Why it is predictable that within a few years you won’t find pull tile cutters on the worldwide market anymore.
There are a few key reasons that explain the gradual extinction of this way of cutting tiles.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Montolit has been one of the pioneer companies in producing pull tile cutters.
At that time tiles were soft and very easy to cut. Porcelain didn’t exist and the most popular tile size was extremely small. Pulling while cutting those small tiles was a good solution because there wasn’t the need to apply a lot of pressure and the operator’s wrist and back didn’t suffer any consequence from that action.
Summarizing, the size and softness of the old tiles (ceramic tiles) supported the past growing of small pull tile cutters, and many installers got used to pull while cutting tiles. Sure, push tile cutters were already on the market but the market share was not so big.
The launch and expansion of Gres Porcelain in the market started to change this scenario. We’re talking now about a totally different material, extremely hard, which in time evolved into porcelain tiles with complex and deep textures.
This period was what we can consider the “middle ages” for tile cutters. Big manufacturers started to design strong 1 bar push tile cutters, able to easily cut hard porcelain with a minimum effort, saving operators’ wrists from injuries.
However, as said before, this period may be called “middle ages” because pull tile cutters were still performing reasonably well on small sized porcelain tiles with standard thickness.
The big revolution started approximately in 2006 – 2008, when long porcelain tiles started to become popular (90+ cm | 36+ inches) and thicker.
With these new tile sizes and hardness, pulling while cutting tiles became extremely frustrating for many tile setters. Especially with tiles longer than 90 cm/36”
For these reasons, almost all tile cutters manufacturers started to design and produce more and more push machines, slowly abandoning the pull technology. This process is now registering a strong acceleration and as stated on the headline above, it is reasonable to predict that pull tile cutters will disappear from the market in a few years.
Montolit still has one last version of professional pull tile cutter on its catalogue, but it will soon be part of the company’s museum.
You could be interested in reading also this article: Pull or Push Tile cutters, which is the best solution.