Any tips on fitting Porcelain wall mosaic?

[Stone]

My kitchen fitter has swerved fitting my kitchen wall tiles. They are a brick mosaic porcelain tile in sheets 300 x 300.
I have bought (what I think is) a recommended powder based adhesive and just wondered if anyone could advise on preperation ie Unibond yes/no........thickness of adhesive on wall 2mm/4mm?.... butter sheet of tiles yes/no?
Is there a problem with them falling off the wall? I have an electric diamond tile cutter and have done a reasonable amount of DIY tiling before with decent results but my 'mate' has made me doubt myself on this and the tiles were very expensive so don't want to be chucking them or washing them off!!!

Any tips gratefully recieved.

Mick

[Varley]

Depends on the thickness of the tiles as to what size notch trowel to use, the colour will depend on wether they need to be back skimmed.

Which brand of powdered adhesive did you buy?

Don't unibond the wall, use acrylic primer.

[Stone]

Cheers for the reply. The tiles are 8mm thick. The only adhesive I could see for porcelain was Wickes own brand 'For stone and percelain wall and floor tiles"

Is the main problem that they don't absort water like ceramic?

[Varley]

You can just use a normal wall trowel for those tiles mate.

BAL mosaic fix is about the best on the market (in my opinion) for fixing mosaics, more expensive but well worth it

[GazTech]

You can just use a normal wall trowel for those tiles mate.

BAL mosaic fix is about the best on the market (in my opinion) for fixing mosaics, more expensive but well worth it

Spot on as usual Var,mosaic fix is one of the best adhesives known to man

[Dave]

iv'e fixed these a few times now, use 6mm notch trowel and white star adhesive and use a flexible grout .. dave...

[Stone]

Cheers guys, will let you know the results next week (or when they fall off the wall!)

[365drills]

Dont forget if you need to cut neat holes into them to try our drill kit.

If you are anywhere near docklands (and this applies to all readers) then we are at Tile-&-Stone next Sunday doing demos for three days.

Its at Excel and on 1 2 3 July 2007

R

[Stone]

One last thing........ these are going above a solid Oak worktop (which will obviosley move). What do you suggest I put between the upstand and the tiles? Flexible grout? Silicone? Other mastic/filler?

[guy1976]

make sure the work top is completely covered as you might stain the wood

[reaper72]

Cheers for the reply. The tiles are 8mm thick. The only adhesive I could see for porcelain was Wickes own brand 'For stone and percelain wall and floor tiles"

Is the main problem that they don't absort water like ceramic?

Totally right,they don't absorb moisture like ceramic almost all porcelain are what's known as full bodied or fully vitrified -if they're a light colour,use a white rapid set....

[psychowitch]

Just reading through some of the comments on this old thread about fixing porcelain mosaics...is the Bal Mosaic (cant find it now ?) polymer based as I didnt think whitestar etc were ..... Im tiling on plaster which will allow evaporation of the adhesive but tend to use polymer modified for porcelain...

[Branty]

Bal Mosaicfix.

[psychowitch]

Thanks.. went on their website and couldnt see it!...