What a pencil liner actually does
It caps a run of tiling where it stops in mid wall, divides one field from another, or frames a panel.
In each case the job is the same: to end something deliberately. A wall of tile that simply stops has a cut edge showing the unglazed body; the same wall capped with a pencil has a finished line along the top, and the eye reads it as intended rather than as truncated.
The sizes go down to three eighths of an inch
5/8x6 leads the range, then 1x6, 3x18, 3/8x6, 4 3/16x6, 2x6, 3x12 and 6x6.
Those first four are liners and pencils. The 3x18 and 4 3/16x6 pieces are chair rails and wider caps, which do the same job at a scale that reads as a band rather than a line. Which one suits depends on how much the edge is supposed to announce itself.
Glossy, following the wall tile
Most pieces here are glossy, with matte, glazed and a crackled piece behind it.
Ceramic trim exists to finish ceramic wall tile, and glazed wall tile is overwhelmingly glossy, so the trim follows. A matte pencil against a glossy field announces itself along the entire length of the edge, which is the one thing a trim piece must not do.
Color is available here in a way it is not in stone
White leads, then gray, green, yellow, brown, black, beige and blue.
Green and yellow at that ranking would be impossible in a stone trim range, and it is the glaze that makes it possible: a recipe can be mixed to any color and reproduced exactly. It is also why a ceramic pencil can be used as a deliberate contrast line rather than only as a matching edge.
Thickness and where it sits against the tile
3/8 of an inch and 3/4 carry the range between them, with smaller groups at a quarter and around 0.39.
The 3/4 inch pieces are the handmade and deeper profiles; the 3/8 pieces match ordinary glazed wall tile. A trim that stands proud of the field it caps is visible along the whole run, so the figure is worth settling before the field tile is ordered rather than after.
Where a ceramic molding goes
The top of a backsplash, the edge of a wainscot, the outside corner of a tiled return, the line where tile meets plaster and the border of a decorative panel.
Moldings holds the trim in every material, and ceramic tile the field these pieces belong to.
