Q: I’m laying out a pattern of 1-in. sq. tile for a border. I’d like to stick the tile to a backing to make sheets of the pattern. This process would ease installation. To what should I mount the tile, and what is the best way to attach it?
Susan Kamener, McLean, VA
A:
Tom Meehan, a tile installer in Harwichport, Massachusetts, replies: There are many ways to create sheets of tile. The most common methods use either a mesh or paper backing material. Tile manufacturers make sheets of small tile, and they’ve told me that the glue they use to bond the tile to the backing is quite similar to carpenter’s wood glue.
In my tile-installation business, I’m often asked to create custom listels (bands of decorative tile) from different color and size tiles. These listels may be 3 in. or 4 in. wide and typically run horizontally through a tub or shower-stall area.
My most successful method for creating listels has been to mount the tile in the desired pattern on a piece of sheet membrane such as NobleSeal CIS (800-878-5788; www.noblecompany.com), a composite sheet used to isolate cracks in a concrete floor beneath a tile floor. This membrane is available at most tile-supply stores.
I make the listels in segments that are no more than 12 in. long so that they’re easier to handle, and I apply the tile in the desired pattern with a good latex-modified thinset. Once I’ve mounted the tile on the segments of membrane, I put them aside to cure for 24 hours to 48 hours.With the membrane backing, the listel segments remain slightly flexible, but solid enough to make installation easy.When I’m ready to install the listels on the wall with the rest of the tile, I bed them in the same latex-modified thinset. If I need to build them out to match up with thicker tile, I simply build up the layer of thinset behind the membrane.
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