The Villeroy & Boch tiles shown are licence products from V&B Fliesen GmbH

What aspects are important when cutting and drilling a tile?

Cutting

Scoring must be carried out swiftly, applying even, gentle pressure, whereby only high-quality machines should be used for cutting purposes, in order to ensure the best possible results (both dry and wet cutting machines are available from retailers in various price categories). The wet cutting method is recommended for porcelain stoneware tiles.

Drilling

Due to the dense structure of the material, it is not possible to use conventional hard-metal drills on vitreous and porcelain stoneware tiles.

Drilled holes with smaller diameters, for example, for dowel fastenings, can only be drilled in a dry state using specially hardened carbide drills or with a glass ceramics drill. The tile must be placed on a non-elastic base without any cavities.

The most effective method is to cut exact drill holes on all substrates by wet drilling with a hollow drill with a diamond bit. As there is no brad point, these drills require a bore gauge.