All right, so here's today's question: What
is 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 Montolit
Squadro. It's 3 3/8" in diameter, which is perfect for an electrical outlet. Most of
the time we use a 4 ½" diamond blade like this one here, but there's a problem with
that. When you look at the radius of a 4 ½" diamond blade, it's 2 2/4" which will make
it 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 overcut
on the short side of an electrical outlet. Now, when you're using an angle grinder to
cut any type of tile, it's always important to know the specifications of the grinder
and the diamond blade. This is the Fein WSG7-115. This angle grinder
is specifically meant for 4 ½" diamond blades or wheels. The WSG7-115 is rated for 12,000
rpms; that's a very important number to remember. Every diamond blade has a rating on it. As
you can see here, the Squadro is rated for 18,000 rpms. You always want the rpm rating
to be higher for the blade versus the angle grinder.
All angle grinders have a directional arrow on them, like this one here, and it points
in a clockwise direction. That's really, really important to understand. In addition, every
single angle grinder blade also has an arrow. So as you can see here, the arrow is pointing
counter-clockwise, so we want to flip this over and mount it to the angle grinder in
this way. So we're just going to take this off by turning
it counter-clockwise, and then position the Squadro onto the WSG7. Tighten it down. There's
a button at the top of the WSG7; you want to press this down and turn the blade until
it locks in place, and then use the provided wrench to tighten down on it. Okay, so that's
tight. By the way, do this with the angle grinder unplugged or with the battery out
of it. For this demonstration we're just using a
piece of ceramic tile; it's clay-based; nothing special. It's pretty cheap. I just made a
simple 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 you
why 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 have
to 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 hearing
protection and some safety glasses. Just some tips here: I started on the front
side of the tile, the finished side of the tile, and started cutting all four sides of
that outlet outline. Then I flipped the tile over to complete the cuts. And as you'll see
here, 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 have
some overcuts here and here, and I chipped a tile there. So I'm going to do another cut
and see if I can improve upon this. With the second go-around, I was much more
careful making the cuts with the Squadro, and it was easier to have it under control
knowing that I could fit it in between that short side of that outlet. As you can see
here, the cuts were much sharper in terms of no overcutting, and the look of the outlet
is much, much better the second time around. As usual, I flipped it over to complete the
cuts on the back side of the tile. And take your time doing this because you definitely
don't want to have an overcut on the front of the tile. But as you see here, you can
clean 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 first
one here, and the Squadro did a really nice job of cutting around the electrical outlet
outline. You can find the Montolit Squadro over on
our online store at bathroomrepairtutor.com. The WSG7 is an awesome angle grinder with
any 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 down
in 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.
