Stephani Stephenson on thu 22 feb 01
Rachael wrote"I want to experiment with adding
extruded shapes to the front of the tile and building some three
dimensional shapes. How do I dry them if I can't press them between
boards to keep them from warping"
Rachael.
My viewpoint is, if you are using a suitable clay body, you won't need
to go to great lengths to get a flat tile, dimensional or not.
Use a well grogged body, perhaps a sculpture or raku body with small to
medium mesh grog, and most of your problems will vanish.
Seriously, the wrong clay body will drive you nuts. The right clay body
will simplify EVERYTHING.
I dry dimensional tile by putting it on boards: plywood, drywall, even
untempered masonite.
If the tile is exceptionally large I may put grog on the board, but
increasingly, I don't even do that. Then just leave it out to dry.
Period.
Use this for RAM pressed tile, hand pressed tile and hand modeled or
sculpted tile
The only exceptions are
If the tile is on masonite in particular, when the clay has stiffened,
budge it just a little to make sure it isn't sticking, or sometimes
place it on a new, dry board or slats or turn the board over. . Most of
the time you don't even need to do this.
If the center of the tile has high relief or proportionately greater
mass of clay, and the edges of the tile are thin, the thin edges will
want to pull up. First advice: Rethink your form.
Options:
make a thicker base tile ,
keep the relief proportional to the rest of the tile
hollow out deep relief areas from behind.
put a thicker clay frame or border around the tile edges to balance mass
at the center.
then just let them dry.
You can lay down sandbags or kiln stilts on the edges to keep them down,
but a well designed tile and a suitable clay will spare you from having
to use excessive drying measures.
Stephani Stephenson
mudmistress@earthlink.net
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