PDP P6-VBP Porca-Fast Diamond Blade 300 x 3.0 x 20 mm

Why do I have trouble cutting Exterior Porcelain Tiles?...

With the growing trend for Exterior Porcelain sweeping the country, the difficulty of cutting and drilling these very hard and dense tiles, is becoming more and more apparent. For the producers of such tiles, the workability of the material is often an afterthought with the cutting and drilling tool manufacturers playing catch up to produce products that offer a solution.

As demand grows for the tiles, cheaper, more mass produced products enter the market – the production of these is not as well governed as the higher quality products that originally started the trend. These lower quality products can vary in hardness from batch to batch. If the baking time or temperature is extended or increased slightly, this can have a detrimental effect to the workability of the tile. Cutting products that had previously been successful on exterior porcelain, can and will start to experience issues. These issues are completely unforeseen and out of the control of the user and ultimately the manufacturer of the cutting tool.

Another problematic material that is hitting the builder’s merchants and tile retailers, is “Sintered-stone”. Like porcelain, it is a man-made material, but it is almost impossible to cut or drill. The manufacturing process of the product emulates the formation of natural stone, but the aggregates used in its production are amongst some of the hardest known to the construction industry. These can include: granite, basalt, river gravel and flint. Sintered-stone was originally created to be formed into pre designed shapes and used for applications such as kitchen work surfaces. However, the process is now being used to manufacture very hard wearing tiles, that are for use in industrial, high traffic locations. Unfortunately, its appearance is almost identical to that of porcelain and to the untrained eye the two products easily confused.