Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Stuart Noble wrote:
Are you saying you get types with a fence? Otherwise it comes down to
skill - unlike a wet one.

It's an end stop rather than a fence.
What I'm curious about is how you do tapered cuts on a saw, the sort of
thing where one end of the tile needs to be, say, 75mm and the other
73mm. On the typical wall, the next tile is then likely to be 73mm/71mm,
and so on. On a snap cutter I can align the pencil marks top and bottom,
scribe, snap (20 seconds?). I don't see how you can do that accurately
on a saw given that you can't use the parallel fence.

Hence the sliding saw variety. Do try and keep up. ;-)

Handy for porcelain or marble but overkill for ceramics I'd say


In case anyone (Tim?) thinks that snappers are for pros, it's worth
mentioning that a decent one requires zero skill and minimal effort. On
the cheaper types where the tile has to be re-positioned between jaws
for the snap, it's difficult to get the pressure precisely on the score
line and, because you're pinching the tile only at the edge, the chances
of a clean cut are reduced. I once did a floor with one of those and I
think I probably wasted 20% of the tiles. Than I saw the light.

The one I have doesn't need the tile re-positioned - you just return the
handle to the rest position after scoring and press down. But anywhere
near the edge of the tile and you don't get a clean break. Needs to be
perhaps 1.5-2" in from the edge on a large tile. But then as I've said
there are likely better ones on the market - mine came from Wicks and some
time ago.


IIRC I can do a half inch offcut on mine (unless it's the last tile in
the box of course, when it's bound to go wrong :-)).