An extra piece of the same type of tile is glued to the underside of the tile edge to give it double thickness. Next the front face is machined to a perfectly flat finish as the name implies. Finally a small arras is cut along the top and bottom edges to finish it off with soft, safe edges.

The result is contemporary, unobtrusive and easy on the eye.

This profile is becoming increasingly popular with Queensland and northern N.S.W. pool builders who want to offer the most up to date designs to their clients.

The construction of this profile involves bonding a strip of tile (usually of 30 – 90mm height) at right angles onto the floor tile, which we  machine with our very popular half bullnosed round edge.

When installing this type of apron coping, it’s important to remember that the apron strip also needs to be fully supported with tile adhesive when being installed to achieve maximum strength and durability of the product.

The answer we usually give is…”It depends”.

It entirely depends on the type of tile your using and the application of the tile.

Almost all floor tiles can have an edging profile applied to it, regardless of the application and profile, whereas some wall tiles are so soft and fragile it becomes increasingly difficult to get a good quality profile.

But, if your wanting to mitre your wall tiles, then by all means you can easily apply a mitred edge profile to your wall tiles, so it really does depend on your particular tile and their application. A mitred edge is still technically a profile.

In the video below we show you some examples of what your Tile Edging will look like on some of the different types of tiles you can have edged.

The Laminated Full Bullnose is a chunkier, more traditional profile for those who prefer a thicker and more prominent look on their tile edging.

As it’s name implies, this edge is achieved by cutting a strip of the same type of tile and laminating it (by clamping and gluing) to the underside of the edge of the tile.

When the epoxy glue has fully dried, the tile is then put through the bullnosing process and honed or polished as required.

You will need to allow for significantly longer lead times when ordering the Laminated Full Bullnose due to it’s labour intensive nature.

The following video clip will provide you with further information.

When it comes to tile edging, most people only think about how many meters of edging they need or what profile to use on their edging tiles…

…and don’t seem to think about or consider the roll that the pattern or grain has to play in the finished job and the overall look of the finished product.

I thought it would be a good idea to point out that tile patterns could affect the overall look of your tiling job when you are having your tiles edged.

So this brief article is aimed at highlighting this issue and helping you get the best results for your new swimming pool or home.

In most cases the direction of the tile pattern isn’t considered when the tile edging is being ordered.

It’s vitally important to have your tile edging on the correct side of the floor tile, especially when your tiles have a distinct pattern or grain, that’s if you want a uniformed look on your tiled floor areas.

Lets say For example that you have a square underground concrete swimming pool that’s 10m x 5m and you are laying tiles around your pool area.

That’s a total of 30 lineal meters of tile edging for your pool coping tiles (two sides at 10 lineal meters and two sides at 5 lineal meters).

Now, if the tiles you have purchased have a distinct pattern or grain and you‘ve decided that you want your tiles laid with the pattern all going in the same direction you will have to make sure you allow for the direction of grain.

So we’ll assume that the direction of the tiles pattern is going to be parallel with the long edge of the pool, this will mean that you will need to have at least 20 lineal meters of edging tiles edged parallel with the pattern of the tile. In other words the edging is going in the same direction as the pattern.

But because we need a total of 30 lineal meters of tile edging we still need to edge an additional 10 meters of tiles at right angles to the pattern.

By doing this, it will make sure that you will keep the uniformity of the overall floor area, ensuring that every tile laid has the pattern going in the same direction.

Now this is a pretty brief explanation of how tile patterns and grains can affect the look of your pool so I hope that I have explained it clearly, to make it even easier for you I intend on going out on site and recording a short video showing you a real live example of just what I’m trying to explain and how having your tile edging on the correct side of your tiles does make a difference to your finished project.

Photo Courtesy Of Bali Pools

Here’s some common and practical reasons and uses for tile edging,

This will help to explain why most people decide on having tile edging or ceramic edging applied to their tiles instead of using a pre-made option.

• When you apply tile edging to your floor tile, your always going to end up with a perfectly matching edging tile.
• Your edging tile has a much larger gluing area meaning the likely hood of the tile becoming unstuck is reduced significantly.
• You are also limiting the number of grout joints.
• Unfortunately most of the time a plastic or aluminum tile trim is not suitable for use on floors which means when they are used for stairs they almost always become loose and fall apart over time.

Some of the most common applications for an edging tile with a custom tile bullnose applied to it are…

• Stairs, Stair nosing tiles are very commonly used with tile edging applications, and when you add the anti-slip grooves to the tile, the tile bullnose or tile edging really is an obvious choice.
• Swimming Pools, Swimming Pool Coping is another very popular and practicle use of tile edging, in fact most of our clients use our tile bullnose profiles on swimming pool applications.