Currently reading:
The less glamorous side to fitting ex large formats.

Discuss The less glamorous side to fitting ex large formats. in the Australia Tiling Forum area at TilersForums.com.

O

Old Mod

This is how I got covered in Celotex dust in the image from Simons post. It wasn’t much fun, nasty stuff that.
This is the less glamorous side to fitting ex large formats.
Trying to squeeze 3.2’s x 1.6’s in to a very small space.
They were cutdown to 2.4m first, and had to go in to a shower that is only 1800 long.
Sounds straight forward enough, until you realise you have to turn a 1.6m slab 90 degrees within a shower only 1200 wide.
Again, seems feasible, until you realise there’s a copper pipe dropping 500m in to shower.
First order of business, turn off water and cut it down to 50mm cos there’s no way you’re putting slab on opposite wall first so that you can spread tile and wall and then moving it to opposite wall to fix.
Second problem, having to slide a 1600 wide piece in to the shower space, which is 1200 wide and rotating it thro 90 degrees as you go in, when there’s a skeiling only 50mm away from the end of the shower wall.
Effectively giving you a piece of slab with 400mm negative swing about its fulcrum point at 1200mm.
Solution, cut a big hole in the skeiling to accommodate it.
Third problem, holding a full width slab with a large 140mm hole for a divertor and a 3 sided niche at one end, then pushing the bottom of it 800mm away from the shower wall at an angle to effectively shorten the slab so that skeiling damage is kept to a minimum.
Fourth problem, supporting a 60kg slab at an angle while lifting it in to place with no room to move and of course not actually breaking it.
And not damaging the mitred slab already in place outside the shower.
Resulting in 3 guys doing 90 mins work, just to get the actual slab in to place on opposite wall and it’s not even fixed in place yet.
And that takes up to an hour for 2 guys.
We’re now at 6.5 hrs, plus almost a day to fabricate with 3 sides niche mitred, large cut out for oversized divertor, one water feed pipe for a hand wand, and a full height mitre of 2.4m on the back edge so it can be wrapped around the end of the shower wall and in to the main room.
And lastly, doing it all over again for the piece on the other side too.

8578DAB4-5A11-4465-8DA8-95CDD8CC21D0.png

E5927743-BCA2-46FE-B39C-2AB91E01B3BC.jpeg

You can see the slab half way round the end of the wall, cutting the skeiling with that in the way was fun. That’s why I got the 6’ 4” painter to do it. :D

7C913909-78DE-41D7-8680-82A41C7D86E7.jpeg

98AB6C88-9A98-450E-8259-F5F7A5EBE907.jpeg

98315DF2-E07D-4812-A1BB-1DA167D70A31.jpeg

41EC07F7-59B2-4BF6-9377-D5C2BC390A36.jpeg

61EF9891-B7F0-4302-A9AA-A4A4C49BF4E1.jpeg

9314ED60-0800-4921-B3ED-34B86019CC18.jpeg

2F49FC5D-9F65-411E-8875-B7C8C9C3C1F2.jpeg

96849E72-26F0-4597-84C1-E4FFBF839169.jpeg

2C43E1BD-5645-4CEC-9B76-3F88253E53ED.jpeg

21467AF0-C835-4380-A545-F8F5A57DADED.jpeg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I

Italy

1 tell simon to do the job alone.
2 tell those who decided to set, to pose horizontally.
3 if the tile was cut at 240h, I would have made another cut at 120h
4 take it or leave it, it does not find any other tilers doing that job.
100% safe.
in that place you are risking your life in case you break a tile
during assembly. I think that in some works we must set limits
and you have already overcome them ... :(
 
O

Old Mod

I can’t even begin to imagine what a challenge it must be sometimes.
What an achievement finally getting the piece in place though.

Ahem! two pieces. :D:p
It’s the reason I try to work with the large formats only now.
It’s given me a new reason to go to work.
Makes me think, instead of just going thro the motions everyday.
 
O

Old Mod

how The hell can you do a job like that when someone else has prepped the walls (badly) ?
You have to make them fit to tile. Don’t always have the luxury of saying do it again. Sometimes you have to cope, just like any other job.
Depends at what stage you first get consulted.
If they’re switched on, it’s early.
If they’ve never even seen them before, it’s when it’s generally too late. So you have to deal with it. Doesn’t mean it’s free tho. :)
 
O

Old Mod

I bet you’d prefer to do all the prep work yourself!

Having to work with someone else’s version of Plumb must make your blood boil:anguished:


:D Maybe.
Had external angles 18mm out of plumb and flat walls 28mm.
Flat walls are not so much of a problem unless you’re wrapping a pattern around the internal corner.
If theyre not plumb it’s impossible to get a proper wrap.
If it falls away for example by 10mm, you then have to cut the same 10mm off the bottom of the wrapped piece, that then throws out the design.
 
W

Waluigi

I was thinking about that the other day. Bad enough contending with mitres but when you’re wrapping veins around a wall it must be a whole new dimension in things to think about.

I can also imagine that even with the best will in the world and a ridiculous amount of thought and planning, things come up that you didn’t even consider.

Anyway, it’s great to see the stuff posted. It’s not for me but I fully appreciate what you’re doing and have a very tiny indication of how difficult and above all time consuming it must be.
 

Reply to The less glamorous side to fitting ex large formats. in the Australia Tiling Forum area at TilersForums.com

Posting a tiling question to the forum? Post in Tilers' Talk if you are unsure which forum to post in. We'll move it if there's a more suitable forum.

Advertisement

Top