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.