Alright...here is something new I tried. Keeping with the theme of setting smaller sheet tiles on Kerdi...the upper tiles for the last bit of tile in this shower were thinner than the ones below. I decided to apply them to Kerdi like I had done for the other decorative mosaics. That's was fine but then I had a brain fart and forgot one thing... installing a 2'x5' slab like that wouldn't be easy because of handling and flexing.
My solution was a few steps. First I wanted to be able to attach suction cups to the "slab" to be able to move and install it. Also I wanted to add something to help keep the flexing of the panels to a minimum. I tried the clear, adhesive type carpet protection on the face of the tiles and that worked awesome! That alone wasn't enough to give a proper seal for the cups so I hot glued some 1/4" melamine to the film and that worked really well. Then wanting to stiffen the assembly a bit more for moving around a spot glued some 1/2” GoBoard scrap across the film. This worked really well too.
Next I cut them to size using the Makita tile saw with track adapter. Then I skimmed the wall and applied thinset to the back of the panels.
It was perfect. It took 2 of us to install the back wall but I was able to install the smaller side pieces solo.
It won't be something I do every install but it worked fantastic for this situation and probably saved me some headache and time vs skimming out the wall to accommodate the thinner tile.
Tomorrow I will peel the film and strips off once the thinset cured overnight.
