How to make a tile cutter with your own hands

Given the fact that the services of a professional tiler are quite expensive, when carrying out repairs in the bathroom or in the kitchen, many are forced to do the laying of the tiles with their own hands. When installing tile, sooner or later it becomes necessary to cut it. In this case, you need to have on hand tile cutter, which is carried out this procedure. Such a tool can be bought at almost any hardware store, spending a certain amount of money, or do it yourself, what will be discussed later.

The scheme of the manual tile cutter.

Classification and principle of action of tile cutters

All tile cutters are divided into mechanical and electrical. The first type is used for household tile cutting in small volumes and with low accuracy. Such a tool is perfect for laying tiles at home or in the country. Electric tile cutter - a device that is equipped with an electric drive that triggers the movement of the cutting disc. Due to this, tile cutting is carried out much faster, which allows to cope with large volumes of building material in less time.

The scheme of automatic tile cutter.

Each type of tile has its advantages and disadvantages. While it is possible to work with a mechanical tool without a power source and in all weather conditions, an electrical apparatus requires a constant supply voltage. However, it can be operated at a relative humidity of not more than 85%. The mechanical tile cutter has a small size and weight, which provides it with greater mobility.

The main advantage of the electric tile cutter is that they can cut the tile at an angle. This ensures high accuracy of work and the presence of a minimum number of defects. The power tool produces cutting much faster than mechanical (1 tile / min). They can also cut stone and porcelain.

How to make a mechanical tile cutter with your own hands?

The mechanical tile cutter looks like a platform with forceps attached to it. By its principle of action, it is very similar to an ordinary glass cutter. The cutting element is a wheel made of heavy-duty alloy. Compared with a glass cutter, it has a slightly larger size, since it has to work with a thicker surface. Moving the tile cutter to the tile, the wheel makes a small cut on its surface, which is used to break the tile.

The scheme of roller tile cutter.

To make such a device, it is necessary to prepare the following tools and materials:

• welding machine;
• steel squares;
• 2 bearings;
• shaft under bearings;
• steel tube whose diameter is equal to the diameter of the shaft (about 20 mm);
• rubber;
• glue.

For the work, it is necessary to prepare 2 corners 40x40 cm and 4 elements 20x20 cm long about 0.6 m. First, 2 smaller corners should be welded to the outside of the larger corner so that the bearing moves freely between them. This will be the first half of the desired device. The second part is constructed symmetrically with the first.

After that, you can proceed to the creation of the cutting element. First, a handle and a holder for the cutting part are welded to the steel tube, which can be either a simple glass cutter or any other sharpened object with a diamond coating.

The resulting design is mounted on the shaft, the ends of which are inserted into the bearing bushings. Then the cutting element of the future tile cutter moves back to one of the ends of the structure, after which the edges of the bearing angles are fixed using a welding machine. After that, rubber strips are glued to the bottom of the tile cutter and chamfers are removed from them.

After the glue is completely dry, the structure is fixed on a wooden base. Here you can use various design solutions. It is necessary to ensure that the metal part can move easily and without deviations in the vertical direction.

How to make a tile cutter electric

Electric tool for cutting tiles, it is advisable to do on the basis of the grinder, because only it allows you to achieve the required number of revolutions of the cutting edge per minute.

Any other electric motor will additionally require a gearbox, allowing to achieve 4000-5500 rev / min.

The grinder is rigidly fixed under the table top so that the length of the visible cutting edge does not exceed ½ the thickness of the tile. To facilitate the cutting process on the tabletop parallel to the disk, you must install a metal corner. Moving the grinder along the corner, you can achieve an almost perfectly smooth cut.

It should be noted that the mechanical and electrical type of tile cutter require certain skills to work with it. Therefore, before the implementation of tile cutting is recommended to practice on the waste of this material or on its cheaper form.