Eric The Viking
Established Member
- Joined
- 19 Jan 2010
- Messages
- 6,599
- Reaction score
- 76
I'll admit this is off-topic, but I'm so impressed I thought I ought to mention this:
http://www.plasplugs.com/acatalog/Cool_Cut_Drill_Bits___Kits.html
It's a kit for drilling tiles. I got mine from Toolstation a while back but hadn't used it until just now.
I've got quite a few diamond-based tools now: whetstones, files, and some big industrial core drills to turn the house walls into cheese. Drilling through tiles has always been a bit heart in mouth though. I've have a technique using masonry pins and a masonry or SDS drill (turned very slowly) that works. It makes pretty good holes, and works at different diameters too (16mm for pipes, for example), but not through glass!
And glass was today's problem. The bathroom in question is done in glass-based mosaic, so not only are the tiles small and fragile, they're also tough as old boots. Experiments with the masonry drill system just ended up with either a red-hot drill (literally) or razor sharp fragments (and no actual hole), so that was a non-starter. I saw this kit in Toolstation and thought I'd give it a go.
Basically it's a diamond core drill in miniature. There's a guide (orange in the picture) that sticks to the tile with a double-sided pad (replaceable), and the drill runs in that so it can't slide around. The diamond drill is intended to abrade a ring through the tile. The final bit is crafty: there's a tiny water reservoir that sits on top of the guide. It has a push-button valve to release a small amount of water at a time onto the drill, as lubricant.
The system lets you accurately position holes in vertical tiles, and then wet-drill them with the diamond core-drill. They even include a same-sized masonry bit, so you can sink a hole for a rawlplug in the conventional way, once you've gone through the tile (saves the diamond drill wearing unduly, apparently). Probably don't need that bit, but anyway...
... does it work? Heck yes!
I should say this bathroom is costing £loads and these are the fixing holes for the shower screen. I couldn't afford any mistakes. Awkwardly, because of the colour scheme, the holes come ever-so-nearly on a tile edge--no chance with my ordinary method of not chipping large bits off the tiles or possibly cracking them completely.
I couldn't easily mark the holes up properly, as they're pre-drilled in the aluminium. Resorted to the time honoured felt-pen-through-the fitting approach, which gave a recognisable oval to align to. That was fairly easy to do, so I stuck the guide onto the tiles. It fixed securely (leaving me wondering if I'd be pulling tiles off when I came to remove it...).
Drilling was a doddle. The instructions say to go slowly and use a fair bit of water, so that's what I did. It cut through in less than 30 seconds, leaving a very nice clean hole. The plug came out of the drill without problems, too. To my surprise, the guide peeled off the wall easily (might have been the water), leaving no marks nor damage and a very clean hole.
So I'm pleased: it's taken the stress out of a tricky task and the rest shouldn't take very long at all.
The kit includes about a dozen sticky pads and two guides (which might wear fast, being plastic). It'll be quite enough to finish this job though. It strikes me for thicker tiles, you could easily start the hole then remove the guide altogether, as long as you arrange some sort of drip lubrication.
I'll post a pic or two when I've done. Right now, I'm going back upstairs to turn the rest of the wall into Emmental.
http://www.plasplugs.com/acatalog/Cool_Cut_Drill_Bits___Kits.html
It's a kit for drilling tiles. I got mine from Toolstation a while back but hadn't used it until just now.
I've got quite a few diamond-based tools now: whetstones, files, and some big industrial core drills to turn the house walls into cheese. Drilling through tiles has always been a bit heart in mouth though. I've have a technique using masonry pins and a masonry or SDS drill (turned very slowly) that works. It makes pretty good holes, and works at different diameters too (16mm for pipes, for example), but not through glass!
And glass was today's problem. The bathroom in question is done in glass-based mosaic, so not only are the tiles small and fragile, they're also tough as old boots. Experiments with the masonry drill system just ended up with either a red-hot drill (literally) or razor sharp fragments (and no actual hole), so that was a non-starter. I saw this kit in Toolstation and thought I'd give it a go.
Basically it's a diamond core drill in miniature. There's a guide (orange in the picture) that sticks to the tile with a double-sided pad (replaceable), and the drill runs in that so it can't slide around. The diamond drill is intended to abrade a ring through the tile. The final bit is crafty: there's a tiny water reservoir that sits on top of the guide. It has a push-button valve to release a small amount of water at a time onto the drill, as lubricant.
The system lets you accurately position holes in vertical tiles, and then wet-drill them with the diamond core-drill. They even include a same-sized masonry bit, so you can sink a hole for a rawlplug in the conventional way, once you've gone through the tile (saves the diamond drill wearing unduly, apparently). Probably don't need that bit, but anyway...
... does it work? Heck yes!
I should say this bathroom is costing £loads and these are the fixing holes for the shower screen. I couldn't afford any mistakes. Awkwardly, because of the colour scheme, the holes come ever-so-nearly on a tile edge--no chance with my ordinary method of not chipping large bits off the tiles or possibly cracking them completely.
I couldn't easily mark the holes up properly, as they're pre-drilled in the aluminium. Resorted to the time honoured felt-pen-through-the fitting approach, which gave a recognisable oval to align to. That was fairly easy to do, so I stuck the guide onto the tiles. It fixed securely (leaving me wondering if I'd be pulling tiles off when I came to remove it...).
Drilling was a doddle. The instructions say to go slowly and use a fair bit of water, so that's what I did. It cut through in less than 30 seconds, leaving a very nice clean hole. The plug came out of the drill without problems, too. To my surprise, the guide peeled off the wall easily (might have been the water), leaving no marks nor damage and a very clean hole.
So I'm pleased: it's taken the stress out of a tricky task and the rest shouldn't take very long at all.
The kit includes about a dozen sticky pads and two guides (which might wear fast, being plastic). It'll be quite enough to finish this job though. It strikes me for thicker tiles, you could easily start the hole then remove the guide altogether, as long as you arrange some sort of drip lubrication.
I'll post a pic or two when I've done. Right now, I'm going back upstairs to turn the rest of the wall into Emmental.
