trowel size?

[garretridge]

working with a tiler today he is very experienced using a 12mm sq notched trowel to lay floor tiles on concrete no buttering the back either but very quick at his work. i have been tought to use a floor trowel and to back butter ive only been in the game a year so i didnt want to say anything to him whats your thoughts on this!

[david campbell]

i know a few tilers who use square notch trowels for everything(leatherface used to say he did also),it does give you less coverage but will still work,also buttering the back of tiles is something that is done by some tilers only when the surface is in bad condition

[Dave]

You can still get solid coverage with a square notched trowel with the corect mixture consistency and technique.,,no probs..

[garretridge]

You can still get solid coverage with a square notched trowel with the corect mixture consistency and technique.,,no probs..

what would your prefered method be dave!

[doug boardley]

just need to twist and wiggle a bit more with a square notch (the tile, I might add!!)

[Dave]

what would your prefered method be dave!

As per doug...and if a larger tile then flat blade the back of the tile for increased coverage..

[hillhead]

I use square notch mostly and dont be afraid to go 10 and 13mm.push tiles into a soft bed of addy and it works well for me.i usually only back butter if deep recesses in back of tile or around door areas.

[STINGRAY30]

hey guys. am putting in 600 x 600 tiles on my living room, hall, and dining room. 43 sq mtrs in total.

solid concrete floor. wat size of trowell is needed?? thanks.

[doug boardley]

hey guys. am putting in 600 x 600 tiles on my living room, hall, and dining room. 43 sq mtrs in total.

solid concrete floor. wat size of trowell is needed?? thanks.

depends on how flat your substrate is mate, the more uneven, the larger notched trowel needed

[STINGRAY30]

floor is fairly flat. i have a 10mm & 12mm square & 10mm round notch trowell.

[doug boardley]

I'd go for the round notch, lift a tile every so often to make sure you're getting 100% contact

[STINGRAY30]

thanks. looking foward to doing it. hopefully moving in to house in 3 weeks time.

[heavytrevy]

Def the 12mm with a tile that large, depending on how level the floor is u may want to backbutter as well.
general rule is bigger the tile, the bigger the trowel notch size, this is so u can get the tiles level .

Regards
Trev

floor is fairly flat. i have a 10mm & 12mm square & 10mm round notch trowell.

[STINGRAY30]

when backbuttering do you use the same size of trowell that ur already using?? like if using 10mm round do you back butter with that???

or is that a sillt question!!!

[Stan001]

I didn’t realise until today how big an effect the different trowels have …

I spent a quite a few (very) valuable hours today with the training man (20 years plus tiler focused on top end work) from BAL (its part of the excellent Diamond Training Centre course). He gave a really good training session and demo on a number of things including many different tile types and backgrounds plus the many different adhesives that work between them, also how the many different trowels work and effect the work. This also included the tanking construction of a shower plus clear explanation of how incorrect grout and trowel selection and usage / spreading of the addy can cause problems. He also explained and gave examples of how the incorrect trowel selection can effect translucent tiles (interesting demo using a lit cigarette lighter behind a tile to show how translucent common tiles are). He also demo’d the effects of not using the trowel at the correct angle plus using a full push to board could have.

A nice combinations we tillers have to works with isn’t it – background + trowel type + adhesive + tile material ! …. I think my head hurts!

As part of his excellent training session he fixed a clear glass tile to board using both a plain notched tile plus a solid bed tile, you could clearly see how effectively the solid bed trowels work when compared to simple notched trowels. It was a real shocker! This guy gets called out to many failures and a large percentage of them can be seen to be wrong trowel selection.

For the sake of £15 worth of trowel (and that gets you a Rubi, Marshaltown or Ragni! These were the makes recommended by the BAL man) then what’s the point (and potential failure cost) of not using the right trowel?

I for one am converted to making sure I use the correct trowel in future (I confess – I’m a sinner – I didn’t before! …. I have a wonderful selection of different size notch jobs!)

(p.s. as an end point - to this guys total credit he presented the whole things from a neutral point of view as part of the Diamond Training Centre’s course, not from a BAL point of view … I expected a sales job and didn’t get it )

[Matt]

when backbuttering do you use the same size of trowell that ur already using?? like if using 10mm round do you back butter with that???

or is that a sillt question!!!

I am no tiler, but I am sure you back butter with the flat side of the trowel, not the notched side. Someone please correct me if I am wrong

[Stan001]

How I understand it – there are two types of back buttering …
1.When you have to use the notched side of the trowel to put addy on the rear of the tile cos you cant get the addy onto the wall in a tricky place (tip – the tile sucks up your addy quicker than addy to wall so work faster)
2.Using the flat side of the trowel on the rear of the tile in combination with a notched addy already placed to wall to give the effect of or improved effectiveness ref solid bedding.
Hope I got that right - I stand to be corrected.