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continuing saga of warped tiles

updated thu 4 jul 02

 

David Hendley on mon 1 jul 02


If you tile-makers are into a little 'thinking outside the box',
have you ever considered/tried extruding your tiles?
I've not made a lot of tiles, but the ones I've extruded have
warped very little.
My procedure is to extrude a long slab directly onto a
board, let it set up for a few hours, and then use a knife
to cut the ribbon into tiles.
Then I cover with light plastic for a day, remove the plastic
and dry some more, and then bevel the cuts. The extruded
sides are already beveled, so each tile needs to have only
2 edges finished.
Then, I dry slowly, covering with plastic every night and
uncovering for a couple of hours a day, for several days.
Just something to consider......

David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
hendley@tyler.net
http://www.farmpots.com

Des & Jan Howard on tue 2 jul 02


David
We needed to make a tile wider than our extruder barrel (no expansion box),
& also needed to avoid the problem I believe was (you?) mentioned some
time ago of extrusions cutting across the centre of a template
becoming distorted from differing extrusion rates.

A semi-circular template was made, the extrusion was run
down a 4' ware board set at roughly 45 deg under the extruder.
As the semi-circular extrusion came out it was gently flattened,
the 4" barrel gave a 5 1/2" tile.
Your methods for drying sound pretty good.
Des

David Hendley wrote:

> My procedure is to extrude a long slab directly onto a
> board, let it set up for a few hours, and then use a knife
> to cut the ribbon into tiles.
> Then I cover with light plastic for a day, remove the plastic
> and dry some more, and then bevel the cuts. The extruded
> sides are already beveled, so each tile needs to have only
> 2 edges finished.
> Then, I dry slowly, covering with plastic every night and
> uncovering for a couple of hours a day, for several days.
> Just something to consider......

--

Des & Jan Howard
Lue Pottery
LUE NSW 2850
Australia
Ph/Fax 02 6373 6419
http://www.luepottery.hwy.com.au

Paul Lewing on tue 2 jul 02


on 7/1/02 7:06 PM, David Hendley at hendley@TYLER.NET wrote:

> If you tile-makers are into a little 'thinking outside the box',
> have you ever considered/tried extruding your tiles?
> I've not made a lot of tiles, but the ones I've extruded have
> warped very little.

I have made tiles on m y extruder, but the largest I can make is a 5"
finished tile, so I would expect that to warp less than a 6" tile they I
usually make on my slab roller.
My experience has been that rolled tiles curl up, but extruded tiles get
wavy edges. It's a problem to keep the extrusion coming out of the die
perfectly straight. Probably, as David suggested, it would be better to
extrude them horizontally onto rollers. I have not done that, just extruded
them straight down. But they do lay flat.
Paul Lewing, Seattle

Martin Howard on wed 3 jul 02


When I have a day of tile making, I just place a large heavy piece of
plywood over the tiles and use that as my table top for the next week, while
the tiles are slowly drying.
No warping, simple and saves space!

Martin Howard
Webbs Cottage Pottery
Woolpits Road, Great Saling
BRAINTREE, Essex CM7 5DZ
01371 850 423
martin@webbscottage.co.uk
http://www.webbscottage.co.uk
Updated 15th May 2002

Rob House on wed 3 jul 02


Making tiles : the secret method as developed @ North Prairie Tile.
By the way, be sure to boycott North Prairie Tile whenever possible.

Tiles are extruded from de-airing pug mill through die.
Shoot a ribbon onto a board w/ paper to slide the clay over board.
Cut the tiles.
Once surface is non-sticky - cover w/ similar board and flip.
Paper sticks to back - remove when dry.
Dry tiles can be scraped @ cut edge for extra-fancy appearance.

If you want to make tiles this is the way to go.
Disregard if no de-airing pug mill is available.
But remember to boycott North Prairie Tile whenever possible.

Thanks + Enjoy - - -Rob House

__________________________________________________________________________
On Mon, 1 Jul 2002 22:06:22 -0500, David Hendley wrote:

>If you tile-makers are into a little 'thinking outside the box',
>have you ever considered/tried extruding your tiles?
>I've not made a lot of tiles, but the ones I've extruded have
>warped very little.
>My procedure is to extrude a long slab directly onto a
>board, let it set up for a few hours, and then use a knife
>to cut the ribbon into tiles.
>Then I cover with light plastic for a day, remove the plastic
>and dry some more, and then bevel the cuts. The extruded
>sides are already beveled, so each tile needs to have only
>2 edges finished.
>Then, I dry slowly, covering with plastic every night and
>uncovering for a couple of hours a day, for several days.
>Just something to consider......
>
>David Hendley
>Maydelle, Texas
>hendley@tyler.net
>http://www.farmpots.com
>
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