Thin Bed Adhesive

[pendleh]

Hi there

Relatively new to tiling what is a thin bed adhesive? It gets better - I trained at PTS and all they told me to use was a 6mm trowel. But ready mixed wall adhesive dosent do 6 its 3mm. In what situations would I use a 3mm trowel? Basically Im after info on thin bed and possibly thick bed and the trowel Id use? If I use a 6mm trowel with a thin bed adhesive am I stretching things etc.

Im tired know as I work most nights and just started tiling
Your advice appreciated.

Best Wishes

Howard

[Fekin]

I've never heard of a thin bed adhesive.

I would only think thin bed adhesive when I was using a small notched trowel, but thats the trowel making it a thin bed, and not the actual adhesive.

For everyday standard wall tiling with normal sized ceramic tiles "upto 300 x 300's" I would use tubbed adhesive and a 6mm notched trowel.

If I was using mosaic tiles though, I wouldn't want as much adhesive on the wall as a 6mm trowel would apply, so I would use a smaller notched trowel, say a 4mm is fairly standard.

Basically, the smaller the notches on the trowel, the smaller amount of adhesive goes onto the wall, same with floors too.

A rough guide.

Standard wall tiling 6 to 8 mm notched trowel

Mosaics 3 to 4mm notched trowel

Floors 10 to 12mm 100% coverage trowel.

That is not set in stone, but is a generally accpeted rule of thumb for trowel size needs.

Ready mixed adhesive is perfect using 6mm trowels, though the amount you can "pack out" with ready mixed is only small.

Packing out is where for example, you have applied the adhesive to the wall with a 6mm trowel, but to keep everything level on a bumpy wall you need to apply extra adhesive to some tiles to "pack them out" to keep them level is only 3 to 5mm thickness, and that's plus the amount that is already on the walls.

Hope this helps

[pendleh]

Hi Fekin

Just reading weber.fix ready mixed adhesive and this states: bed thickness 1-3mm - no more than 3?same with ardex?

[Dave]

All your standard cement based adhesives are thin bed adhesives...usually up to about a 6mm bed...A thick bed adhesive will usually go up to 15mm or so...a bit like BAL PTB....

[Pawelzik]

Originally Posted by pendleh

Hi there

... what is a thin bed adhesive? It gets better - I trained at PTS and all they told me to use was a 6mm trowel. But ready mixed wall adhesive dosent do 6 its 3mm. In what situations would I use a 3mm trowel? Basically Im after info on thin bed and possibly thick bed and the trowel Id use? If I use a 6mm trowel with a thin bed adhesive am I stretching things etc....

Howard

Hello Howard.
The "thin bed" is defined in (BS) EN 12004, simply translated "Method of installation of tiles on an even surface by using a mortar* or an adhesive**. Application of the mortar or adhesive is generally done by first using a float trowel and then combed by using a notch trowel."

*this is normally a cement based adhesive
**this can be an epoxy or ready-to-use dispersion adhesive

The thickness of the thin bed defines itself by the forseen notch trowel sizes which start with 3 mm and normally don´t go over 10 mm. From here starts the "middle bed" and trowels with 12 mm.

Which trowel when to take gives you an idea when you take a look at the older thread "Confused by notch trowel sizes", see my answer there. Cheers from Germany, Martin

[sWe]

Originally Posted by Pawelzik

Hello Howard.
The "thin bed" is defined in (BS) EN 12004, simply translated "Method of installation of tiles on an even surface by using a mortar* or an adhesive**. Application of the mortar or adhesive is generally done by first using a float trowel and then combed by using a notch trowel."

*this is normally a cement based adhesive
**this can be an epoxy or ready-to-use dispersion adhesive

The thickness of the thin bed defines itself by the forseen notch trowel sizes which start with 3 mm and normally don´t go over 10 mm. From here starts the "middle bed" and trowels with 12 mm.

Which trowel when to take gives you an idea when you take a look at the older thread "Confused by notch trowel sizes", see my answer there. Cheers from Germany, Martin

Yupp, that's about right.

[ad tiling]

as the above is all good info i"ll put in simple terms
tub adhesive with a 6 mm trowel will equal 3-4 mm
adhesive on the wall

[Fekin]

Originally Posted by Dave

All your standard cement based adhesives are thin bed adhesives...usually up to about a 6mm bed...A thick bed adhesive will usually go up to 15mm or so...a bit like BAL PTB....

I know about thickbed adhesive, just never heard anyone call standard adhesive thinbed, but I'll stand corrected


So whats normalbed adhesive then

[Leatherface]

Originally Posted by Dave

All your standard cement based adhesives are thin bed adhesives...usually up to about a 6mm bed...A thick bed adhesive will usually go up to 15mm or so...a bit like BAL PTB....

Dave, don't you mean "Tub adhesives"
These are thin bed and shoud ony go up to 6mm or they will not dry out properly

Many or most cement based adhesives will usually go thicker than 6mm

[grumpygrouter]

Originally Posted by pendleh

Hi there

Relatively new to tiling what is a thin bed adhesive? It gets better - I trained at PTS and all they told me to use was a 6mm trowel. But ready mixed wall adhesive dosent do 6 its 3mm. In what situations would I use a 3mm trowel? Basically Im after info on thin bed and possibly thick bed and the trowel Id use? If I use a 6mm trowel with a thin bed adhesive am I stretching things etc.

Im tired know as I work most nights and just started tiling
Your advice appreciated.

Best Wishes

Howard

Hi Howard, I trained at PTS as well, and they generally tell their students that all you need is a 6mm and 10mm trowel. This is fine for general every day use for walls or floors with "standard" size tiles. I quickly found out that you need different sized trowels for different things - mosaics for instance need 3mm! I have also just bought a 4.5mm and a Rubi half round notched for floors. I had conversations subsequent to my course with the centre in Warrington and suggested to them that more instruction on different trowel sizes and types would be useful but I don't know if anything came of it.

Keep reading the forums here, there is loads still to learn.

Do a search on trowel sizes and see what comes up - there has been loads written.

Grumpy

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Fekin

I know about thickbed adhesive, just never heard anyone call standard adhesive thinbed, but I'll stand corrected


So whats normalbed adhesive then

Thinbed/normal bed...same thing..DOH!!!lol lol.. ....

BAL adhesives......others might vary a bit but not much.....

Dispresion adhesives........bed thickness up to 3mm..( thin bed )

Cement based adhesives...

Rapid set/rapidset flexi/single part flexi...etc etc etc.....all are from 2 to 6 mm bed..( thin bed )

bal greenscreed 2 to 6 mm...12mm in localised areas...( still thin bed)

Bal ptb and ptb flexi....3 to 25mm ( thick bed )......


As i said in previous post most cement and dispersion adhesives are thin bed only...some packing up can be done but in small areas...not advisable on whole floor/wall areas....if you need to have a thicker bed then use thick bed adhesives...

Also if you are using a 10mm or even 12 mm notched trowels doesnt mean thickbed adhesives need to be used...because you will be pressing the tile into the bed thus creating a solid bed which will be about 5/6mm ish...hence thin bed...
Thick bed adhesives are more for natural stone work etc..uneven slates etc etc...

hope this has made it a little clearer..