saw. There is a small bed here along which the cutting disc moves.

The technology for working with such a tool is quite simple and involves the following sequence of actions:

• Performing markup. It is important to observe accuracy and take into account the thickness of the saw, which can take a few millimeters.
• After that, you need to start the device and slowly attach the tile to the disk. Do not jerk these parts together, as the saw entering quickly may cause the product to break. For cutting, you should slowly move the workpiece along the marked line. If the disk is located on the machine from above, then relatively simple shapes can be cut with it.

Another cutting tool is a jigsaw. In order for it to be able to destroy ceramic tiles or porcelain stoneware, it must be equipped with a special tungsten thread. On its surface there are small-sized soldered diamonds, which, when the string moves, easily cut the material. The technology of work is practically no different from cutting ordinary wood. But experts recommend constantly monitoring the speed of the thread. If pressure is increased on it, it can tear and even injure the operator.

The jigsaw is a versatile tool, since with it you can cut not only along a straight line, but also get round holes. In this case, the circle will not differ with the highest accuracy. But making a hole for an outlet with this device is relatively easy. One of the disadvantages of the jigsaw is that it can handle relatively thin tiles. Do not try to cut thick porcelain stoneware with it, as this will be ineffective.

You can also use a renovator. it should be given special attention, since it appeared on the market relatively recently. Outwardly, it resembles a grinder, but at the same time the working bodies do not rotate, but vibrate. The device can be used both as a tile cutter and as a sander. For such processing, you should stock up on several nozzles.

Today, in everyday life, tiles are very often cut using an ordinary grinder. To work with such a material, it must be supplemented with a diamond wheel.

To get a high-quality cut, you should follow a few simple rules when working with a grinder:

• Try to keep the blade perfectly vertical to the cutting line. This will prevent large chips from forming.
• Do not move the blade too quickly so that the saw can cut through the tile completely. If you have a little skills in working with this tool, you can cut the tiles not to the full thickness, but only from the top. After that, you just need to break the product along the line.
• If a lot of material needs to be cut, cool the diamond blade with water. This is necessary to extend its service life. Please note that there are special tools that can perform such operations automatically.

Sometimes you need to get holes in a certain place on the tile.

For such purposes, several types of drills are used:

• Ballerina on a drill. This device is a special drill that makes circular cuts. Suitable for ceramic tiles that do not have high hardness. To get a hole, you just need to place the tool on the surface of the product and make a few slow turns. After that, the hole is simply knocked out.
• Diamond core bits. This tool is one of the most popular. Working with them is like drilling. Their disadvantage is their limited service life.
• Diamond drills. In most cases, they are cylindrical in shape. For soft tiles, you can also use a victorious tool that can easily withstand loads. Holes are drilled slowly, since at high speeds the drills can simply burn.

There are also universal cutting methods, among which the most popular options can be distinguished:

• Laser treatment. The destruction of tiles occurs under the influence of a directed flux of photons. Using a laser, you can cut out complex shapes without forming visible chips or microcracks at the ends of the material.
• Waterjet cutting. The main tool here is the flow of water and abrasive sand. This mixture is fed onto the material at a very high speed. Abrasive getting on the product begins to destroy its structure, cutting the tiles.

Waterjet cutting and laser cutting are carried out under the control of special computer programs. Therefore, you will not be able to use them on a regular construction site. Similar methods are used for curly cutting in order to make various panels and other decorative tile products.

Splitting

Since ceramic tiles are similar in their properties to glass, you can cut the tiles with an ordinary glass cutter, and then break off the necessary or unnecessary part of the tile, as when working with glass. Once upon a time (back in Soviet times) I did just that, sometimes I cut my hands in blood, trying to break off a rather narrow strip of tiles. However, there are now more convenient tile cutting tools. Now you can always:

Cut tiles with a roller tile cutter

The easiest and most reliable way. Any roller (machine tool) tile cutter has:

A ruler that allows you to cut off up to 6-8 cm without additional marking. Also, the kit includes a retractable ruler (not shown in photo 1) and the right angle during cutting is, as it were, maintained:

Photo 1. Setting the tiles in the tile cutter.

