Stephani Stephenson on sun 12 nov 00
Jack
A couple of thoughts come to mind
How thick are your tiles? Are they as thin as many commercial tiles?
Ours are a good half inch thick and do well in drying and firing.
might be worth experimenting with thickness.
Clay body. we use a fairly groggy body, much like a sculpture body. We
ram press tile but I have often rolled out slab tiles of custom sizes
and shapes with the same clay with good results and no warping. Does
your clay body have a variety of grog sizes ? This will help.
Wetness of clay. You can buy clay with varying amounts of water
content. Ram pressing consistency will be stiffer and have less water
than throwing consistency. It is a good consistency for slab work.
Because there is less water to begin with, it seems to help prevent
warping in drying.
with extruding you must use a softer clay.
By the way, Is the warping occurring in the drying or the firing phase?
What temperature do you fire to?
Do they warp at bisque temperature?
As for the Slab v. Extruder v. Press, Paul said it very well.
best wishes
Stephani Stephenson
http://www.alchemiestudio.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~mudmistress/
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