Hmm. This was trickier than I thought. I'm just a diyer, and this was the second lot of mosaics I've tiled. The first lot were small squares on a wall, and I used mosaic mesh behind them for another reason - to build them out level with the wall tile. The mosaic mesh has the very welcome side effect of stiffening everthing up and bringing the individual tiles under control. For these I didn't use any mosaic mesh as I didn't need it, but I learned a few things that I'm sure you already know but I'll relay my experience for other beginners benefit.
1. The glue to the tiles is water soluble. If the mesh gets wet, the tiles will fall off. So that rules out wet cutting, and watch any water splashes in the work area....(if you don't want to ruin any sheets doh)
2. These tiles cut really nicely with a standard score and break cutter - really nicely.
3. If you make a mistake putting a tile down, moving it is probably a mistake that might even be worth scrapping the sheet. The mesh a) gets damp with the adhesive, so you can lose the relative positioning of the tiles and end up with slightly uneven grout joins that can bite you in the rear later on. I made a silly mistake laying the first tile, and tried to reposition and straighten up the lines and tiles. Given that this was probably my most important tile, I should have just scrapped it, and used it for cuts. As it was, I tried to move it, and get the lines and tiles straight. In sliding this across the adhesive, the grout lines opened up more than standard (presume the string was damp from the adhesive), which I corrected - I thought to a good standard - but I probably wasn't as consistent as I thought, and that gave me problems with every tile thereafter. Also when you fiddle with these tiles you create a cascade of problems along the individual rows and columns and it took me ages trying to sort things out. By which time, the adhesive starts to skin within the fiddly edges, needing scraping out and reapplication - messy given there are no straight edges.
4. Moving the sheet drags up adhesive in the grout lines and takes ages to clean. Ages.
5. I pressed down too hard with my grout float when bedding in the tiles, giving the same problem as 4. And there isn't a lot of adhesive under the tile with a 4mm mosaic spreader.
6. The little iddy biddy tiles don't stick down very well, and when you've done the cascade of repositioning of tiles to compensate for any inconsistencies arising out of that mistake in 3 above, you mess up some of the little squares losing their gaps. When you do spot that and adjust them later, they then won't be stuck very well and the thin adhesive bed is easily squished too far with a tiny tile too.
7. I spent so long doing half the floor, that it was time for bed. I cleaned up as best I could (cleaning grout lines of adhesive really does take a long time - don't get it messy in the first place doh). When I continued in the morning, I dry laid my next few sheets, and spotted that some of my "straight" lines, were slightly curving across the room. Ever so slightly. I had been using a straight edge to check my Y direction, but I hadn't paid enough attention to my X direction. Result by the time I would have got across the room, I'd have had a giant grout line or even a gap by the time I finished the pattern.
8. Gutted, but thankful I'd "only" done half the floor, I bit the bullet and lifted the tiles I'd laid the night before - I used Keraflex Maxi (not rapid), which was a blessing, as it "only" took 4 hours to lift the tiles and clean everything up to how it was when I started. More tiles ordered, and I'll redo it shortly. I ordered a new batch entirely as I didn't want any colour variations and they weren't too expensive.
Next time, having learnt from my mistakes, I'll be quicker laying the tiles. I'll make sure I don't "mess" with the tiles too much once I've laid them. I won't press down too hard, and won't press down till I'm pretty sure it's right to avoid adjustments as much as possible. I've ordered some low tack clear film 2" tape, that I'm going to pre-apply in strips to the mosaic sheet face, to hold everything in place more accurately while handling, and make it friendlier and easier to lay right first time with minimal adjustment. (I'm hopeful that this will keep everything under tauter control than damp string mesh will ever do - thoughts?) I'm going to try and be cleaner (I really struggle with this - I get adhesive everywhere).
Reading back, it sounds like a disaster - which it was in a sense, although what I had done, did look very nice! But tiny deviations arising from messing with the tiles did add up to what would have been a larger error across the room. I'm a bit of a perfectionist unfortunately, and although I could have probably compensated the error, it wouldn't have been quite right and would have irritated the heck out of me.
I'm sure more experienced tilers will be shaking their heads knowingly, but hopefully others will at least learn from my mistakes here! These tiles (did) look great down though, and are very nice quality porcelain.
Any other tips so that I don't muck this up next time when I redo?
Simon
