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Counter Brush

Our Counter Brush is a highly effective tool for cleaning up grout sand and glass splinters in your mosaic art studio, especially when used with a HEPA-rated vacuum cleaner. This brush is actually an extremely important piece of safety equipment. Here’s why: Most cuts in the mosaic art studio do not come from handling sharp tile. Most cuts happen when you sit or rub your hand on your work surface and encounter one of the tiny slivers produced by cutting tile. Often you can’t even see what cut you because the razor-sharp grit is so small.

When to Use This Tool

We use the Counter Brush with a HEPA-grade vacuum cleaner to remove sharp grit and dust from work surfaces. Vacuuming without a brush is not nearly as effective.

Safety in the Mosaic Art Studio

Dust

You shouldn’t breath construction dusts of any type, including glass, cement, ceramics, stone, etc. Keeping dust damp is an easy was to make sure it stays out of the air, and so we recommend misting your materials with a spray bottle during filing and sanding. You should also wear an N95-rated dust mask when needed, especially when mixing up grout and mortar.

Safety Glasses

Always wear safety glasses with side shields when cutting tile or smoothing sharp edges with a marble file. Make sure that you don’t cut or file tile around people not wearing safety glasses. Flying chips could potentially hit their eyes as easily as yours.

Slivers and Surfaces

Be aware that cutting and filing tile can produce tiny slivers that are surprisingly sharp. Never sweep off a work surface with your bare hand. Use a HEPA-rated vacuum and a counter brush instead.

How To Make Mosaics

For more advice on designing your mosaic project or mounting, cutting, and grouting tile, please see our page of Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions or our Mosaic Information Guide, which lists instructional pages described by topic. We also post new articles about making mosaics at our How to Mosaic Blog.

Thumb Tweezers

Thumb Tweezers are approximately 3.5 inches in length and have slanted chisel tips for gripping small pieces of mosaic tile. This is a standard pair of thumb tweezers such as commonly used for grooming and pulling hairs. We use these for positioning small pieces of tile in mosaic art designs, especially working directly in mortar.

Thumb Tweezers

steel tweezers
slanted chisel top
approximately 3.5 inches in length
subject to rusting by thinset and grout

Mortars and Grouts Rust Steel Tools

Portland cement products like mortar and grout are mildly caustic and cause steel tools to rust faster than normal. The Thumb Tweezers are steel and thus subject to this problem. You can delay and slow rusting by washing and drying your tools on a CLEAN rag after use. Never let your tools soak until morning. They can rust literally overnight. Use a brush to scrub invisible grout residue from the tools. After our tools are dry, we wipe them with shop rag from our garage toolbox. These garage rags have traces of oil on them, which is just what is needed to prevent rusting, but not so excessive that glues get contaminated next use.

How to Reduce Frustration

Tweezers make it infinitely easier to dip your tile in adhesive or thinset without contaminating your fingertips. They also make it much easier to position the tile on the surface without messing up what you have already done. Most of the frustration of making a mosaic comes from accidentally bumping tiles that you have already positioned, and tweezers keep this from happening quite so often. The trivial cost of a basic pair of tweezers is the best money you can spend as far as reducing frustration. You will also be able to attempt more detailed designs than you would consider if using only your fingertips.

How To Make Mosaics

Mosaic Tile Pick-Up Tool

The Mosaic Tile Pick-Up Tool is a 5-inch long spring-loaded gripping tool for positioning small pieces of tile in mosaic art designs. The Pick-Up Tool is superior to tweezers for many tasks because its spring-loaded arms hold the tile securely in until the end of the handle is pressed. This can be particularly helpful for people with hand tremors or motor control issues or for people working long hours. Also, the arms which grasp the tile are thin wires with minimal surface area that can be contaminated by glue, unlike tweezers which are more prone to accumulation.

Pick-Up Tool or Tweezers?

Basically, the Pick-Up Tool has the same purpose as as a pair tweezers: taking the frustration out of detailed mosaic work. Don’t use your fingertips to manipulate small mosaic tiles. Use simple tools instead, such as tweezers and this tool. Keep in mind that you might use both tools in the same mosaic depending on the different sizes of tile used in the design.