Elastic tile pads glued to the metal body to prevent slipping of the tile to be cut and allow the pieces of the tile to land softly.

A protrusion that allows you to split the cut tile along the cut line.

And the most important thing. a large lever (special thanks to Archimedes, because such a tile cutter is often called mechanical) and a comfortable handle (almost invisible in photo 2) for cutting and breaking the cut tiles:

Photo 2. Splitting a tile cut with a tile cutter.

As a result, cutting the tile takes a few seconds. It is enough to set the tile, once with force hold the chisel, and then, slightly shifting the stops (light yellow in photo 2), press the lever. Everything and business, dust and noise. minimum.

The essence of this amazing process is quite simple: by cutting through the glaze layer on the tile, even slightly, we not only reduce the thickness of the tile (usually tenths of a millimeter), but also create an area of ​​critical internal stresses. In particular the slit. it is the result of not only fracture but also plastic deformation. When we press down on the lever, the force is transmitted through the stops to the right and left sides of the tile lying on the ledge. Such a tile is like a beam on one support. a ledge on which two forces act. the edges of the stops. In this case, tensile stresses arise in the upper zone of the tile (since the bending moment on the support is maximum), and even shear stresses. Accordingly, the longer the stops, the easier it is to break the tile (the same lever rule applies here). And if the stops are wide enough, then the load transfer to the tile will be more even. Theoretically, if the stops are equal in width and length to the parts of the tile to be cut, then the tile may not be cut at all, but immediately broken. However, in practice, tiles are required in different sizes, and even transfer of the load to the cut tiles is not at all necessary if the cut is made well. Therefore, the dimensions of the stops are usually not very large.

You can put the tile cutter during work on any more or less flat surface, you can also cut right on the floor.

However, the roller tile cutter also has disadvantages:

Cutter guides. as a rule, pipes that are quite easily deformed, respectively, the cutter does not always follow the intended line. In addition, when cutting, the tile rests on the ledge and on the edge of one of the elastic pads, so the angle between the cutter and the tile surface is not 90 °. If a deviation of 1-2 mm from the intended size does not bother you much, then you can ignore this drawback. However, if you make additional spacers of such a height that the tile rests on them more than on the ledge during cutting, then this problem can be partially solved. And cutting with additional spacers is much more convenient. But before splitting the tiles, the additional gaskets need to be removed by themselves.

When working in a dusty room (and where ceramic tiles are laid, as a rule, it is always dusty), the guides become clogged with dust and the cutter does not slide on them as well as a new one. Therefore, the guides periodically have to be wiped and sometimes lubricated.

The metal stops of the lever must also have an elastic sheath so that splitting does not damage the face of the tile. However, such elastic shells are not always included in the tile cutter kit, and sometimes they can simply get lost. In such cases, I simply paste over the surface of the stops with masking tape.

Since the load during breaking is transmitted unevenly, it is not always possible to break off a strip with a width of more than 1.5-2 cm, especially if the tile is long enough.

Floor tiles are usually thicker and stronger than wall tiles, so you need to use a lot of force to cut them. At the same time, the roller on which the roller cutter is put on wears out quite quickly (if the tile cutter is cheap), and the guides become loose faster. Well, for porcelain stoneware, a roller tile cutter is generally not suitable.

Large dimensions of the machine tool tile cutter. The larger the tile cutter, the easier and more convenient it is to work with it. However, buying a large tile cutter for one renovation in an apartment, and then keeping it forever on the balcony or in the garage. not very nice.

How to Cut Tile for Beginners

Relatively high price. A mechanical tile cutter costs from 10 to 70, depending on the size, manufacturer and the availability of additional devices, for example, a rotary ruler that allows you to cut tiles at different angles, a compass for cutting holes.

