# Forum Home Renovation Tiling  Manual tile cutter or wet saw

## Vernonv

Hi all,
We are going to redo our bathroom and toilet soon and have ordered in some nice 600 x 300 porcelain tiles. The guy at the tile shop suggested we get hold of a wet saw to cut the tiles, however after doing a bit of a search I starting to wonder if a wet saw is the best option. 
Is it worth getting a wet saw or should I just get a good quality manual tile cutter? 
I would love to hear from any tilers out there or anyone that has some experience with such matters.

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## Honorary Bloke

Hi Vernon, 
Both types of cutters will work. It just depends on how many cuts you need to make and how intricate. 
If all cuts are straight across the tile, you can get by with a manual cutter and get good results. 
If you need to make a number of 90 degree corner cuts, you will have better luck with a wet saw. 
Porcelain is very hard, so in either case be careful or you will get chip out (DAMHIKT  :Biggrin:  ). If using a wet saw, make sure the blade is sharp. (Go ahead, ask me how you sharpen a tile saw blade--you cut bricks with it!) You will also need a good quality tile nipper for odd shapes.  
I use a wet saw myself, but for a small job like a bath and if no other projects in the offing, a manual cutter will do and save you a bit of money.  :Smilie:

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## Border boy

Hi Vernonv, 
I used both manual & wet saw on our bathroom reno 18 months ago. Manual was OK for straight cuts & cheap as the tile retailer I bought from supplied it for nothing. A mate had a GMC wet saw & lent that to me for the more intricate cuts - worked well & was easy to use. I recall that the GMC is not that dear from Bunnies, probably cheaper than a quality manual cutter - so if you can't borrow one, buying shouldn't blow the budget. 
Cheers.

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## Vernonv

Thanks guys. 
My biggest concern is that the manual tile cutter will not be able to handle a long (600mm) cut in such a hard tile. I think I may just keep on the lookout for a second hand wet saw. 
Thanks again for the input ... and if anyone has anything to add, please do.

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## Ronaldo451

Porcelain tiles are exceptionally hard! My first tiling job was laying them on the diagonal so every edging tile had to be cut to a triangle shape. I bought a wet saw but they are very noisy when cutting porcelain and would have ended up driving me and the neighbours crazy if every cut had to be done that way. However, even straight cuts across the body of the tile with a manual cutter had more than a 50% failure rate with the final break turning out wonky or curved. 
I ended up cutting the end 5 - 10 mm for each cut with the wet saw and then used a manual cutter to join these 'starts', and trimmed where the two cut types met with a belt sander with a very coarse belt in it to cover the minor chipping.

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## Vernonv

Thanks Ronaldo, great info. 
Lucky for me I don't have any neighbors close to me, so noise should be an issue.

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## rod1949

In building my house I've laid around 250 square metres of tiles including 90 square metres of porcelain tiles 450x450 on the floor.  I did a feature section with these tiles laid at 45 degrees.  I have a manual and an electric overhead diamond blade cutters, both of these have around a 500mm capacity.  So for the tiles on the angle I hired a large wet diamond cutter for the day for $50 (I did thick about buying one but not for $600 plus).  I made a jig out of some ply and clamped it to the tray of the cutter so every size and cut was the same. 
For the splashbacks in the kitchen we used 600x330 (clay type) tiles.  For the 600mm rips I used a 100mm angle grinder with a diamond blade (dry cutting), it works a treat, its a bit dusty so needs to be done outside. 
Where ever I to cut tiles to an "L" shape (fit around a corner etc) I used the angle grinder.

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## Vernonv

I ended up getting a wet tile saw. Unfortunately it will only cut up to 500mm, so I won't be able to do any long rips, but then again the majority of the cuts will be across the tiles (300mm).
For the rip cuts I think I will use a diamond blade in the angle grinder. 
Thanks everyone for your input.

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