www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

So.....I was starting a job this afternoon, laying 600 x 400 porcelain tiles in a conservatory..

As I had to place an order for some other stuff from toolstation earlier in the week, I also ordered some tile spacers..

I was "loose laying" the tiles to try to get the best set up (Despite the conny being almost perfectly square)..

Now you would think that a bag of 1000 tile spacers would be difficult to get wrong.. So much so that when I saw the name "Silverline" on the packaging I thought.. "Not even silverline can get tile-spacers wrong...........


..Oh yes they can!! (well it's nearly panto time)

Where these have been injection moulded there is a little "Nib" on over half of them, varying from .5mm to 1.5mm..you can imagine what that does to the alignment...I spent nearly an hour sorting through the little bastards trying to find the decent ones....


Eventually managed to get all of 7 tiles down before bad light stopped play..


f*ck silverline..

Ahh silverline tools......you gotta love them

Did I ever tell you that I stopped buying from Toolstation for that reason

I have drilled many holes in Porcelain using diamond coated hole saws from Richon tools richon-tools-t20002.html

I once needed one quickly so bought an unbranded one from ebay, when it arrived it was Silverline

It would not even go through ceramic, never mind porcelain-

Must admit I can't remember the last time I used spacers on floor tiles

Razor wrote:Must admit I can't remember the last time I used spacers on floor tiles

Really ?? they only take a couple of seconds to use (Normally...not the toolstation/silverline jobbies, obviously) and ensure everything is squared up..and you'll get a consistent grout line.

wine~o wrote: Really ?? they only take a couple of seconds to use (Normally...not the toolstation/silverline jobbies, obviously) and ensure everything is squared up..and you'll get a consistent grout line.

Nope I do floor tiles by eye. Not sure what the others use???

I generally go by eye as well, as long as the first tile is square its ok.

For a good quality spacer try these
http://www.stickwithusltd.co.uk/rubi-to ... d_390.html

upagumtree wrote:I generally go by eye as well, as long as the first tile is square its ok.

For a good quality spacer try these
http://www.stickwithusltd.co.uk/rubi-to ... d_390.html

TBH these are the first tile spacers I've ever had a problem with..

And only whilst I was "Loose laying" to try to get the layout correct...which means that I can move several tiles at the same time, keeping the same spacing.

lol how are silverline still going? everything sold by them is absolute rubish.

Razor wrote:

wine~o wrote: Really ?? they only take a couple of seconds to use (Normally...not the toolstation/silverline jobbies, obviously) and ensure everything is squared up..and you'll get a consistent grout line.

Nope I do floor tiles by eye. Not sure what the others use???

I use the suretile spacers- very well made and easy to use

my grandad (tiler/plasterer/roughcaster) used to use bits of tile box, match sticks, grudgingly tile spacers, row down and spacered, next row down, first row of spacers out, use first rows to spacer the third line, second to spacer the 4th etc....
saves on spacers......
my bug bear is 100x100 tiles that aren't....my bathroom has run out as the coloured tiles are slightly bigger than the white ones...despite both boxes saying 4x4 / 100x100