Ceramic tiles small holes (as opposed to hard porcelain) Drilling is easy with diamond drill holesaws bits

Drilling small holes for fixtures and fittings

In to ceramic or hard tiles –

By Richard Hazell of the website 365drills.com (C)

This is a tile we drilled using an 8mm diamond drill. We slightly overbored it to slip in a 6 or 7mm rawl plug. In this photo you can see a traditional drill bit in the orange drill pack. These are spade drills and they work from the centre out.

The spade rips the tile to form an ever wider circle until it pushes through the glaze. We however use a diamond cone. The cone only remove the outer edge of the 8mm hole making it a less agressive process. Diamond drills for use with fixtures and fitting are a gentle solution.

This is the hollow core going into the tile. Its about the size of a bic biro.

The advantage of this is less chipping of the tile in such a small area. You can see below the hole is perfect and the rawl plug just slides in.

OK so perhaps on first impressions the rawl plug is looking a bit lost in the tile but the idea is not to put pressure on the tile with the fitting. You can crack it. What we want is the substrate behind to take the weight of the fitting which could be a bathroom cabinet for example.

Here you can see the screw pushes in. Already the jaws of the plug are opening to fit the space.

The rawl plug would by now be slotted into the substrate at the back of the tile. Either ply, wood, breeze block or brick. Its the back of the tile that should bear the weight.

Also look closely at all the holes in this picture to see totally perfect holes. Even at the back.

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