Welcome to Our Studio
Let us walk you through the 10 steps to make our hand made tiles:
1. Raw clay is pushed through a tile extruder (somewhat like a giant cookie press) in 4" or 6" x 4' long flat ribbons – our 8" x 8" tiles are made on a slab roller and rough cut to size for later pressing.
2. These are moved to another table to score the ribbon of clay to the proper size.
3. Placed on canvas and boards to begin drying, while still flexible some tiles will be removed for pressing, the remainder finish drying and are snapped apart and stacked to completely dry.
4. Tiles to be pressed are cut apart and placed in a plaster mold. It's hammered gently but firmly into the image on the mold. After a short time allowing for moisture to be absorbed into the plaster, the clay is easily released from the mold holding a positive embossed image. The tiles are carefully trimmed and moved to boards to continue the drying process. Later they will be stacked until completely dry.
5. All dry tiles are wiped with a wet sponge to remove
any rough edges.
6. The dry embossed tiles are taken to the studio for painting. From our simplest design (FS08 Wheat) with only one color applied to our most complex tile with as many as 13 colors, this is our most time consuming work. Many of the herb tiles involve each leaf being painted.
7. At this point all field tiles and painted tiles are bisque fired to cone 04 (1940°F). Depending on which kiln we are using at the time cooking time can go as long as 18 hours. It will take 3 days to cool down enough to remove the tiles from the kiln.
8. Our painted tiles will be examined for any colors that may have burnt off in the firing process and sometimes need to be repainted to completely color in the images. They are now ready for glazing.
9. The glazing is still done by hand brushing each tile. We only use unleaded glazes. Our clear finish takes 2 flowing coats, our bright white takes 3 coats. Our polychrome/bright white decos are very involved with the center design getting 2 coats of clear glaze, wiping the excess glaze away from the border edge with a wet sponge, and then the surrounding border getting it's 3 coats of bright white.
10. The glazed tiles will finally be fired a second time to cone 06 (1820ªF). Again, after a long cooking time and cool down,our tiles can finally be considered complete.
As you can see our tiles take a great amount of time and skill to produce extraordinary results. Every step of the way tiles are handled and examined to remove defects and assures our best quality. We take great pride in our work and hope you are pleased with our tiles.
1. Raw clay is pushed through a tile extruder (somewhat like a giant cookie press) in 4" or 6" x 4' long flat ribbons – our 8" x 8" tiles are made on a slab roller and rough cut to size for later pressing.
2. These are moved to another table to score the ribbon of clay to the proper size.
3. Placed on canvas and boards to begin drying, while still flexible some tiles will be removed for pressing, the remainder finish drying and are snapped apart and stacked to completely dry.
4. Tiles to be pressed are cut apart and placed in a plaster mold. It's hammered gently but firmly into the image on the mold. After a short time allowing for moisture to be absorbed into the plaster, the clay is easily released from the mold holding a positive embossed image. The tiles are carefully trimmed and moved to boards to continue the drying process. Later they will be stacked until completely dry.
5. All dry tiles are wiped with a wet sponge to remove
any rough edges.
6. The dry embossed tiles are taken to the studio for painting. From our simplest design (FS08 Wheat) with only one color applied to our most complex tile with as many as 13 colors, this is our most time consuming work. Many of the herb tiles involve each leaf being painted.
7. At this point all field tiles and painted tiles are bisque fired to cone 04 (1940°F). Depending on which kiln we are using at the time cooking time can go as long as 18 hours. It will take 3 days to cool down enough to remove the tiles from the kiln.
8. Our painted tiles will be examined for any colors that may have burnt off in the firing process and sometimes need to be repainted to completely color in the images. They are now ready for glazing.
9. The glazing is still done by hand brushing each tile. We only use unleaded glazes. Our clear finish takes 2 flowing coats, our bright white takes 3 coats. Our polychrome/bright white decos are very involved with the center design getting 2 coats of clear glaze, wiping the excess glaze away from the border edge with a wet sponge, and then the surrounding border getting it's 3 coats of bright white.
10. The glazed tiles will finally be fired a second time to cone 06 (1820ªF). Again, after a long cooking time and cool down,our tiles can finally be considered complete.
As you can see our tiles take a great amount of time and skill to produce extraordinary results. Every step of the way tiles are handled and examined to remove defects and assures our best quality. We take great pride in our work and hope you are pleased with our tiles.