# Forum Home Renovation Tiling  Tips for cutting porcelain floor tiles?

## atregent

I've finished tiling the main part of the bathroom floor, the bit with all the 'near enough is good enough' cuts (the ones where the cut edge will be hidden by wall tiles). 
Now I'm up to the bit where I have to make both ends nice, around the linear drain and tile insert. 
I picked up one of these tile cutters from bunnings on the weekend, hoping to be able to make nice straight cuts, but I'm having trouble with chipping (and i'm running out of scrap pieces to test on). I believe this is sort of par for the course with porcelain. 
Are there any pros who wouldn't mind sharing some tips for getting nice cuts?

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## rod1949

For straight cuts a diamond blade in an angle grinder  :2thumbsup:

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## atregent

> For straight cuts a diamond blade in an angle grinder

  I have a wet saw, the cheapy type with the blade in the table, but have trouble getting a perfect straight edge. 
From what I have read, porcelain tiles are strong, but brittle, which explains the chipping. I was hoping there was a knack to it with the manual cutter.

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## phild01

When I cut my porcelain tiles I was in the hunt for a decent diamond blade for the angle grinder.  Still got chipped edges, not the clean cuts I was after, though not badly chipped.  The little wet table saw I have was no better and more bother than it was worth.
When doing bathrooms,the floor tiles should be first with the wall tiles overlapping and thence hiding the cut edges.

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## atregent

My wet saw doesn't do a bad job, just not the perfect straight edge I'm after.  
The bit I'm doing now is around the drain grate, so both ends need to be spot on. 
I guess I'll just have to make up some sort of a jig for my wet saw to do the straight cuts, and save the tile cutter for the wall tiles. 
Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk

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## shauck

I used a wet saw and start the cut about 20mm or so then flip the tile around and cut from the other end. When you get to the short cut, go very slowly and it should chip to the offcut side. In fact if you do it really really slow and with very little pressure, it may even break out along the cut.

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## Renopa

The first tiler I hired to tile the kitchen and laundry had chips along every cut and said it was 'impossible' to cut without chipping.  I knew this was BS because in a previous house I also had large format porcelains and they didn't have any chipping.   
Fast forward to the current bathroom reno and the tiler was an old hand (70yo who had been tiling since 14yo) he was a perfectionist so I asked how does he do perfect cuts with NO chipping at all.  He said the trick is to have a 'new' wheel on the cutter and as soon as it starts to go 'off' fit a new one and keep the old blade for other tiles.  His work was 100% chip free which proves it can be done...his tile cutter was the same as the one you got, although it was bigger to accommodate 600x600 tiles....it extended to 1000mm with extension tables.  
Hope this helps?   :Biggrin:

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## atregent

> 70yo who had been tiling since 14yo

  So all I need is another 55 years of experience and I'll be set  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  
I had a couple more practice runs last night and managed to get an ok job out of it. The trick I found was to move the 'breaker' or whatever that part is called, about 50mm in from the edge, rather than just on the edge, which is where the big chips were coming out.

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## sparkiecol

I too bought the Bunnings wet saw, only to manage chipped tiles.
Took a leap of faith and paid $26 at Trade Tools (was offered a $110 American blade!) , for a diamond blade and wow! clean cuts, hooray!
Raced back and bought a second blade for a back up. had a heap of cutting to do.
Tilings now finished, no use for the back up blade, the 'good' blade is still good after metres of cutting.
Moral of the story, get a decent blade and you'll see the difference.
P.S, still think the Bunnings tile cutter is a winner, just the blade's crap.

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## phild01

> I too bought the Bunnings wet saw, only to manage chipped tiles.
> Took a leap of faith and paid $26 at Trade Tools (was offered a $110 American blade!) , for a diamond blade and wow! clean cuts, hooray!
> Raced back and bought a second blade for a back up. had a heap of cutting to do.
> Tilings now finished, no use for the back up blade, the 'good' blade is still good after metres of cutting.
> Moral of the story, get a decent blade and you'll see the difference.
> P.S, still think the Bunnings tile cutter is a winner, just the blade's crap.

  Was this an ultra thin turbo blade?

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## mgt

I have just finished cutting a heap of porcelain for floor and a wall. 
I used a 125mm Diamond blade for tiles (a straight one with no notches).  Instead of putting it in the angle grinder - I put it into my circular saw.  This enabled me to run straighter cuts, and when I wanted to be really straight I used a fence.  I still used the blade in the angle grinder for some cuts, but found the circular saw gave less 'wiggle'. 
I found as the blade started to dull - chipping started to appear a lot worse than normal (was some very small minor chipping).  I found squirting water on the blade as I cut enabled me to get some more life out of the blade (with less chipping). 
As a finisher - I places one of those overlapping sandpaper blades on the angle grinder.  I ran this along the edge lightly and this eliminated any of the tiny little chips on the cut of the tile. 
Cheers,
MGT.

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## Random Username

Wet saw followed by a touch up on the belt sander with a 100 grit belt. I even put a small 45 degree chamfer on the edges with the belt sander, just like on the factory edges.

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## Pulse

I use hand diamond pads to clean up the edges after the tile cutter, I use a big sigma. You can do jolly edges with diamond pads too after an initial bevel with a grinder  
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