big floor tile cut to small

[SkyHook]

I have some porcelain floor tiles 430 X 430. I would like to cut each one into nine squares about 140 X 140, to use on a small en-suite floor.

Is this possible? If yes - how is this done?

Thanks

Mark

[thesupervisor]

the only way is thru a tile cutting company try your local tile shop
i think its done with a laser it wont be cheap
try www.tiledirect.com.au

[scooter]

Mark, 140x3 would be 420mm per side. This would leave 10mm total that could be consumed in the 3 "kerfs" that the blade would remove.

Porcelain tiles are cut with a diamond coated blade, the kerf that the blade removes wouldn't be far off the 3.3mm max that you are allowing for each cut. It would take some skill I'd reckon to cut truly & stay within the margin allowed. Possible I guess, just difficult.

Any alternatives?


Cheers.....................Sean

[tea lady]

Well I know they can cut kiln shelves, which are probably as hard as porcelain. They charge $1 per cut. But that was ages ago. But it still adds up to $8 per 9 tiles. Don't know what the charge would be these days. Or where you would go. Hire a saw perhaps? Buy some smaller tiles might be easier.

[autogenous]

Some of the porcelain coming out is so hard it is burning out diamond blades and impossible to cut.

Porclein has to be spot on or you will see the imperfections. The ocst of it may out weigh the cost of actually just buying some already that size.

Some porcelain can be cut with a tile cutter but good porcelain tiles are getting rarer.

[scottyb]

It's possible but probably costly and the final result may not look great. The edges of porcelain tiles chip easily, also you would most likely want a small bevel on each cut edge to match the uncut edges. This would require some more hand/machine grinding. Probably cheaper and better result to buy some smaller tiles.

[SkyHook]

Thanks everyone - sounds like it is back to the tile shops to try (with my very limited interior design skills ) to decide on some new small ones.

Cheers

Mark