Compatibility

The Pick-Up Tool can pick up whole mosaic tile and pieces smaller than approximately 1/2-inch. It would not be of much if any use with whole 3/4-inch tile, but it is very useful with pieces cut from 3/4-inch tile. Like all metal tools, the Mosaic Tile Pick-Up Tool is easily corroded and oxidized by caustic grouts and mortars, so keep them clean and expect them to age with use.

How to Reduce Frustration

Tools like tweezers and the pick-up tool can save hours of tedium and reduce frustration by allowing you to position tile without disturbing tile that you have already positioned. They are also useful for dipping the tile in mosaic adhesive or thinset mortar without contaminating your fingertips. With these simple tools, you will be able to attempt more detailed designs than you would consider if using only your fingertips.

How To Make Mosaics

Tweezers 4-Piece Set

Tweezers 4-Piece Set includes four different styles of steel tweezers for positioning mosaic tile: self-closing, flat, slanted, and needle-tip. This gives you some options if the type or shape of mosaic tile you are using happens to slip in a particular style of tip. We would not recommend doing mosaic work without some form of tweezers, especially if using tile or pieces cut 3/8 inch or smaller. The self-closing tweezers are particularly useful for people with shaking hands, or anyone working in long stretches. Reduce the tedium and frustration involved in positioning tiny tiles!

Tweezers 4-Piece Set

steel tweezers
4 pieces
4 different styles: self-closing, flat, slanted, and needle-tip.
subject to rusting by thinset and grout

Mortars and Grouts Rust Steel Tools

How to Reduce Frustration

Tweezers make it infinitely easier to dip your tile in adhesive or thinset without contaminating your fingertips. They also make it much easier to position the tile on the surface without messing up what you have already done. Most of the frustration of making mosaic comes from accidentally bumping tiles that you have already positioned, and tweezers keep this from happening quite so often. The trivial cost of a basic pair of tweezers is the best money you can spend as far as reducing frustration. You will also be able to attempt more detailed designs than you would consider if using only your fingertips.

How To Make Mosaics

Grozing Pliers

Grozing Pliers are used to break off flares of glass (sharp flakes or slivers) at the edge of newly cut stained glass. These slivers are known as groze, and the process is known as grozing.

Grozing Flares

Cutting stained glass often leaves flakes or slivers of glass at the edge of the new cut. When cut, the glass behaves as if it is many thin planes of glass, and some of these planes don’t all break right at the line of the cut, and usually the top or bottom will be left sticking out as a razor-sharp flare. The jaws of the Grozing Pliers have small serrations for catching and breaking off these tiny slivers. As an alternative to Grozing Pliers, you may prefer using the fine-grit side of a rubbing stone or a marble file because these tools can also be used on ceramic and stone, and they can be used to shape and notch tile.

Scoring and Snapping Stained Glass

Scoring stained glass is done with a Pistol-Grip Cutter, which can be used to make complex curves or long straight lines. Once the glass is scored, it can be snapped apart by placing the glass on a flat surface with a pencil or spaghetti stick under the line of the cut and pressing down on both sides of the glass. For snapping apart complex curves, Running Pliers with padded jaws can be used. Stained glass artists report that Grozing Pliers can be used for this task, but our experience has been that they are of limited utility in snapping score pieces apart. What they are are particularly useful for is cleaning the groze from relatively large cuts as quickly as possible.

Grozing Pliers

tool type: hand tool/compression tool
steel pliers with one straight jaw and one curved jaw, both serrated to catch and break off sharp glass flares
vinyl grip

How To Make Mosaic Art

Running Pliers

Running Pliers are used to snap apart pieces of stained glass after it has been scored with the Pistol Grip Cutters. The jaws are padded with clear rubber cushions that prevent the steel from crushing the glass.

Running Pliers

steel pliers tool
plastic grips
cushioned jaws

Repairable for Long Life

The clear rubber cushions tend to split and fall off of the jaws over years of use, but we have repaired the jaws of our tools merely by wrapping in several layers of electrical tape, which we have also used to replace plastic grips on hand tools. Artist Joe Moorman proudly owns and uses several of his grandfather’s hand tools that have had their broken center bolts replaced with ordinary bolts and a locking nut. These sort of common-sense repairs save you money and keep perfectly usable tools out the landfill. There is no reason a single-pair of these pliers could not last a lifetime and beyond with simple repairs.

