i need to cut an "L" shape into a square ceramic floor tile. imagine the American flag is a tile - i need to cut out the blue area with the stars. so it's like an interior corner cut. obviously a tile cutter won't work (the kind that scores & then snaps it), and a wet saw cutter will overcut in order to completely cut out the smaller square. so what am i supposed to do??? i purchased a carbide blade for my jig saw, but after cutting only about 3 inches, it went dull & stopped working. and tile nippers are too tiring for me to use, plus they leave a jagged edge & i need a nice clean edge. is there some other kind of blade i can get for my jig saw that will last? or are we talking diamond edged that will be really expensive? what do the pro's do??? thanks for any advice.........

 

Cut the tile as far as you can on the bed of the saw. Then you hold the tile up at an angle to finish the cut. The blade on a wet saw cuts from the top so your able to do this without over cutting.Hope you understand.

 

ah-ha! tricky! thanks for the tip. ok......now suppose you were just a do-it-yourselfer, like me, and you only had 3 tiles you needed to cut, because you were just retiling your fireplace hearth! i really don't want to haul a wet saw home, hook the whole thing up & figure out how to use it, plus pay about $30 bucks for 4 hours, all for just 3 tiles! so........i was wondering if a professional installer, who HAS a wet saw, would allow me to go to him to have him cut these for me! it couldn't take more than 15 minutes!! i know someone probably wouldn't want to mess with coming to my house for such a small thing. is that something you have ever done, or would ever consider doing?? i have a call into a tile installation place, but they haven't called me back yet. and the only local hardware store that has a wet saw refuses to do it for me. they say they'll only do simple straight cuts (for $1 per cut), and only on tile that's been purchased from them! the simplest solution for me, i think, is to just find a blade for my jigsaw that will last! shouldn't the carbide one i bought have lasted longer than 3 inches???

 

home depot or lowes usually have wet saws and will cut the tile for a buck a cut angle cuts or corners dos'nt matter.If not a dry cut diamond blade on a 4" grinder works very well

 

Floorman: i guess you wouldn't have known that when i said "my local hardware store" i meant Lowe's! they refused to do my cuts for me because (A) i didn't purchase my tile from them, and their reasoning is that, if they ruin my tile, they wouldn't have any more to replace it with (although i told them that i have a whole box of tile & i didn't care if they ruined all but 3 of them!) and (B) they won't do an "L" cut on a tile! they'll only do straight cuts that go from one edge straight over to the other edge, all the way across! they told me their saw would "over cut" and leave a score mark on the tile. Apparently they've never heard of the trick where you pick up the tile slightly to finish the cut. i'm sure they just don't want to mess with it.

And our Home Depot does NOT have a wet saw at all. Neither did Sutherlands or Meeks or any of the stores that sell tile!

i don't own a "grinder" so i won't be buying that blade you talked about. i DO have a jig saw, so i think the easiest solution for me (other than having a pro do it - although the one i've called and left a message with, hasn't called me back yet) will be to keep buying the carbide blades for my jig saw i mentioned in my first question (that go dull after a 3" cut) and keep opening up a new one when the old one goes dull, until i've done all my cutting (it's only 3 tiles!), then return them to the store!! it seems like that's bordering on the edge of dishonesty, but i truly think those blades should last longer than that, especially when it says right on the package "cut easily thru marble, tile, slate, etc..."

so...........thanks anyway!

 

I'm sure you're all laying awake at night wondering if i ever got my tile project done (ha!)......well, i'm happy to report that i did and it looks great. as you may recall, when i first called our Sutherland's store, they had told me that they didn't have a wet saw on the premises. but lo and behold, when my husband called, not only did they have a wet saw, but they'd be happy to cut our tiles for us and didn't even charge us! go figure!

but of course, it wasn't as easy as all that. i first had to ruin upwards of 20 tiles trying various methods to cut them, including 3 different carbide blades for our jig saw (the blades either went dull after 3 inches of cutting, or the tiles cracked after about an inch was cut into them), some sort of cutting disc for our circular saw (the sparks flew like it was the 4th of July, and then the tiles cracked - this was a product the guy at Lowe's said a tile layer swore by as THE best tool he'd ever found to cut tiles!), and lastly, the archaic and much-hated nippers (i still haven't regained full use of my right hand). after all that, THEN we rediscovered Sutherland's.

i guess the moral of this story is, keep going back & bugging them until you get the answer you want! .....and keep your receipts so you can return the worthless products!

thanks for everyone's help on this one!!!