Originally Posted by cmac2012

I never said Americans don't want to do those jobs. That must've been someone on the socialist fringe of the democratic party. We give those people a wide bearth -- no manners.

Give it a shot. It's more patience than skill. Just keep a sponge in some clean water nearby cuzzin' you'll need it to wipe up after all the messing up you do at first. Important to clear enough mortar out of the joints before it hardens so the grout has room to have enough mass to be a really viable part of the structure. A friend of mine told me about the time he didn't do that. The grout needs to be deeper than a 16th of an inch or it can break out. He had to grind a bunch of hardened thinset out with a diamond cutter on a dremel tool.

The grout adds a second part of adhesion for the tile and ideally locks up any weak spots. To do that, it's depth should be about the tile thickness or a bit more continuously through the pattern. I grab maybe 10 of the wooden coffee stirrers at the bagel joint and leave a bigger tip -- they work good as a small spatual for getting out thinset squeezeout.