Do You Need This Tool?

If you are snapping apart long straight scores in a piece of stained glass, then no, you don’t. You can easily snap apart a straight score by placing a straight object under the score and pressing down on the glass on both sides of the score with your gloved hands. The straight object can be a pencil or an uncooked stick of spaghetti. Snapping these straight lines is simple and easy. What is difficult is snapping a curved score. For snapping curved pieces of stained glass apart, Running Pliers are needed.

How To Make Mosaics

Cutting Oil

Cutting Oil is a light oil used in Pistol-Grip Cutters to prolong the life of the scoring wheel when cutting stained glass for mosaic art. Keep in mind that any stained glass exposed to cutting oil needs to be washed with detergent to ensure that the glues and mortars used in mosaic work can bond securely. This residue is NOT an issue if you are soldering the glass in lead channel and making traditional stained glass artwork, but it can be fatal for a mosaic.

Cutting Oil Required?

It is possible to use a Pistol Grip Cutter without cutting oil if you use the right amount of pressure. Most people prefer not to do that. The oil allows you to press harder than you need to without generating as many tiny flakes of glass and supposedly helping the cutting wheel last longer. Whether or not YOU use cutting oil when you cut stained glass, you must assume that the glass was cut with oil at some point, and so you should rinse it with detergent so that the glue or mortar can bond to the glass when you use it in a mosaic.

How To Make Mosaics

Mosaic Tile Mesh FULL ROLL 150 ft x 38.5 in

mosaic tile mesh 38.5 inch wide x 150 feet

Mosaic Tile Mesh is 38.5 inches wide and 150 feet long in one continuous UNCUT piece. The mesh is made from woven fiberglass and is the same material that factories use for pre-mounting ceramic tile for rapid installation in walls, floors, and backsplashes. Artists use it in much the same way when laying up large designs, but the mesh is not needed for small mosaic art projects or surfaces such as tables where the tile can be glued directly to the surface.

Fiberglass mounting mesh is most useful for backsplashes and murals and floor medallions and other projects that are large or involve surfaces that can’t be monopolized for long periods of time. In these situations, the mosaic design is laid up on a worktable overs an extended period perhaps involving many different studio sessions, and then the finished design is installed in one session for attaching to the surface and a second session for grouting.

Tip: Even if your design is large, you will probably find it easier to cut the mesh up into 1 ft x 1 ft pieces and lay up your mosaic in these smaller sections. Anything larger than 3 ft x 3 ft is just too heavy and unwieldy to mount on a vertical surface.

Product Specifications

material: woven fiberglass mesh
unit weight: 4.3 oz/square meter (standard weight used for tile mounting)
width: 38.5 inches
length: 150 ft.

How to Use Mosaic Tile Mesh

Glue

Use a white PVA adhesive such as Weldbond to attach tiles to the mesh.

To avoid gluing your mesh to your work table, you should use a plastic table or cover the tray in plastic. Construction plastic or coroplast from the building store should work. If you have an old politician or real estate agent plastic advertisement sign from the side of the road you can probably use one of those.

Outdoor and Wet Installation

For outdoor and wet mosaics, it is best to avoid mesh and use mounting paper or mounting tape to temporarily face-mount the mosaic so that it can be pressed into thinset mortar without a layer of mesh and glue on the bottom. This is particularly important when your tiles are small. Mesh can be used in wet locations if glue is used sparingly and your tiles are large enough to safely cover the glue.

If you will be installing the mosaic outdoors or in a wet location, avoid completely covering the bottom of the tile with glue and keep the glue toward the center of the tiles. Leave the outer edges bare to bond directly to the thinset mortar used in final installation. Be careful not to get glue up the sides of the tile. If adhesive isn’t covered with grout, then water can wick underneath the grout over time and cause tiles to pop off. You should inspect the sheet of excess glue by misting it before it is installed. Any traces of glue on the sides and faces of the tile will start to turn white after a few minutes of being misted with water. Use a knife to scrape away any glue residues you see coming up the sides of the tile to face of the tile.

