fitting mosaic tiles?

message from John Stumbles on 18 May 2004

OK guys what's the trick?

Slap them up they slide down the wall - have to keep jiggling them till the
adehsive starts to go off. 2nd sheet I did I taped the top row to the wall
but it still had to jiggle them as the net backing seemed to stretch - if
not disintegrate - when wetted with tile adhesive. Took bloody ages and
still didn't look too good.

If I have to do more I'd be inclined to gripfill 'em on :-)

Derek replied to John Stumbles on 19 May 2004

I recently tiled an entire bathroom with a mosaic and got good results. It
sounds like you could be spreading too much adhesive? I got good results
using a foot long steel ruler and a rubber grouting trowel. I found that
if you used the ruler to pull the mosaics into place you spread the force
and the paper was less likely to disintegrate, once I was reasonably happy
with the placement I used the rubber grouting trowel to tamp the tiles
into place - this kept them level to the wall and stopped them from
sliding around. The worst thing about mosaics is grouting, I must have
mixed 150kg of grout - It's 2ft by 1ft tiles for the next bathroom!!

Derek.

Andy P replied to John Stumbles on 19 May 2004

Spread the adhesive nice and thin - 2mm spreader.

Use an adhesive suitable for mosaic tiles. I don't know what the
differences are but it seems that some are and some aren't. I've used
some of that ready mixed nasty sticky white stuff and had the problem
you've had. I've recently done some in the bathroom using some BAL ready
mixed water resistance adhesive (green lid) and had no problems.

Andy

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