Said It Here

How to make circle cuts and hard cuts in tile yourself

Rented tile cutters and low-end tools make it nearly impossible to get clean circle cuts around fixtures without chipping edges. This forces DIYers to constantly finagle imperfect pieces into place, leaving them stuck on complex cuts.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Using an angle grinder with a tile blade
  2. 2
    Hiring a contractor to finish the job
  3. 3
    Using suction cup tools or electric suction devices for better grip and handling
  4. 4
    Back buttering tiles
  5. 5
    Making multiple attempts before getting the cut right
  6. 6
    Ensure tiles are clean of thinset, replace the scoring wheel if the line is faint, and position the feet about 3 inches to one-third of the tile's length before pressing down smoothly.
  7. 7
    Using wainscoting to cover up cut errors
  8. 8
    Using caulking to cover up non-straight lines against the bathtub
  9. 9
    Leaving existing caulking and reapplying on top

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

Lol that’s what she wanted to do then realize it was very difficult to get a nice circle cut with the crappy Home Depot tile cutter we rentedsource ↗

khanye97 · r/Flooring · 21 upvotes

That was the most frustrating part about a difficult piece of tile. Finagling it into place just to have a corner or edge chip off.source ↗

jobadiahh · r/Flooring · 7 upvotes

My saw got away from me and I cutout this big ole chunk.source ↗

I added my layout and am trying to cut according to it but ending up with +/- 1/4”-3/8 offage.source ↗

batoloco604 · r/Flooring · 1 upvotes

when I try to apply pressure in the middle to actually snap the tile in half it doesn’t worksource ↗

ChampChomp1 · r/HomeMaintenance · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised