By Jon Namba
While attending this year’s Coverings show in Atlanta, I was given a small 5” diamond cutting wheel for a grinder from the folks at Russo Trading Co. Thanking them for the wheel and placing it in my bag of swag, I took the blade home and put it on my office desk (along with other tools) to sort through later.
I ended up putting the blade in our blade box without any further thought. Now, we’ve been blessed with work lately; when I’m in town my son Jason usually has me picking up supplies, checking in on our workers and even installing. This day was one of those “Dad, I need you to install tile in a bathroom” days. I had to make some cuts for wall outlets and a metal door casing, so I grabbed my trusty hand grinder.
When working with grinders I see most installers using the 4” to 5” blades, and so do we. Since the cutting wheel industry has realized hand grinders are becoming a daily tool, the variety of blades has expanded and made it much easier for an installer to use a small hand grinder to make cuts.
Now when it comes to tile blades, we usually use them to cut outlets, radius cuts and small notches. A small 2”to 3” blade is ideal for those types of smaller cuts (Photos 1-3).
After using the smaller blades for the outlets, I changed over to the 5” blade I had received during Coverings. To my surprise, the cutting wheel incorporated diamonds a full inch on each side of the blade. Most blades typically include up to ½” of diamonds (Photos 4-5).
The question you may be asking is: Why do the diamonds go farther down the blade? Well, let me just say they made it much easier to move the blade sideways to cut out small notches rather than making a series of cuts and then using the small edge of the blade as a grinder to smooth (Photos 6-7). With this blade I was able to make one cut then move the blade sideways to “shape” the notch. I was also able to smooth out the tile edges after using my score and snap cutter (Photos 8-9).
This is just one of many advances I’ve seen in the tool world lately! Remember when using a hand grinder, whenever possible use a blade guard, wear safety glasses, and make your cuts outside in a well-ventilated area. These tool designers keep getting smarter; we should do the same.
