How to make a grinder a round hole in a ceramic tile

When facing a wall with ceramic tiles, there are situations when it is necessary to cut a hole in the tile that has a sufficiently large diameter. For example, under a junction box hidden in the wall of electrical wiring or under the hood. You can cope with this task with the help of a small grinder, and the only thing required for this is the ability to accurately work with such a tool.

In order to cut a large hole in a ceramic tile with a grinder, you will need:
• Grinder with a cutting disc of small diameter
• Caliper
• Parrot nippers
• Round file.

The work begins with putting on the tile the markings of the future hole on its two sides. This is done in any convenient way, for example, using a vernier caliper or an ordinary compass.

It is important that the circumference of the marking of the hole on the front and back of the tile are strictly opposite to each other.

After plotting the markings on the tile, they proceed directly to cutting holes in it. For this:
1. Lay the tile on the wooden blocks face up and carefully grind its frequent parallel cuts inside the outlined marking area. At the same time, they try to keep the disc of the grinder as close as possible to the marking line, but it does not cross.


2. Spread the bars, rotate the tile 90 °, lay it on them so that there is a void under the hole, and again often grind the tile area inside the outlined circle, but perpendicular to the existing cuts.

Propylene ceramics crumbles and breaks.

3. As a result, a hole is obtained in the tile having a diameter value close to the necessary, but uneven and with rough edges.

4. To process the hole and fine-tune its diameter to the required size, first, the grinder “chamfers” the front side of its edges,


and then from the back, focusing on the line previously marked on the back side of the markings.


5. After processing the edges of the hole with the disc of the grinder, they become thinner and, therefore, they are easily broken with the help of parrot cutters, thereby bringing the diameter of the hole to the desired size.

6. At the last stage of the work, the edges of the holes are shaped perfectly with a round file.

So, without much difficulty, if you work slowly and carefully, you can cut a large hole in the ceramic tile. This method can be useful, for example, when it is not possible to leave the technological hole in the wall open, using the traditional cutoff of the four corners of adjacent tiles docked above it.

Full video version of the method of cutting holes in ceramic tiles with a grinder