The Five Steps to Fabricate Glazed Bullnose Tile

Author: Mike Gardiner

One of the most common questions we get at American Bullnose Company is "how soon will my order be complete?"  Our process requires multiple steps over several days.  There are no shortcuts to producing a quality piece of bullnose tile trim.

The Bullnose Process Timeline

Day One – You send, ship or drop off your field tile to one of our locations. When your field tile arrives we verify the size and quantities of bullnose needed. Your order is scheduled and you are given an estimate of the date of completion.

Day Two - Your field tile is cut to your size specifications and placed in drying racks. Because tile cutting and bullnosing uses a wet process, the bullnose pieces require a minimum of 24 hours to dry (some tiles can take as long as 72 hours to dry!). 

Some of our Kilns

Day Three

• Glazed Bullnose Tile – Glaze is applied to the bullnose edge of your tile. Your bullnose is then loaded into kilns and fired. The kiln firing process takes up to twelve hours. 
• Bullnose Tile That Does Not Require Glaze –Through body porcelain bullnose, through color porcelain bullnose and bullnose that you do not want the edge glazed, will be boxed or wrapped and prepared for customer pickup.
  

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Day Four

• Glazed Bullnose Tile – Your glazed bullnose tile is unloaded from the kiln, checked for quality, boxed or wrapped and prepared for customer pickup.  
  
• Bullnose Tile That Does Not Require Glaze – This tile is ready for pickup!
  

Day Five – Your glazed bullnose tile order is ready for pickup!

So, for glazed bullnose figure five days and for unglazed, four days. 

Bullnose Going Through One of our Roller Kilns

There are other factors which can affect your bullnose order.  If we experience shortages in the supplies we use, or there are electric blackouts, then delays will occur.  If you use a shipping company, we cannot start the order until they deliver the materials.  For glazed bullnose, kiln space is a limitation.  Orders of full size tiles take more kiln space, and therefore, more time to complete.

We schedule our orders on a first come first served basis. We understand that small orders (under 100 pieces) are time sensitive, so we have personnel dedicated to completing small orders only.  This greatly reduces the turnaround time, although, depending on the backlog of work, your order may not be scheduled to start for several days. We strive to complete orders as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality.

Please ask a question or leave a comment.

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