Can't believe I found this thread on page 2! Guess I never hit the email notification from this site! Saxman, I appreciate your insight but to be honest if I had the knowledge and will to swap motors on the HRT it would be rational thinking to assume I tried everything else. Never did I say I didn't, correct? I ended up finding a brand used (I said it!) HRX217HXA and what a machine it is! The very first time I cut my grass with it I hasn't mowed in 3weeks and with the height all the way up, I was cutting ~8" of grass off the top. Not only that but it rained the entire previous day and only stopped raining some time the night before when I was asleep. I cut at about 10am do no time for the lawn to dry. It was the epitome of the test I was looking for and on 100% mulch, there was barely a blade left to speak of! I was more than satisfied and actually very impressed with the cut quality in the given conditions. I still miss my HRT though from time to time. It was a ber nimble mower that could be tossed about with ease. Not so with the HRX, it's much more substantial and has roughly 20lb or so more bulk to contend with. Now I can cut my grass whenever I need to and need not worry about over cutting or stragglers left behind!

I disagree, you do not have to tile on cement board in an application like this. We're talking *one single row* of thin, lightweight, small tiles for a decorative backsplash, not a huge wall of tile! You can do single rows of tile on good-condition drywall using thinset. You can add a moisture barrier if it's a high use / wet area. A thin sticker-like sheet of stone is definitely not the look we're going for, plus I imagine it would leave weird gaps with the beadboard grooves. And there's no way I'm buying an awful sheet of that cheap tile board to cover my gorgeous beadboard with. We're talking one single row of tile, here, did you misread my post? I called a couple of tiling professionals I know and have worked with in the past. They said cement board would be complete overkill in my application which is just a 3" high strip around my small vanity. I saw the two tile guys at church this morning, and they gave me these instructions for tiling a single decorative row over painted MDF beadboard, and said it will work for tiling over regular wood beadboard as well. So here is the info if anyone else is looking: 1. Make sure the beadboard is secured to the wall properly, you don't want to tile over loose beadboard. Also inspect the beadboard to make sure it's in good condition. No warping, mold, peeling paint, or anything of that nature. 2. Lightly sand the area and wipe clean. 3. Trowel on pre-prepared thinset mortar for small projects. Fill in the grooves of the beadboard with the trowel, and smooth it out. You can use a moisture barrier membrane at this point. 4. Let it dry over night. Apply the tiles by 'buttering' more thinset on the back of each tile and pressing to the wall. After it's dry, grout as you normally would, and seal the grout. They did agree with me that grouting neatly with those ridges / grooves in the beadboard will be a bit tricky at the top, and thought taping off with painters tape was a good solution. Anyway, maybe it'll be a disaster, and I'll come back to eat crow butterfly, but I'm definitely trying these instructions.

Yep...anything with latex resins, or even Latex/Poly-Alkyd hybrid-resins like CC takes a month to harden-off. Doesn't really matter what paint it is in a way...the right kind of "whack" WILL show up! You could then employ the old "steam-iron thru a folded cloth" trick though! Faron

You need to use HardiBacker cement board. Don't think you have MDF there is doesn't have a rough side. Maybe Masonite or something which is even worse.