Working Size and Sections

Mesh covered with tile can be heavy and unwieldy, especially when mounted to a wall. Don’t try to vertically mount a one-piece mosaic larger than 3 foot x 3 foot. The standard practice is to lay up the mosaic on 1 foot x 1 foot pieces of mesh and match up the different sections when the mosaic is installed. Floor medallions 3 foot x 3 foot are sometimes made on one piece of mesh, but even though these are mounted horizontally, it still requires that the mosaic be carried on a piece of plywood and slid into place.

Tip: One technique for dividing up a large mesh-mounted mosaic is to lay it up on one large piece of mesh and then cut it up using a pair of sharp scissors. This is most useful for mosaic designs made from cut pieces of tile not arranged in a grid. You can cut along the rows of tile instead of cutting it up into exact 1 ft x 1 ft squares, which is usually impractical if your design isn’t a grid.

Final Mounting

To mount mesh sheets of mosaic to your surface, thinset mortar or adhesive should be spread on the surface with 1/4-inch notched trowel. We “butter” the bottom of the sheet with a little bit of the same adhesive in a thin coat before pressing the sheet into place. Make sure you allow the thinset or adhesive to cure for at least 24 hours before attempting to grout because grouting is a physical process that can easily knock tiles loose from uncured mounting.

Compatibility

The mesh is not used with tiles 3/8-inch or smaller because the holes in the mesh and the ridges on the bottoms of most glass tile make it difficult for small tile to sit level. For small tiles, you should use mounting paper to temporarily FACE-mount the tiles upside down. The product description for our mounting paper explains how that is done.

Use in Concrete Sculpture

The fiberglass mesh can also be used with other materials to make concrete sculptures for covering in mosaic.

How To Make Mosaics

For more advice on designing your mosaic project or cutting and grouting tile, please see our Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions page or our How To Mosaic blog or our Mosaic Information Guide.

Mosaic Tile Nipper

The Mosaic Tile Nipper is our recommended hand tool for cutting glazed ceramic tile up to 3/8-inch thick and can also be used for cutting most varieties of stone, porcelain, and dinnerware. However, the tile nipper should not be used for glass tile because it crushes and splinters more glass than it cuts. For cutting glass mosaic tile, you should use a Mosaic Glass Cutter, which has wheel-shaped blades and cuts more cleanly.

Cutting Unbreakable Dinnerware and Hard Stone?

This tile nipper is fine for cutting most types of stone and dinnerware. However, some varieties of modern dinnerware are extremely hard. In fact, some of the “unbreakable” plates found at thrift stores are made from some of the hardest engineered materials known to science. We generally avoid a plate if it is particularly difficult and move on to the next piece unless it has a pattern we like. Keep in mind that a plate that is extremely hard tends to break into pieces with extremely sharp edges. If you do need to cut extremely hard materials, then use the Compound Tile Nipper, which has a force multiplier built into its mechanism.

Safety and Cutting Tile

Always wear safety glasses with side shields when using tile nippers.
Make sure that you don’t cut glass around people not wearing safety glasses. Flying chips could potentially hit their eyes as easily as yours.
Be aware that cutting tile of any type can produce sharp edges.
Crumbs from cutting can be extremely sharp. Never sweep off a work surface with your bare hand. Use a vacuum or counter brush.

Efficient Cutting

It is much easier to cut up four or five pieces of tile and choose the one that fits best than it is to try to trim one piece to a certain shape or size. It is quicker too. Keep your rejects in a small pile and pay attention to the shapes that are in it. If you don’t use a certain size or shape as often, try to cut fewer pieces like that. This is much more effective than trimming a piece down to what you need, and it is a lot less tedious.

Replacement Springs

We now carry replacement springs, but no, your nippers are NOT defective or useless if the spring falls off. The springs tend to fall off all hand tools eventually, even the most expensive brands. They can still be used efficiently without the spring: Keep your pinky fingers inside the handle instead of outside with the rest of your fingers and use your pinky to open the tool. This is basic shop/studio practice for using any type of plier tool, most of which do not come with springs in the first place, at least not back in the day.

