Encaustic Tiles, advise please.

[Waluigi]

good evening everybody...

I have some Encaustic Tiles to lay on a Bathroom floor. It’s been a while!

Any advise would be gratefully received. If I remember correctly the last time I did these was a good ten years ago, and all I remember is that I used Stain Stop MN and kept the tile surface clean.

Any advise on adhesive to use, sealer etc would be good. Also order of installation would be helpful.

It’ll just be the usual 18mm ply overboarded with 6mm hardibacker, glued screwed and taped as per MI

Here’s a pic of the tiles in question.....

 

[Spare Tool]

Super flat floor, 12mm trowel, standard set adhesive and back skim tiles, leave at least 48hours before sealing with stainstop... and I mean at least 48hrs
(Lithuanian Bob would have you leave em a week 😉) and nothing darker than a medium grey grout 🙂

 

[Spare Tool]

Used exactly same tiles in March 😉

 

[Waluigi]

Thanks. Did you seal before and after grouting and how many coats did it need?

These things are really porous!

12mm seems a lot! Any reason why? The grout in your pic looks really white!

I did contact Ca’pietra asking for advise and they blanked me.

 

[Spare Tool]

The bases are heavily pitted and 12mm was giving a good solid bed.
Sealed twice before grouting and once after, they do soak up sealer like a sponge, sure it was ultra titanium I used, about the only snicket of info I got was to not use a dark grout..

 

[Flintstone]

Plenty plenty plenty of sealer! Work very clean

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Seal them as you take them out of the box, don’t touch the surface with your fingers.

 

[Waluigi]

Not far off there, John

 

[Waluigi]

Used exactly same tiles in March 😉View attachment 100023

Just noticed there are two ways to do the star pattern. Either the way you did it or with a reversed three star like this:-

Much prefer your way, cheers.

 

[Waluigi]

 

[Spare Tool]

Looking good, prepared to go home tomorrow looking like casper, never known as much dust as these things kick out when cutting them, with the grinder anyway..

 

[Waluigi]

Cheers, Yeah fun day tomorrow. Get masked up and plough my way through.

Debating whether the bath panel is going to be done.

 

[Spare Tool]

Cheers, Yeah fun day tomorrow. Get masked up and plough my way through.

Debating whether the bath panel is going to be done.

Could be tricky getting the board on the panel to fix back far enough to accommodate the thickness of them, unless the legs are well out of the way.. Or spoze you could build a lip round the bath?

 

[Albert]

I have cut a lot of encaustics by scoring on Rubi and snapping with pin hammer

 

[Waluigi]

These are 16mm thick, Albert. Would that still be possible? I hadn’t even considered it.

@Andystiletiling I think it would be possible but I’d have to cut the mounting brackets back a bit on the Bath. Probably use a thick XPS Bath panel Board. I’ll probably cut the Foam board first and take a look. It would be an incredibly heavy removeable panel. I always have my panels removeable.

 

[Albert]

all the cuts here are done as i said. All 16mm, give it a try

 

[Waluigi]

Are they the thick ones Albert?

Explain to me more about this technique. I’ve not done it before. Many thanks.

 

[Albert]

Are they the thick ones Albert?

Explain to me more about this technique. I’ve not done it before. Many thanks.

Before cutting machines became readily available you cut tiles with
a pin hammer and a cutting chisel you drew a line and tapped a break
in the surface, you then tapped the back of the tile sharply behind
your break line with your pin hammer to separate the two pieces
I still cut a lot of tiles this way except instead of the cutting chisel
I score with my rubi cutter and then break with cutting hammer.
It still works for me

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Its the way tiles were cut prior to rail cutters and grinders.
Ask @Albert about cutting a hole in a quarry tile with a pin hammer.

Too slow in replying again!

 

[Albert]

 

[Albert]

All the cuts in this pic done by same method

 

[Spare Tool]

I'll remove my optimistic Albert..very impressive, wish id have known about this before I went home wearing a bag of cement every day 🙂

 

[Time's Ran Out]

I'll remove my optimistic Albert..very impressive, wish id have known about this before I went home wearing a bag of cement every day 🙂

It’s an age thing!

 

[Albert]

I'll remove my optimistic Albert..very impressive, wish id have known about this before I went home wearing a bag of cement every day 🙂

Thank you Andy give it a try next time you come up against encaustics, quarry tiles, pressed floor tiles and some terracotta

 

[Waluigi]

Thanks very much for the reply, Albert (and Co)

I’ll give it a bash tomorrow and report back

 

[Spare Tool]

Sorry don't mean to hijack the thread but seeing we've got the old school in the room 😉 how did they cut marble, travertine etc before the days of grinders and wetsaws?

 

[Albert]

Thanks very much for the reply, Albert (and Co)

I’ll give it a bash tomorrow and report back

You might have to score twice then just a sharp tap on the back
and if the cut is on show a light rub with a hand pad 😉

 

[Albert]

Sorry don't mean to hijack the thread but seeing we've got the old school in the room 😉 how did they cut marble, travertine etc before the days of grinders and wetsaws?

Wet saws have been in this game long before I started, most marble
was cut in a marble works, as far as I can recall. It was very rare [for me anyway] to come up against stone, trav, granite. Most of that was done by stonemen.

 

[Waluigi]

You might have to score twice then just a sharp tap on the back
and if the cut is on show a light rub with a hand pad 😉

I thought about that and instead of scoring I’ll probably run my grinder blade down and then tap the back. Cleaner edge maybe. I’ll find out tomorrow 🙂

 

[Albert]

I thought about that and instead of scoring I’ll probably run my grinder blade down and then tap the back. Cleaner edge maybe. I’ll find out tomorrow 🙂

That works too😉 but still dusty

 

[Waluigi]

No joy with the score and hammer.

Even the tile that I broke cleanly along the line, left the tile with an edge that needed a grinder on it.

16mm tiles so the likelihood of it working perfectly were pretty slim. Worth a shot though.