The Porcelain Tile Countertop Edge

The edge of the porcelain tile is a basic butt joint. We discovered that cutting theses 24" tiles was very tricky, so we didn't attempt anything fancy. The tile is through bodied, so the color runs all the way through the tile. You can see though, that the pattern is a little different on the cut edge of the tile,and also more matte. We tried to polish that edge to make it as shiny as the face of the tile, but the polisher had little effect. A rotary sander was used with a polishing pad purchased from the tile store. A coarse grit polishing pad was used to very slightly round the edges so they wouldn't be sharp.

I considered a Schluter edging but decided against it partly because of the expense, and partly because it is permanently embedded into the tile. I was afraid that the metal edging could become damaged and there would be no way to replace it short of ripping out tiles.