KITCHEN BACKSPLASH IDEAS USING SUBWAY TILES
all right, so here's today's question: whatis the best way to cut tile around electrical outlets? today we've got a great tip for you.it's a quick tip on a new angle grinder blade that we recently got. this is the montolitsquadro. it's 3 3/8" in diameter, which is perfect for an electrical outlet. most ofthe time we use a 4 â½" diamond blade like this one here, but there's a problem withthat. when you look at the radius of a 4 â½" diamond blade, it's 2 2/4" which will makeit really tough to cut out the short side of an electrical outlet. the squadro's radius,on the other hand, is small enough such that you shouldn't have too much of an overcuton the short side of an electrical outlet. now, when you're using an angle grinder tocut any type of tile, it's always important
to know the specifications of the grinderand the diamond blade. this is the fein wsg7-115. this angle grinderis specifically meant for 4 â½" diamond blades or wheels. the wsg7-115 is rated for 12,000rpms; that's a very important number to remember. every diamond blade has a rating on it. asyou can see here, the squadro is rated for 18,000 rpms. you always want the rpm ratingto be higher for the blade versus the angle grinder.all angle grinders have a directional arrow on them, like this one here, and it pointsin a clockwise direction. that's really, really important to understand. in addition, everysingle angle grinder blade also has an arrow. so as you can see here, the arrow is pointingcounter-clockwise, so we want to flip this
over and mount it to the angle grinder inthis way. so we're just going to take this off by turningit counter-clockwise, and then position the squadro onto the wsg7. tighten it down. there'sa button at the top of the wsg7; you want to press this down and turn the blade untilit locks in place, and then use the provided wrench to tighten down on it. okay, so that'stight. by the way, do this with the angle grinder unplugged or with the battery outof it. for this demonstration we're just using apiece of ceramic tile; it's clay-based; nothing special. it's pretty cheap. i just made asimple outline on this tile in pencil. this shows the outline of the electrical outlet.so we're going to go ahead and cut around
this using the squadro, and i'll show youwhy it's such a great option for this type of project.so it's always good to wear a respirator when you're cutting tile, especially if you haveto do it inside. one of these silica dust respirator kits is awesome. this is by sundstrom.i'm just going to be wearing one of these for today. also a good idea to wear hearingprotection and some safety glasses. just some tips here: i started on the frontside of the tile, the finished side of the tile, and started cutting all four sides ofthat outlet outline. then i flipped the tile over to complete the cuts. and as you'll seehere, this helps out quite a bit when it comes to cutting out an outlet.as you can see, the squadro fits in between
the short side cut very nicely. i do havesome overcuts here and here, and i chipped a tile there. so i'm going to do another cutand see if i can improve upon this. with the second go-around, i was much morecareful making the cuts with the squadro, and it was easier to have it under controlknowing that i could fit it in between that short side of that outlet. as you can seehere, the cuts were much sharper in terms of no overcutting, and the look of the outletis much, much better the second time around. as usual, i flipped it over to complete thecuts on the back side of the tile. and take your time doing this because you definitelydon't want to have an overcut on the front of the tile. but as you see here, you canclean up any cuts with the squadro to make
it look better.as you can see with this second go-around, there aren't any overcuts like on the firstone here, and the squadro did a really nice job of cutting around the electrical outletoutline. you can find the montolit squadro over onour online store at bathroomrepairtutor.com. the wsg7 is an awesome angle grinder withany of the montolit blades. it's 55 to 75 bucks. it will last you a long, long time.it has plenty of power. so if you got any questions, let us know downin the comments. if you're doing a bathroom remodel and you want extra help with that,check out our courses over on bathroomrepairtutor.com as well.thanks for watching today's video, and we'll
see you in the next one. take care.