Ceramic tiles

Dare I ask if we're moving towards the kitchen sink?

Sorry, couldn't help it!

G

There is a tile importer over here whose father has a barn full of left-overs from his long career. Everything from Victorian to the present day. Most if them 70's hideous!

It doesn't help you of course but I thought I'd share this information. We used his old stocks extensively to tile the kitchen, bathroom, halls and round the woodburning stove in the living room. Hours of fun to be had grovelling on hands and knees. Not!

It might be possible that a local tiler has some left overs of what you are looking for. Or a close enough match.

Have a look in the Yellow Pages or whatever passes or a local trade contact directory. Ask if they know anyone with a collection of leftovers if they haven't any themselves. You'll never know if you don't ask.

Failing that, just replace the tiles in the area involved with a contrasting colour that looks as if it was meant to be like that.

Beware that tile sizes are only nominal and you need exactly the right size replacements or you're buggered. (or words to that effect)

Nime

This may sound obvious but make sure any replacement tiles are exactly the same size as the originals. We had a few broken tiles on our kitchen floor and after eventually locating suitable replacements, when I started laying them I found they were about one quarter of an inch bigger than those currently on the floor, in spite of the listed dimensions being the same. As I didn't have the right machine to trim them I had to end up crunching them down using pliers. Floor tiles are extremely tough and after a few hours my fingers were shredded and my arms were like rubber. It was one of those "I wish I'd never started this" days!

Tom

You can buy or hire tile cutters to trim tiles.
They work well and make life very easy. Particularly the pro models. The cutter has a reciprocating action along steady bars on a secure bed plate.

Then there are fine, thin, diamond discs to fit the smaller standard angle-grinders. These discs are cheap and slice through tiles like butter. Be sure to select thin discs designed for tile cutting. Some discs are thicker with clearance slots for cutting concrete paving slabs. Such discs will make a rough cut compared with the finer, thinner discs.

You need goggles for safety and a dust mask is a good idea.

Regards
Nime

This thread should be closed asap, if it weren't for those damned things Challanger would still be flying, or do you blame the glue all you conspiricy theorists out there ? still pretty anti-patriotic though, I'm gonna tell an administrator.

Anon

Fritz is on the tiles - lummee !

Nime,
I know I could have made things easier for myself but I had set aside a Sunday afternoon to pick up and lay the tiles. Initially I only had about half a dozen to replace so surely that should have been plenty of time. Unfortunately it wasn't until I got started that I realised they were a fraction too big and there was no place nearby I could get hold of a cutter. I'd been getting grief from my wife for ages about the state of the floor so I couldn't really delay it any longer(I'm married to a woman who's barely able to change a light bulb but uncannily is able to detect every bit of D.I.Y. I need to do). Once I started lifting the damaged tiles, other good ones broke and before I knew where I was about half the kitchen floor was broken. To cut a long story short a one hour minor repair turned into eight hours hard bloody graft at the end of which I wasn't in the best of humour. I suppose it's happened to us all at one time or another.