# Forum Home Renovation Tiling  Tiling - External Corners and Tile Trim

## Gooner

I'm halfway through my tiling job and am up to the point where I need to work out how to tile some external corners. I have several "niches" I have built into the wall studs. E.g. I have a shelf in the shower that I need tile. 
My current plan is to use polished aluminium tile trim on the niches. I have mitred the the tile trim to 45 degrees quite accurately, but I believe that unless it is absolutely perfect (which is not practically achievable), there will always be some sharp edges that will be difficult to eliminate regardless of how careful I mitre and place the trim. (I don't want to be cutting myself against sharp trim while showering!) 
The other alternative is to cut the tiles with a 45 degree bevel at the external corner edges and not use tile trim at all. I can do this using my little ryobi diamond disk tile cutter as the bed is able to be tilted at a 45 degree angle. However, it is difficult to cut the tile with a 45 degree bevel without chipping the sharp corner on a glazed ceramic tile. Also I fear that the sharp edge may be damaged even once grout is applied between the edges.  
Any suggestions or hints would be greatly appreciated. 
-- EDIT 
I have attached images showing the trim and the thickness of the tile. For the sake of the example, I have slightly misaligned the trim to show the potential sharp edges. I think it is difficult to avoid the sharp edge on the corners.

----------


## Cliff Rogers

The bloke who did mine used a plastic (?) moulding that is meant to go on the edge of tiles to do the outside corners. 
It comes in lots of differnt colours. 
I've taken some pics but the don't exactly show that the moulding is not symetrical.
It is not a percfect 1/4 round.
One face is wider than the other.

----------


## Gooner

Thanks Cliff, but in your case do you have a horizontal and vertical external corner meeting? This is the case I am talking about. Where the vertical and horizontal external corners meet, the trim needs to be cut at 45 degrees and then placed together. I am interested to see how people get around the problem of making the vertical and horizontal trims to exactly match, especially when using metal trims. 
I will take a photo and post when I get home.

----------


## juan

Hi Gooner 
Depending on the type of tiles you may be able to get away with no trim and not cutting the tiles at 45 degrees. Just butt them up like I did on my bath hob.  I was advised by one tiler that cutting the tiles makes them more prone to damage if you clout it with a shampoo bottle or something hard.  I say depending on the tiles because some have glaze on the edges and some do not. Most have overspray on the edge and look fine just butted. 
Cheers

----------


## Gooner

> Depending on the type of tiles you may be able to get away with no trim and not cutting the tiles at 45 degrees. Just butt them up like I did on my bath hob.

  Thanks for the response Juan.. but again.. no-can-do. I have large format tiles that are almost 12mm thick. Butting them up will expose a 12mm edge that will not look so pretty.

----------


## AIRMAN

Just use alum trim and cut at 45deg , external corner are pretty easy to get spot on, once you have grouted you won't even notice. It's the internal corners that are hard to do as you have to make the cut rounded to fit the round profile of the other piece of trim. 
I used to get really caught up on the small details until I realised how little attention people pay to them or even notice them. You only notice them because you are aware of them. People don't pay any where near as much attention to things that don't interest them as you like to think they would/should.

----------


## Gooner

> I used to get really caught up on the small details until I realised how little attention people pay to them or even notice them. You only notice them because you are aware of them.

  I hear ya. I can point out a few little faults in some of the bigger jobs I have done around the house, but you would need to be Sherlock Holmes to find some of them. 
In this particular case I am not so much worried about the aesthetic factor, but more about the sharp tips at the corners. As this particular niche will be in the shower at about elbow to shoulder height, it is a given that we will rub up against it from time to time. I don't want to create a mini-hazard in the shower.

----------


## AIRMAN

If you are tucking you tiles under the little lip they have on the trim then, yes you will have a sharp edge, I never use that lip and but them up level to the top of the trim, this way you don't get water pooling behind your trim on the shelf. 
You can buy internal corners but I have never used them, maybe check out this forum as it has some very experienced tilers on it that seem to have a solution for any problem I have ever come across.  http://www.tilersforums.co.uk/guest-...g-problem.html

----------


## JMB

This may not help but I was looking at a friends new bathroom on the weekend. He had lots of aluminium tile trim on the internal and external corners and all the tile trim joins had a small gap [about 1mm] which had been filled with silicon [I think] matching the grout lines of the rest of the tiles. I thought this looked very good and I imagine would also help hide any inperfections in the join and would also cover the sharp edges of the tile trim.

----------


## Gooner

> He had lots of aluminium tile trim on the internal and external corners and all the tile trim joins had a small gap [about 1mm] which had been filled with silicon [I think] matching the grout lines of the rest of the tiles. I thought this looked very good and I imagine would also help hide any inperfections in the join and would also cover the sharp edges of the tile trim.

  I was thinking of doing something similar. Thanks for the reply.

----------

