No trim

[jimbob]

I have a couple of projects on at home which involve tiling round a window:
Kitchen – I am using nice square chrome trim
Bathroom - I am using plastic trim which is same colour as tiles

I am quite happy with doing this and think it will look good, BUT.......
Whenever I see a picture on this forum of a window tiled with no trim, I always think it looks fantastic and would love to give it a go myself on future projects. I’ve searched this forum and couldn’t find a thread which explained it enough for me to get my head around.

Here’s what I am thinking......
2 ways of doing it.....mitring edge of tiles and butt joints

With ceramics I would think it is only possible to go for the mitring option as the biscuit of the tile is a different colour to the base, therefore butt jointing them would show them up. I am thinking mitring would look good but am worried about sharp edges and ease of damage to the edges. Any tips? (ie do I mitre, then rub edges with stone to smooth them?) I am thinking the quality of the cut edge must be pretty perfect as this will be on show.

Next comes butt jointing – only for full bodied tiles? Obviously you are not going to base your entire set out on trying to get full tiles around the window, so cuts here are inevitable. Even with natural stone the cut is going to look different to the machined side of the tile. Is there a special method of cutting and rounding so that it doesn’t look like a cut?? If so what is it and is it easy enough to master with a little practise? I am assuming the cut is made with a standard wet saw and then some other tool is used to get the rounded profile, perhaps someone can enlighten me.....

Is there anything above I have missed/got completely wrong, or is there any other advice anyone can give me for when I tackle this future unknown job......

Cheers
Jimbob

 

[Rich]

A mitre will give a weaker edge to the tile. You could also look for a ceramic tile with a glazed edge. I always use a butt joint with stone as I think that trim can ruin the finish, I cut it with a wet saw then take the edge down a little with a tile file so that it looks the same as the other edges. Hope this is some kind of help.

 

[Dontiler]

mitered tiles would look the best around window, plastic trim will give cheap look for you bathroom 😳, steal trim does look good!, but not around the window or niche, ceramic easy to mitre, porcelain tiles hard depends on tiles of course, wet saw will do the trick then get diamond pad and finish it off mitered edge
good luck

 

[White Room]

For ceramic with a brown biscuit back your not going hide that very well with mitres

 

[Gazzer]

Mitring ceramic tiles will all depend on the actual tile. On some ceramic tiles the glaze will extend either someway onto the edge or maybe even all the edges, some will finish on the fsce edge.
If the tiles you have are at least party glazed edges you should mitre on your wet cutter and leave a small section of glaze. This will look better and protect the edge to some degree.
It wont work with all tiles so you need to check 1st.

 

[jimbob]

Cheers for the replies

So for butt jointing simply hand smoothing the edge with a diamond pad of some sort is sufficient to get a honed edge? I had heard of "bullnosing" and assumed there was a special tool/bit for this, but I assume this is just for natural stone?

 

[Dontiler]

Cheers for the replies

So for butt jointing simply hand smoothing the edge with a diamond pad of some sort is sufficient to get a honed edge? I had heard of "bullnosing" and assumed there was a special tool/bit for this, but I assume this is just for natural stone?

theris special machine which is called ''Bull dog'', it is for bull nosing tiles, it is expensive and heavy to carry, but works brilliant and fast, can bull nose with it any kind of tiles > porcelain too, other way is to buy bull nosing diamond blade and you can fix it on normal wet saw

 

[kilty55]

montolit diamond pads are good for rubbing and smoothing edges mate and last a very longg timeeee

 

[merlecollins]

Not a big lover of mitred tiles at windows, etc.

Looks great when first done, but I am always worried about future strength and susceptibility to damage.

Like Neale says it really does depend on the tile for practicality - porcelain, stone, marble, granite, etc. no probs - but I would never really recommend it to a customer if fixing normal ceramics.....

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

You can buy a Flex LW1503 variable speed wet stone angle grinder. It is a real good bit of kit imo. I use it for polishing marble, travertine etc.