Old Victorian floor tiling - TilersForums.com

[Yorkshire Tiling Services]

Have been to Halifax town Hall & also recently Council Tax office, both have some very old mosaic floors, then piece look like they have all been cut individually & laid to fit the pattern.
will re-visit with my camera.
These floors must have taken ages to complete. Very intricate & large areas.
Yorkshire Rose on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Curved on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Tenchman]

Send pics when you get them just finshed a geometric restoration and new geometric install at a town hall in lIncoln be interested to see them Ta!

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

I love this kind of stuff, some pictures would be great

 

[Yorkshire Tiling Services]

Would be amazed to known how long and how these floors were laid, no special tools in them days.

 

[Tenchman]

Still waiting on wheels so can look in on forum .

Hi YTS, the tiles if they are Victorian = multi coloured geometric shapes possibly with a pattern on them ? these are made in moulds so they didn't need to cut them (like 1,200 pieces i recently did ) if they did need to cut they used either a chisel to cut a line then tapped the back with a hammer, cut shapes would have been done by back edging. most tilers arn't taught these methods.

if they needed cutting to be done they always had steam to belt drive cutting or grinding wheels. they were pretty good in the day.

hope that helps.

 

[Richard Edwards]

Hi - Its a passion of mind and also a living !

Please send photo's asap

Thanks Richard

 

[Richard Edwards]

Just an added thought. Tenchman says that they used to score a line on the tile with a chisel and tap the back -- We still do sometimes, although I will use a manual cutter ie TS60 to score and tap the back of the tile whilst its resting on my knee. You can also use a glass cutter / score wheel to same effect. This method is quicker and good on large traingular cuts from a square.

Bearing in mind in the period 1860/1905 ish they where layed on either black ash subbase or lime mortar and the tiles themselves were layed on to a wet mortar screed. If you compare the results we achieve today with modern adhesives and polymers etc and whilst we ought to out perform for finish / flat etc we don't always do better. That said, spacing was sometimes too tight and pattern running out occurred.

More pics please

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Still waiting on wheels so can look in on forum .

Hi YTS, the tiles if they are Victorian = multi coloured geometric shapes possibly with a pattern on them ? these are made in moulds so they didn't need to cut them (like 1,200 pieces i recently did ) if they did need to cut they used either a chisel to cut a line then tapped the back with a hammer, cut shapes would have been done by back edging. most tilers arn't taught these methods.

if they needed cutting to be done they always had steam to belt drive cutting or grinding wheels. they were pretty good in the day.

hope that helps.

That was the only method of cutting when I served my time Steve. I can still get a perfect cut using pin hammer & tungsten tip chisel

 

[Tenchman]

Same Here Phil, tiles were soaked in a plasterers tin bath, we used to have to put them down into slurry bed over a green screed.

back edge with a pin hammer snips were useless no decent wetcuts blimey lots of tilers sub 35 years of age would pass out with the crap we had! and worse for me as i was a Tyler-Mason so doing big stone as well.

The mortar used to lift your fingernails off in the winter and split the ends of your fingers so they dripped with blood.

:yikes:

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Same Here Phil, tiles were soaked in a plasterers tin bath, we used to have to put them down into slurry bed over a green screed.

back edge with a pin hammer snips were useless no decent wetcuts blimey lots of tilers sub 35 years of age would pass out with the crap we had! and worse for me as i was a Tyler-Mason so doing big stone as well.

The mortar used to lift your fingernails off in the winter and split the ends of your fingers so they dripped with blood.

:yikes:

The good old days eh Steve, breaking the ice on the soaking drums mid- winter. Happy days:lol: