How to make a hole in a tile with your own hands. cutting a hole in a tile how to cut a hole in a tile

Sooner or later, almost every homeowner has to deal with the need to make holes in the tiles that can be laid on the walls and floor, for example, in the bathroom or in the kitchen. At the same time, of course, everyone would like to do this with minimal time and loss of finishing material, which is easily destroyed during cutting and drilling. And even better - make holes in the tile with your own hands, saving also on paying the master.

Features of drilling holes in tiles

Due to the fact that clay is the main component of the tile, and the glass that is part of the coating, you will need cutting tools that can cut or drill both of these materials without any problems. This requires one of the following tools:

a drill with various nozzles (a special crown and a drill with a spear-shaped tip);
with the option of shockless mode;
screwdriver.

Accessories for drilling holes in tiles with your own hands:

masking tape;
a vacuum cleaner.

Drills with a spear-shaped tip will be useful for drilling holes with your own hands, having a diameter of up to 12 mm, crowns will be more appropriate for all other holes in the tile. It is not recommended to carry out work without them, since it is better to immediately spend money on the purchase of nozzles than to lose damaged tiles.

Tile drilling options

There are two types of drilling a hole in a tile with your own hands:

after the tile has already been laid on the surface of the wall or floor, and the adhesive solution that binds it has long frozen;
until installation.

How to properly drill a tile before laying it

In some cases, holes in the tile can be made in advance, knowing that it will be designed to install a faucet, install a heated towel rail, or drain the sewer. Oddly enough, but drilling tiles before laying is much more difficult than in the case of already laid tiles. This is due to the fact that the material is not fixed and can be damaged.

Among the advantages of this technique it is worth mentioning:

very high accuracy of work on making holes;
the ability to cut out almost any shape from a tile.

Standard round holes in tiles are made as follows:

tiles with hole markings, laid on a hard surface;
a point for drilling is punched. You can use masking tape;
the tile is drilled using a special tile drill (everything also depends on the diameter of the hole) at a speed of no more than a thousand rpm;
the edges of the holes obtained are processed with a file or needle file to remove minor defects;
the tile is applied to the place where it will be laid, and checked for compliance with the drilled hole.

How to make a hole in a tile - video

With more complex holes, a special masking tape is glued to the tile, which acts as an element that restrains the destruction of the tile. Further, the perforator turned on in shockless mode is drilled, first at low speeds, then with a slight increase in the number of revolutions. The dust that is formed in this case is removed with a vacuum cleaner, otherwise it can ruin the edges of the holes.

Drilling already laid tiles

In cases where holes in the tile are already created on the laid material, the technique changes slightly. Indeed, at the same time, it is somewhat more difficult to destroy the tile, but the work itself will take much more time.

Work begins with the marking on the tile. This is done with a pencil or marker.

After that follows:

choose a drill or nozzle that matches the size of the hole;
put the drill at the desired point and hammer this place with a hammer;
insert the drill into the tool.

Now you can, by setting the drill perpendicular to the tile, drill, making sure not to scratch the tile with the drill. And, when the layers of clay and glaze are passed, the drill should be replaced with one that would better drill the wall, and not the tile. Thus, more expensive tile drill bits do not wear out very quickly. Upon reaching the required depth, the hole is cleaned of debris and residual materials, then fasteners are installed in it.

How to drill a hole in a tile with your own hands - video

Often, such work is also performed to create additional electrical outlets on tiled surfaces. Special stencils can help in them, which should be installed on top of the tile and held by hand during the drilling process. They are easy enough to find in the nearest stores selling repair materials.

Work safety

Any of the methods for making holes in the tile requires compliance with certain safety requirements. Such as the use of goggles to protect the eyes from dust when drilling. Or laying a piece of wood or metal under the tile (only in the case of creating holes in the tile before laying it), ensuring the safety of the table or floor at the work site.

When tiling any surface, the master is always faced with the need to make holes in the ceramic tile for a pipe, an electrical outlet. Holes can be divided into internal, located inside the perimeter of the tile, and external, which extend beyond the tile. Also, in shape, they are divided into radius and rectangular. The way to cut a hole in a tile for a toilet, pipe or electrical outlet depends on its shape and location on the surface of the tile.

Using a grinder

The grinder is a versatile multi-purpose tool that is in the arsenal of every home master. It can be used to cut tiles instead of a tile cutter, which is considered a special tool and not every master has it. To work on the grinder, a metal diamond wheel is installed for dry cutting.

Bulgarian with a circle and discs on stone

The peculiarity of the grinder is that it only performs a straight cut. Therefore, an angle grinder can easily make rectangular holes or make a large cut with a radius shape if the contour arc has a slight bend. A smooth arc or a perfectly round hole will not work right away. First, mark the contour of the radius cut and draw a lot of chords. An inscribed polygon should appear inside the outline. After marking, several cuts are made along the line of chords, after which the contour is finalized with sandpaper.

Important! The tool must be equipped with a protective cover. It is necessary to work with gloves and goggles.

In this case, the grinder does not perform a translational cut, but the tile is cut pointwise from the front side along the markings. Thus, if you plan to cut a round hole, you need to take a diamond wheel as small as possible. The larger the hole diameter, the more accurate the cut will be. The chords along the radius contour will be short, and the cut will be as close as possible to the radius and it will take less work with a round bar with sandpaper to refine the edge.

Work as a grinder

This method works well with tiles. To make radius holes in porcelain stoneware, it is better to use the special tools described below.

Video of the wizard:

Using a jigsaw

A jigsaw is also available to most craftsmen, but it provides more options for curly cutting ceramics. To do this, insert a diamond file into the tool and you can cut a hole in a tile of any shape. To cut the internal holes, you will need a drill with a thin diamond drill bit. They drill a hole on the inside of the contour. A jigsaw file is inserted into it.

Jigsaw cutting

Work with glass cutter and pliers

Manually, without using a power tool, you can make a straight or radius cut for a pipe or outlet from the edge of the tile.

Breaking off with pliers

In addition to the glass cutter and pliers, you will need a straight or round bar with fine sandpaper. The work is done like this:

Using a marker on the front side, the outline of the future cutout is marked.
Before cutting a hole, it is recommended to pre-soak the tile in water. This will reduce the risk of splitting.
After that, a cut is made with a glass cutter along the applied line. To make the furrow deep, it is necessary to apply sufficient force. In this case, you must not overdo it and not split the tile.
In order for the glaze to completely split along the cut line, the tile is tapped from the back.
Then, with the help of pliers or special tongs, they bite off a piece of tile, as if biting into it. Gradually, reaching the intended line, the tile will break off along the cut contour.

With this method, it is possible to obtain lines of any configuration, but there will always be small notches on the edge. They need to be removed with sandpaper.

drilling

You can drill small holes (up to 15-20 mm) using a drill by inserting a conical or spiral drill of the appropriate diameter into it.

Drill with cone drill

Drilling is convenient if the tile is already glued. But usually a hole must be drilled before the tile is glued in order to bring the wire into it or put it on the pipe. Therefore, the tile must be well fixed on a flat surface. Drywall or chipboard sheet is used as a substrate. To reduce the risk of breaking the ceramic during drilling, it must be wetted. It is recommended to fill the slats on chipboard to make a box. The rails are glued with silicone. A tile is placed in a box and filled with water. They drill ceramics right in this box. Water will soften the tile, there will be no internal stress in it, and the drill will be constantly cooled.

The technology for performing drilling in tiles is as follows:

The first problem is that at the first revolutions of the drill, the drill slides along the smooth surface of the tile. An adhesive tape will come to the rescue, which is glued at the place of drilling.
Mark the drilling point. It should be on duct tape.
Drilling begins with a slow speed of the drill, so that the drill does not float on the glaze from a jerk and does not make a scratch.
After the drill has caught on the tile, the drilling site is moistened with water. During the work of the drill, it is necessary to ensure that the workplace always remains wet.

Using a drill, you can make a hole of large diameter under the sewer pipe. But this method can be used when one or two holes need to be made, since the process is laborious and the quality leaves much to be desired.

Contour drilling

To do this, a lot of holes are drilled along the contour of the cutout with a thin drill. Thus, a perforated contour is obtained. After completion, the inside of the hole is knocked out, the remnants of the teeth are cleaned with pliers and leveled with sandpaper.

Drilling with crown and ballerina

If you need to cut a circle of any diameter with high quality and accuracy, professional tile drilling tools will come to the rescue. These include diamond-coated crowns and ballerinas with victorious incisors.

It is easier to work with a diamond crown, since it is a cylinder of a certain diameter with a cutting diamond edge. To center the crown in the center of the cylinder, a conventional pobedit drill is located.

The ballerina is a conventional drill, which has one or two L-shaped pins with a cutter at the end. The pins are attached with a clamp. By pulling out the pin, the desired diameter is set. This is the advantage of the nozzle over diamond crowns, which have a fixed diameter.

ballerina

Despite the fact that this tool is the simplest and most accessible, some skill is needed when working with it:

Models with one incisor are more durable, but during operation such a ballerina becomes an eccentric, which leads to vibration.
Models with two cutters are less durable, it is difficult to set both cutters to the same radius. Because of this, the tool cuts two circles, making a double cut.
When working, it is necessary to maintain a right angle between the axis of the drill and the surface of the tile, otherwise the ballerina will begin to burrow from one side of the circle. In order to maintain this angle constantly, they produce ballerinas with a plastic basket. It performs the function of a control stop and will be able to help the master maintain the angle.

When working as a ballerina, double-sided drilling is performed. First, a protruding drill makes a hole in the ceramic tile. As the drill deepens, the cutter begins to cut through the glaze. Having cut through the glaze, continue drilling from the back side.

Crown

Crowns are sold in sets for standard sizes. Before working with a crown, it is first necessary to drill a central hole into which the crown drill is inserted with a conventional drill.

Video of using the crown:

Modern plumbing is equipped with decorative facing washers on the pipe, and sockets have linings that can block the hole cut by hand or grinder. Therefore, it is not always necessary to cut an even circle, sometimes you can do without special tools.

During the renovation of the bathroom and other areas of the house, it often becomes necessary to make a hole for the equipment of a socket or switch. Some materials are easy to cut with the most common tools, others require a special approach.

It is quite difficult to drill a hard but fragile tile without damage, and making a hole of a large diameter is even more difficult. In this article, we will share popular and easy ways that you can quickly cut tile to install an outlet.

Features of working with tiles

It is rather difficult to make an even and neat round-shaped cutout on a tile for a socket, as it has high hardness and strength. In addition, the slippery glazed surface complicates the cutting process, as there is no adhesion between it and the cutting tool, which causes the drill to constantly slip. The main danger during the manufacture of holes in the tile is splitting and damage to expensive material. To make the cut look neat, you need to perform a number of preparatory measures:

On the surface of the tile from the outside, where drilling will be performed, markings are applied with a pencil or marker.
To prevent the drill bit from slipping off the glazed surface of the tile, the cutting area is pasted over with construction tape or adhesive tape. Before cutting, you can scratch the outline of the socket hole with a regular nail.
Moisten the tile before starting work to speed up the cutting process and reduce dust.

Important! A hole for a socket on the wall surface must be made before installing the tile. You need to be prepared that during the manufacture of the cutout, the tile may crack, and have an insurance stock of material, which is 10-15% of the total.

Cutting with a hole saw

The fastest way to make a hole in a tile is with a special nozzle on a drill called a crown. Crowns for drills and perforators are sold in hardware stores, they have different diameters that need to be matched to the mounted socket. However, experienced craftsmen do not recommend making holes in the tile using a perforator, as cracks and chips form along the edges of the cut due to vibration. To work with tiles, crowns of the following type are used:

Note! The drill and hammer vibrate strongly during operation, which is fraught with the appearance of chips and cracks on the tile. Therefore, you need to drill tiles at low speeds, spending 1-2 minutes per hole. To improve the quality of the cut, the tile is placed on a table on a wooden substrate, and the drill is placed on a tripod.

Cutting with a ballerina

Construction stores sell nibblers for tiles, which are popularly called "ballerina". This tile cutter is a drill attachment that consists of a pilot drill and two or one cutters. "Ballerina" is adjusted to the desired hole diameter, and it costs no more than 1000 rubles, depending on the manufacturer and material. This nozzle is usually enough for 10-20 cuts, but the cutters can bend even earlier. The principle of operation of the "ballerina" is as follows:

The future hole for the outlet is marked on the tile, be sure to mark the center of the circle.
A nozzle guide drill is installed at a point in the middle of the marked circle.
Adjust the cutters to the diameter that corresponds to the hole being made.
Begin to carefully and slowly drill the tile at low speed for 2-3 minutes.

Professional builders say that in order to make an even, neat hole without chips and cracks, you need to fix the drill for the duration of work in one position without changing the tilt of the drill. It is difficult to hold the tool in this way for 2-3 minutes, the worker's hand may “tremble”, so it is better to fix the drill on a tripod.

To make a neat hole in the tile without the risk of splitting and damaging the material, it is better to use a manual rather than an electric tool. To do this, in a hardware store you need to buy a tungsten string, which is inserted into the saw instead of the cutting blade. The cutting process is carried out in the following order:

The marking of the future outlet is applied to the outer or inner surface of the tile.
If the hole is located inside the tile, then inside the marked circle with a drill and a drill, you need to make a hole of small diameter.
A tungsten cutting string is inserted into a hole made by a drill in a tile.
With the help of a string, a hole is sawn along the markup with translational-return movements.

Note! When cutting tiles with a tungsten string, cracks, chips or other defects never occur. However, it takes up to 30 minutes to make each hole by hand, so this method is not suitable for industrial scale.

Cutting with a thin drill bit

It happens that in the arsenal of the master there are no special tools for cutting tiles, but the work needs to be done urgently. Then a drill with a conventional drill with a diameter of 6-8 mm comes to the rescue. The process of making holes using this method is as follows:

The socket box is applied to the outside of the tile, and then circled with a marker or pencil.
About 20 holes with a diameter of 8-8 mm are made along the marked circle in increments of 1-2 mm.
The necks between the holes are carefully removed with pliers or wire cutters.

Important! Marking and drilling of tiles should be done only from the outside of the material, otherwise the cut will look messy.

Video instruction

To cut a hole in a ceramic tile of large diameter, a ballerina drill is very often used, even less often - a diamond crown and similar methods. I want to tell you how to get out of a situation when you don’t have anything like this at hand, except for a grinder, of course. But the grinder or angle grinder is still more common than the tool listed earlier. This is a trick that you may and will need in life.

We cut a round hole in the tile with a grinder

First things first, mark the center of the circle that we will cut, and then the full radius of the circle. And you need to do it all from two sides.
From the front side:

From the back:

Now we take the grinder and inside the circle we make cuts as close as possible to the edges of the circle.

So we do on one plane of the entire circle.

Now rotate the tile 90 degrees.

And we make exactly the same cuts with a grinder.

Pieces in the center start to break - this is normal.

When you reach the end of the side of the circle, all partitions will break and you will already have something that looks like a circle.

Next, we grind the edges of the circle, passing along them carefully with a grinder disk.

It turns out an almost even circle, but with an angle in thickness.

Flip the tiles over to the inside.

We also grind the edges.

Then, in order to bring the circle back to normal, and remove the sharp angle formed, we cut it off with wire cutters. Carefully bite it off along the entire diameter.

For finishing, we go through a file.

That's all. A few simple steps and you have a perfect circle in the tile.
Throughout the work, do not forget about protective equipment - goggles and gloves. When working with angle grinders, be extremely careful and careful.
Undoubtedly, the method I proposed is noticeably more time-consuming compared to the classical methods, but I just suggest that you get out of a difficult situation.

Watch the video

For more information on dimensioning, cutting and processing a hole in a tile, see the video.

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The need to make a hole in ceramic tiles often arises. During the overhaul of premises in the process of finishing with ceramics, one cannot do without cutting and drilling various holes in the tile for sockets, switches, faucets and pipes.

In everyday use of the premises, it may also be necessary to fix additional items and accessories on the wall. Depending on the shape and size of the holes, the location and material of the tile, various technologies and tools are used. Let's consider the most common situations.

Hole for a snipe in a wall tile

To drill a tile, special so-called feather drills are used with a hard-alloy plate fixed in the form of a sharp tip. Drills with two crosswise fixed inserts are impractical, as they cannot be sharpened.

It is convenient to make markings for cutting or drilling on a smooth surface of ceramics with an alcohol marker in a contrasting color, traces of which are easily removed with an alcohol solution.

The material of the tip is harder than the glaze and does not slip on it. To securely fix the drill, a piece of masking tape or adhesive tape is glued to the tile, a place for the snipe is marked and drilling is performed. After passing through a layer of ceramic tiles, the pen drill must be replaced with a concrete drill with a pobedit tip.

You can also drill holes with a diameter of 3-12 mm with a concrete drill, which is more common among home craftsmen. We make a mark on the tile with a marker, apply a dowel or tap to it, and with a light blow of a hammer we make a gap on the ceramic glaze in order to fix the drill in it before starting drilling. Drilling is performed at low speeds, the chiselling mode is applied only after the drill has passed through the clay layer.

Smaller round holes in ceramic tiles can be made by screwing in self-tapping screws with a self-drilling tip. The consumption of self-tapping screws for one such hole is 2-3 pieces.

Holes in tiles for faucets, sockets and pipes

Diamond-coated core drills are used to drill socket holes in a ceramic-tiled wall. Crowns are also available for drilling metal and wood, so it is important to use a crown specifically for tiles. Core drills can be either with a center drill, which facilitates drilling, or without it. In the first case, the center of the cut circle is punched, the centering drill is set in place, and drilling is performed.

As the centering drill deepens, drilling with a crown is performed. If the crown is not centered, then a circle contour is applied to the ceramic tile, a drill with a crown is applied to the contour, low speeds are turned on and, pressing alternately on the opposite edges of the crown, a groove is made along the contour, and then drilling. It is possible to make a jig out of plywood, which is a cut-out stencil of a circle of the same diameter with a crown. The stencil is applied to the wall, a crown is placed in a circle, and drilling is performed, in which the stencil will not allow the crown to move.

When drilling, the crown must be periodically cooled in water to prevent overheating and damage. Core drills are also suitable for drilling porcelain stoneware.

The cost of high-quality crowns is significant, so cutting holes in the tile on the wall for sockets, pipes or a mixer can also be done with a concrete tool. According to the outlined contour, without going beyond it, along the punched points to the desired depth with a concrete drill, you need to drill holes with a small step with a diameter of 4-5 mm. Then, with side cutters or nippers, you need to crumble the partitions between these holes, after which you can knock the tile circle off the wall with a chisel, drill additional holes in the concrete and also crumble the concrete from the socket for the outlet.

Around the mounting box for the socket in such a hole there should be a place for a cement-sand mortar. This is necessary to firmly fix the box and socket.

Drilling tiles while laying on the wall

If you need to cut holes in the tile for mounting boxes, pipes or a mixer while laying ceramics on the wall, then you can also drill them in various ways.

On the front side of the ceramic tile, a circle of the required diameter is drawn with an alcohol marker and along its contour, also without going beyond the boundaries, holes with a diameter of 3-4 mm are drilled with a small step with a concrete drill. Then, with a grinder (grinder) with a disk with a diameter of 115 mm, designed for cutting stone, 2-3 through cuts are made inside the contour and unnecessary fragments are crumbled from the tile with pliers. The edges are treated with coarse sandpaper, put on a round blank of a suitable diameter, until smooth and without chips.

In the following way, a circle in a tile is cut out by cutting a groove with a grinder along the contour of the circle applied to the glaze, after which through cuts are made crosswise inside the contour and small fragments are removed with wire cutters. Chips along the edges of the hole are removed with coarse sandpaper or a file.

A round hole in the tile before laying can also be made with a special device called a “ballerina”. The nozzle is a movable cutter mounted on a rod, which rotates around the axis of the centering drill with the help of a power tool. The drilling process with a ballerina consists of the following parts:

marking the center of the circle;
setting the cutter to the desired diameter of the circle to be cut;
glaze cut;
drawing a groove on the back of the tile;
cutting the circle from the front side.

Due to the ability to move the cutter along the rod, the tool can be adjusted to cut a hole of the required diameter within the length of the rod. This eliminates the need to buy crowns of different diameters.

Ballerina - tile drill

You can also make a hole for a socket in a tile by knocking it out. On the tile, a circle outline is applied with a marker and 2-3 holes located close to each other are drilled in its middle, after which the partitions between them are crumbled with wire cutters. Then, using a hammer laid on the floor as an anvil, with light blows of the blunt end of the chisel, the edge of the hole is crushed in a circle, expanding it to the desired diameter.

Mounting boxes for sockets and switches are square, and if you need to cut not a circle, but a square, use a different tool and technology. To make a hole for a rectangular socket box, a contour is applied to the glaze with an alcohol marker.

To prevent the formation of cracks during subsequent cutting, through holes with a diameter of 8-10 mm must be drilled at the corners of the square. Then, having fixed the tile on the board, a grinder with a disk for concrete makes through cuts along the perimeter. The edges and corners of the square for the socket are treated with coarse sandpaper or a bastard file.

Figures of complex shape are cut out with a diamond-coated string inserted into a hacksaw.

On large-format ceramic tiles, in addition to porcelain stoneware, complex cuts are made with an electric jigsaw with a diamond-coated file. Cutting in porcelain stoneware is performed using a grinder with a diamond-coated disc.