Having the right tools for tiling makes a kitchen floor, backsplash, tub surround, or any tiling project go smoother and look more professional. Find out about the essential tools for tiling you'll need before your next ceramic, porcelain, glass, or stone project.
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Wet Tile Saw
A wet tile saw is a table saw that is designed only for tile and stone cutting. The blade has no teeth but rather a diamond or carbide grit. During cutting, the blade and tile are flooded with water to keep the blade and the tile from overheating.
A wet saw will cut all types of tile, including porcelain, ceramic, stone, and glass. It makes precise straight cuts but works slower than a snap tile cutter.
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Tile Snap or Rail Cutter
A tile snap or rail cutter is a manual tile-cutting tool that first scores the face of the tile and then snaps the tile along the scored line. Tile snap cutters are fast, simple, and easy to use.
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Tile Nippers
Tile nippers, or nibblers, create irregular cuts—like semi-circles—that a wet saw or snap cutter cannot make. With pliers-like handles and biting jaws, they nibble away the tile much like a fingernail trimmer.
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Plastic Bucket
Buckets are essential for mixing mortar and grout and for rinsing out a grout sponge. Five-gallon plastic buckets are easy to tote around but are large enough for reaching in with a grout float, trowel, and sponge.
Ideally, you'll actually have a couple of buckets close at hand, with at least a few of them filled with clean water. Having plenty of water available can help the grouting process go more quickly, as the water can get murky, and you want the grout sponge to stay as clean as possible.
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Mixing Paddle
A mixing paddle chucks into an electric drill to help you thoroughly mix dry thinset or grout with water.
Mixing heavy bags of dry mix by hand leaves voids and large dry chunks that are hard to break up. But with a $15 to $25 mixing paddle, you'll be able to smoothly mix up heavy bags of thinset and grout with ease.
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Notched Trowel
A notched trowel spreads thinset tile adhesive onto the floor or wall. The square notches spread wide bands of thinset and the V-shaped notches on the other side spread thin bands.
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Grout Float
A grout float applies grout to the joints between installed tiles. A grout float looks like a masonry or concrete trowel but has a rubber base.
Use the float to force the grout into the joint spaces and to scrape the grout flush with the tile surfaces. This is an essential tool for tiling since you cannot use metal trowels.
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Grout Sponge
A grout sponge is a big, dense sponge with rounded edges and corners. A grout sponge smoothes over grout joints (after applying grout with a grout float) and cleans excess grout from the tile faces.
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Chalk Line
A chalk line lays long, straight lines on subflooring or on tile. A chalk line defines the basic tiling area before tiling begins.
Fill the tool with chalk powder, shake it up, and unreel the string to the desired length. Snap the string as you would with a bow and arrow, and you get a legible, though hazy, blue line on your floor or wall.
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Bubble Level
A bubble level, also called a spirit level or carpenter's level, helps you mark vertical, horizontal, or diagonal layout lines on a wall. It can also check a line of tile to make sure it is vertical (plumb) or level. A bubble level makes a handy straightedge for checking tile alignment on a wall or floor.
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Rubber Mallet
Use a rubber mallet for gently tapping tiles into place. Wrapping a hammer in something soft (fabric, foam, etc.) will not work. The striking surface area is too small and the head still isn't soft enough to avoid breaking the tile. Invest in an inexpensive mallet and save yourself countless cracked tiles.