I’m looking for any recommendations please, I have 600x300mm porcelain tiles 0.8mm thick, they have a wood effect grain on surface so not polished. I have a wet powered tile cutter already which I used to cut some porch tiles. The porch only needed a handful of cuts so not an issue. Will take an a lot longer with all the cuts given 60cm tiles in an 80cm sq shower will need a lot of cuts. I’ve read conflicting info on cutting porcelain tiles, with some suggesting a manual cutter is fine. I know you can get manual cutters which will cut though thick porcelain for a few hundred. Pointless spending £3-400 on a tile cutter and doing one off job myself, as assume getting a tiler in wouldn’t be a huge amount more for a 10sqm job. Is it possible to get clean straight cuts on these tiles with a manual cutter under the £100 mark preferably under £60? I only have 10% damage excess cant afford to break them. Any recommendations will be appreciated thanks
I take it then that a it’s not possible to cut these with a manual cutter under £100, I can do the tiling easy enough, done a few over years mainly smaller ceramic.
I can't answer that question empirically as I don't know exactly what is available in that price range...there may be a cutter that is adequate for a small job. From my own experience of cutting large format porcelain tiles, you run the risk of going well over your 10% by using a cutter that is operating at its limits. There is also a knack to getting good cuts with porcelain and you don't want to be at a disadvantage before you begin.
Would be worth you're while having a chat with someone in a good tile shop...somewhere that sells cutters along with the tiles. I work in the building trade, do a fair bit of tiling and have a large Rubi TS series cutter, but even that struggles sometimes with large format porcelain.
It is, I’ve done it. B&Q sold a manual tile cutter about £70 and cut my Porcelain tiles very well, almost impossible to tell. I had been struggling with a powered table saw, just didn’t do it, will only cut straight lines though, for any other cuts I used an angle grinder. I did say after doing 3 en-suites and a bathroom, I would never buy porcelain again.
Ha, well spotted. May not be an option any more as just weighed them and comes to 20kg Sqm and with cement grout this would be 23kg sq m so it’s over the 20kg sqm recommended for skimmed plasterboard, although the only skimmed walls are those which the tiles will go 1.2m high as shower was reboarded and left non-plastered, but still over the 20kg sqm.