Cutting Hardi Back

troyamuso

Does anyone have a great way to cut hardi backer other than score and snap? I need to do more detailed cutting ie: L cuts, Circles etc. I'm new to the hardi backer world and neeed some help.

Mike Finley

Dewalt 18vt cordless grinder and a diamond blade, is all we use. (bring extra batteries!) I've heard you can use power shears on it but have never tried that.

Teetorbilt

You can buy silicon carbide blades for a sabre saw. Never tried it but it should work for a while.

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cmwacasey

power shears

Teetorbilt

For circles?

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cmwacasey

for circles yes ,if you are a craftsman.sears craftsman no.

DesPro

Rotozip w/tile bit for circles

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highgear

For circles I always use circle cutter. I score it a couple of times and hit it with a hammer.Never fails and no dust from a grinder or roto zip

Mike Finley

By the way, what are these situations where circles are required to be cut in Hardi? I have yet to have ever run into a situation where I needed to cut a circle in this material.

thom

Like Mike, we use an angle grinder with a diamond blade. You can trim the edges to a perfect circle with that grinder if you so desire.

My plumber always comments that our tile cuts at the commode look so nice. Perfect circles at the edge of the flange. You can do it with the angle grinder.

highgear

circles are cut all the time when installing cement board on shower ceilings, and cutting out the shower valves. I cant undestand why you would want to make dust with a grinder when a circle cutter used for sheetrock can be used. You should give it a try.

Mike Finley

Why do you need to cut a circle around a shower valve? Even the tile placed over the Hardi around a shower valve doesn't need to be cut in a circle, the cover plate covers the hole, and even if you did want to cut the tile in a circle around the valve you still don't need a circle cut in the Hardi behind it. I've never yet found a reason to cut a circle in Hardi or any type of backer. Shower heads, shower valves, bath spouts all get square holes, toilet flanges get octagons.

We use a grinder for speed, dust is an issue, but it all gets cut outside anyways, also we have also moved to only using Hardi on floors, for all wet areas we use DensShield which cuts with a knife or a drywall hand saw.

Bella D

I second the angle grinder and the diamond blade. I've tried the rotozip but it seems to take too long for me and I don't have as much control as I would like.

troyamuso

Mike,What are you using to cut an octagon in the hardi?

Mike Finley

A Dewalt 18vt cordless grinder with a diamond wheel.



Except our is missing the handle and the guard.

Bud Cline

It is called "Pride of Workmanship". You can teach a monkey to hack a square hole, it takes a craftsman to cut a circle.












I'm gonna catch some hell now!

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TO OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS:
Please manage your children.
Any children unattended throughout the day
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Mike Finley

No more hell to catch then I was expecting when saying I don't see any reason to cut a round hole.

Bud Cline

Just a few weeks ago I build this custom shower. It was one with 4 million spray heads and all the bells and whistles, you know the kind.

I had never seen this particular valve before so I went to the box and got their template and cut three holes in both the Hardi and eventually the tile just as the template said to do. Days previous I had asked the plumber if there was anything special I needed to know about this valve and of course he said "No". That ass hole had never seen one of these either.

So anyway I finish the shower, everything is fine, and the customer is exstatic with joy. About three days pass and the customer calls me.

He says his new valve control doesn't fit and neither does his escutcheon. So I rush right over there to find that I didn't need three round beautiful professionally executed holes in the stinkin' wall, all I needed was one big square hole that took-in everything, and also exposed the water calibrators in the wall that I had covered up.

Note to self: SELF(?) Don't ever believe anything anyone ever tells you. And when a plumber gives you advice, don't take it.

__________________
TO OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS:
Please manage your children.
Any children unattended throughout the day
will be given a Free Mountain Due at our regular quiting time.

needthingsdone?

I can say that i've used the angle grinder to make "rough" cuts in hardi before, but the carbide blades from remgrit or lennox for a jig saw work so much better, create less dust and I find them to be much faster and quieter.
For gentle radius cuts and straight lines, shears are awesome and they cut way faster than anything else with no dust and lower noise.
Just my $.02

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Mike Finley

Bud, did you have to find a monkey to cut that square hole out for you?

Hehe