How To Make Mosaic Art

Mosaic Ornament Base

Mosaic base for a holiday ornament is made of the hard variety of expanded polystyrene that is used for fishing floats. The ornament base is spherical 3 inches in diameter, which makes it the size and shape of traditional Christmas tree ornament. The base comes with generic mounting hardware installed (designed to be repairable) and a 2mm beading cord loop which can be replaced with ribbon if desired. Note that the ornament hangs at an angle so that it resembles the earth tilted on its axis (hint). The ornament base hangs at a slight angle because the loop wraps the shaft of a 3-inch decking screw instead of a shallow eye screw like so many ornaments doomed to fail in a way difficult to repair. Our 3-inch screw’s corrosion-resistant coating also allows glue to bond to it better than bare steel, so the same white PVA adhesive Weldbond used to attach the tiles could be used to reinsert the mounting screw if it ever pulled out.

Product Specifications

1x hard expanded polystyrene sphere 3-inch
1x 3-inch deck screw #9 with corrosion resistant-coating
4x stainless steel washers #8
approximately 4 inch loop of 2mm beading cord

Instructions For Using the Mosaic Ornament Base

There are three important tips for making a mosaic on the polystyrene sphere:

Make sure you paint the sphere with adhesive and allow it to dry a few hours before you attempt to glue tile to it. The sphere by itself is so smooth, than any tile stuck to it tends to slide downhill. A layer of dried glue is much more tacky and will help prevent tiles from sliding. You can use your fingertip to paint on the glue.
Lay your ornament on an old folded up towel as you work on it to keep it from rolling over. A coffee mug can also be used. Work on the part of the sphere facing up, allow the area to partially dry and then rotate the sphere slightly to work on adjacent areas.
Put the mosaic ornament near a central heat vent or AC vent to speed drying, but not too close to fireplaces and wood stoves and places that get too hot.

Here is a step-by-step procedure for putting a mosaic on the ornament:

Hang the mosaic over some old newspapers or place where glue can drip.
Use your fingertips or a small brush to paint the sphere with a white PVA such as Weldbond adhesive.
Allow the glue to dry for at least several hours. Hang the ornament near AC vents and central heat vents to speed the drying.
Place the sphere on its side on an old folded up towel or on top of a coffee mug to work on it.
Glue mosaic tile to the part of the sphere facing up, taking care not to work to far down the sloping sides because the tile will slide.
Allow the glue to partially dry and then rotate the sphere slightly to one side so that an adjacent bare patch is now facing up.
Continue tiling and rotating the sphere as needed until it is covered. Take care not to rotate the sphere prematurely and cause tile to shift while the glue is still soft. Take advantage of vents and warm locations to speed the process.
Allow the fully tiled mosaic ornament to dry overnight or longer if needed before grouting. If the glue isn’t fully dry, then wet grout could cause tiles to pop off.
Grout the mosaic with gloved hands over a plastic basin such as an old dish pan.
Haze the grout the next day by burnishing with a cloth until all tile is free of grout residue.
Do not over tighten the mounting screw. Hand tighten only.
If the screw becomes loose or pulls out, squirt a white PVA adhesive such as Weldbond into the hole and reinsert.

Which Tile Works Best For The Ornament?

Our stone is too thick and heavy. Glass tile works best, preferably stained glass, Elementile, and the 3/8-inch mini tiles. The 3/4 inch tile can be used as well, but it would need to be cut to fit to the curvature of the 3-inch sphere. Keep in mind that if you use cut tile, especially stained glass, then take the time to smooth any sharp edges before gluing on the tile. You can use a marble file or a rubbing stone such as we sell, or you can use a piece of stone as I did for years and just rub the edge on that.

How Much Tile Do I Need For A Mosaic Ornament?

The surface area of the sphere is about 0.2 square feet. That means you should be able to tile an ornament with one of our 6×6 sheets of stained glass, which are approximately 0.25 square feet. However, you will have to be careful and not generate too much waste as cutting scrap (slivers). We recommend keeping the grout gap small (1/16 inch or less). The following numbers are based on a grout gap of 1/16 inch, but you might need slightly more of the 3/4-inch tile because that will need to be cut up:

8mm tiles: 255
12mm tiles: 106
3/8 inch tiles: 155
3/4 inch tiles: 46