Posted: Mar 22, 2016 2:11 am
laklak wrote:Hey SS, did you rent the tile saw? Is it a wet saw? I picked up a decent Rigid 8 inch overhead wet saw for $75 at a pawn shop, they're around 300 new. Cheaper than renting multiple times if you're doing more tile work, and you can sell when you're finally finished.
I purchased mine on sale. It's got a shitty little ripping fence that only accommodates 6" so I had to do most of my cuts freehand as they're 18" tiles. Also, I suspect I had to do things with tile snips that most people could manage with a better saw. But it's a wet saw and I got surprisingly good at cutting straight lines freehand.
Hardest part of floor tile is getting the mastic evenly spread so the tiles sit level. Takes practice and the right sized notched trowel, but once you get it down it's fast work. I use a 6 foot piece of good quality 2x12 to check the level across multiple rows and lay the mastic on a bit thick. Easier to clean up any excess that oozes out than pull up a tile to add more if it's sitting low. A heavy rubber mallet helps. It's very satisfying work.
I'm waiting to see if any of the tiles wind up coming up, because I suspect I did a less-than-stellar job researching how to lay tile and I didn't do any leveling. I just pressed them down into the thinset until they made little fart noises and moved on. Lots of satisfying fart noises, though. Do they fart better with a mallet? I'll have to try that when I do the bathrooms.