Thanks your comments.
It seems to me that the tiles did have reasonable contact with adhesive. But the adhesive doesn't have enough "glue" or "stick". I'm interested in comment about cheap adhesive, what do you mean very little polymer. The adhesive was Topps own brand.
The failure seems to me similar to what would happen if surface too absorbent - not primed. The adhesive is well stuck to the primed Hardieboard.
I wonder if the highly absorbent nature of the ceramic back has a detrimental effect on adhesive.
The mix felt ok to me it was easy to spread but perhaps with ceramic it needs to be wetter to allow it to spread more under tile ? I wasn't trying to achieve 100% bedding though.
I used a 10mm trowel. Should I have larger notch giving larger rib ?
I can't see how twisting works when laying a tile. you'd have to lay tile away from next tile then push into position risking messy joints. my method tends to be laying tile butting up to next tile and then pulling back to open joint space with a jerking motion. If the mix is right surely that should be enough. There shouldn't be a need to butter.
It seems to me that the tiles did have reasonable contact with adhesive. But the adhesive doesn't have enough "glue" or "stick". I'm interested in comment about cheap adhesive, what do you mean very little polymer. The adhesive was Topps own brand.
The failure seems to me similar to what would happen if surface too absorbent - not primed. The adhesive is well stuck to the primed Hardieboard.
I wonder if the highly absorbent nature of the ceramic back has a detrimental effect on adhesive.
The mix felt ok to me it was easy to spread but perhaps with ceramic it needs to be wetter to allow it to spread more under tile ? I wasn't trying to achieve 100% bedding though.
I used a 10mm trowel. Should I have larger notch giving larger rib ?
I can't see how twisting works when laying a tile. you'd have to lay tile away from next tile then push into position risking messy joints. my method tends to be laying tile butting up to next tile and then pulling back to open joint space with a jerking motion. If the mix is right surely that should be enough. There shouldn't be a need to butter.