Hello, I'm about to fit 12mm 600 x 300mm porcelain tiles to my bathroom, and have decided to cut all notches & squares in the tiles using an angle grinder. Question is which diamond disc do I go for to acheive clean cuts, one with cuts in it or a smooth type?
Will this disc/s do the job?
Silverline Turbo Wave Diamond Cutting Blade 115mm x 22mm - Transtools

or this one?

Silverline Tile Cutting Diamond Blade 115mm x 22mm - Transtools

any guidance much appreciated.

At 365Drills we would ask you to reconsider your approach. When you angle grind holes from the back of a tiles it is a crude approch, creates a lot of dust and can be a spiteful way to use power tools to knock out holes. The finished results are not very precise and you are left with a cone shape holes plus score marks.

In contrast using a diamond core drill eliminates a lot of the above. They allow you to drill from the front of the tile so are accurate. For example: When you mark out the hole on the FRONT of the tile you can be precise to the millimetre.

Using our wet sponge eliminates dust exposure for the installer, its cleaner with less mess and all the dirty tile dust can be put into the water bucket saving you clean up time.

Using an angle grinder works up to a point on larger holes provided you expect to use a cover plate on your fittings. But if you are not accurate you can end up with the cover plate not concealing the hole. Example


In this example above a builder has had a crude go at knocking out all three holes with an angle grinder. Even when the cover plate is put over the work the score marks are still visible on the larger waste pipe.


In the case above the builder chopped out the holes on the tile with a grinder because he knowsthe fittings will be concealed.

WE AGREE That's fine for the larger pipes (as shown above) but there are two scenarios where you can NOT carry out this method.

1) You cant carve holes into tiles that are already on the wall.
2) You cant carve small holes like 6mm and 8mm

Once the tiles are on the wall you HAVE to diamond drill through them to fit rawl plugs.


This is a 6mm rawl plug.


This is a larger 8mm rawl plug.

Neither hole can be cut out with an angle grinder. A diamond core (in porcelain tiles) must be used.


To make a hole this small you will need a diamond core drill.

What we offer at 365Drills for tilers, plumbers & Installers is an "all in one" set of diamond cores. Its a great time saving solution and a tool box essential.

Supposing you are going to just get the 6mm and 8mm plugs and intend to angle grind the rest of the holes? Thats going to cost you £29.99 for the small drills. (Pack of 4)


£29.99 for a pack of four cores

But.... For an extra £20 quid (£29.99 above - £49.99) You get the bathroom Fitters Kit. And the Bathroom Fitters Kit is your All In One Tile Drilling solution



So the extra £20 gets you the 16mm, the 30mm and the 40mm and these are your popular service pipe sizes.

If you were to buy them from Screwfix Direct they would cost you
16mm £14.25
30mm £23.89
40mm £26.97 (Substitue 35mm)
-----------------
Total: £65.11 (Source of pricing catalogue 102 - Spring 2010 Screwfix Direct)

And we are offering the above three diamond cores for £20 (If bought as part of the Bathroom Fitters Kit).

As I said you are going to HAVE to buy 6mm and 8mm for the rawl plugs anyway so you might as well have the sockets above for the extra £20.

And below is the sort of result you get from those service pipe sizes of 16mm 30mm 40mm



The Bathroom Fitters Kit is so versatile that for example if you have already fitted your tiles to the wall you can drill through the tile with the 30mm core and fit a Fischer Fixing Kit for a basin. Like this:



The kit allows an installer flexibility. Another example. Imagine you have already laid the tiles on the floor for the loo pan. You can diamond drill a hole through the floor tile so that you can push through an M8 or M6 bolt to fix down your loo pan.

Our advice is that if you have a core drilling kit in your toolbox and it has all the sizes then for a small price you can handle the job.

Thanks Richard for your post, but I've already invested in your holesaw kit for cutting round holes

What I'm specifically interested in is using the grinder for L shapes, and cutting an accurate square for my flush plate.

Thanks Richard for your post, but I've already invested in your holesaw kit for cutting round holes

Thats all we like to hear !

Like you we have used angle grinders and I will admit they have their place. Especially for socket forming on tiles.









Our little angle grinder is a spiteful little thing but we have managed to get some
cuts out of it for sockets etc.

Hope someone out there can recommend the blade for you !

for a 4 inch u need a 105 mm
4.5 inch 115mm
5 inch 125 mm

for porc i would use a continuous rim and leave the turbo blade for the ceramics.

Hope this helps

Trev