How to cut tile

In fact, there are only two ways to cut tile (at least known to me): splitting and sawing. And each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. Of course, when it comes to cutting round holes in a tile for a pipe or a socket, neither a simple tile cutter nor a grinder will help much, but then we will talk about more or less straight-line cutting of tiles.

Cut a tile with a machine electric tile cutter

These cutters will cope with any tile and allow you to get an almost perfect cut. However, machine-tool electric tile cutters are quite expensive: from 300 to 700. Accordingly, it makes no sense to buy such a tile cutter for one repair in an apartment.

Cut the tiles with a mini tile cutter

Miniature tile cutters or, as they are also called: “tile tongs”, in comparison with a machine tile cutter, consist of solid disadvantages:

5 Ways To Cut Tile – Everything You Need To Know For Your First Tile Project

There is no guide. A carpenter’s corner or a metal ruler can serve as a guide, however, metal products can also slide along the surface of the tile and the cut can also turn out not along the mark.

The overhang for breaking tiles is very short, and the stops are not so long.

The length of the lever is also less, which means that more effort must be applied to break the tiles.

Since the load on the tile during breaking is transmitted almost in the form of concentrated forces, then chop off a strip with a width of less than 3-4 cm with a mini-tile cutter.Problem.

Nevertheless, the main advantage of the miniature tile cutter. its small size and weight. Also, the price of a mini-tile cutter is less: from 3 to 15.

Sawing

When it is necessary to cut a thin strip of tiles, and indeed when working with porcelain stoneware, electric tile cutters with diamond dust on the cutting part are usually used.

Cut off the tiles with a grinder

If you put a diamond wheel on the grinder, you get an electric tile cutter without a machine, i.e. without a ruler, without fixing tiles, without a guide. Therefore, the cut with a grinder is not as smooth (everything depends on skill) as in a machine tile cutter, but this is not always required. But the price of a simple grinder, coupled with a diamond wheel, rarely exceeds 25-40, and it is much easier to transport it from object to object than a heavy machine, and therefore even professional tilers often use a grinder.

How you can cut a fairly narrow strip of tiles with a grinder is shown in the following

If necessary, the end of the tile in the place of the break is carefully sanded with the same grinder. Of course, you can completely cut through the tiles with a grinder, but at the same time there is a high probability of damage to the glaze, because the cut piece, if it is very narrow, and the support under it is not reliable enough, may bend over when cutting. So cutting through to the end only makes sense if the tiles are large enough.

Electric tile cutters have other disadvantages. it is a lot of dust and noise during operation, as well as the presence of electricity. Accordingly, when working with electric cutters, it is necessary to use personal protective equipment, such as a respirator, gloves, safety glasses.

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Glass cutters are the simplest tool that is suitable for straight-line cuts of wall tiles of small thickness. It is not used for working with floor ceramics, porcelain stoneware, cutting along a curve or at an angle of 45. For large volumes of work, you need to acquire another tool.

Let’s consider step by step how to cut a tile with a glass cutter:

What are the tools for cutting tiles, what is their difference

All tools for cutting a tiler can be divided into: hand tools (glass cutter, tile cutter, wire cutters) and power tools (electric cutter, angle grinder, jigsaw).

The choice of each tool depends on several factors:

• The volume of work performed. A glass cutter or grinder is enough to cut one or two tiles, a tile cutter is needed to finish the entire apartment or house.
• The type and quality of the cut to be done. Straight and curved cuts are made with different tools; diamond core bits and a drill may be needed to drill round holes. Cutting thin wall tiles and thicker, more durable porcelain stoneware flooring requires different equipment.
• Execution speeds. The larger the area of ​​the object on which the tiles are laid, the more perfect the tool for processing it should be.
• The amount of money the craftsman is willing to pay for the tool. Professional manual and electric tile cutters are expensive, but more affordable tools can be dispensed with.