'Giornata' (a days work).

drawing of my new cement spreader

 I was surprised at having to pay £12.50 for this tool, I thought it was a lot for little metal trowel spreader thing. But it is a great tool and invaluable on this job, really good for what I call 'cutting back' which is removing the unused cement around the tiles where another work session will join it. The term 'giornata' is Italian and means a days work. This was very relevant during the Renaissance when painting frescoes, as it was the new lime plaster applied today, joining the wok done yesterday. In some old paintings these joins can be seen as slightly different coloured pigments show one days work from another. My concern is the same, in that cement dried yesterday around the edge of the tiles prevents the new tiles from being positioned very close and seamlessly. If done badly a black grout line will appear if the gap is a little too large. This tool is great at removing the excess cement for good joins.

I have other trowel/spreaders but this is great and now I think very good value for my £12.50.
I also bought a pair of new tile nippers which a great. Very good at cutting tiles into thirds, which is what I need for the black lettering. I have well over a dozen pairs of nippers all rubbish at cutting thirds. Maybe it is important to have sharp nippers and I forgot what it was like, or maybe these are just a great pair of tile nippers..


drawing of my new tile nippers




Dimension. Wonder uplands bare