Description
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
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.
