We made some new trim tiles that will be going in our Laundry/Pantry. The dark gray clay is Amaco Versa 20, it fires to a decent white at 04 bisque. These will be glazed in a aqua crackle at 05, the stamped squares should pool some glaze nicely.
My progress on building a tile extruder have gotten as far as a piece of square pipe laying on the floor in the storage room. So we’re still using a scrapping technique to make our trim tiles using a CNC cut template.
We made a couple finished end tiles for the end of the run.
Nice tiles!! Your just scraping them with that template? how do you keep them so straight? Do you start with a plug of clay about the right size?
They look great!
We approached making our tiles from a wood working perspective. We “rip” the clay to the amount of clay needed for height and width and we made an adjustable jig that we put the clay in that has runners to keep the template tracking straight as we scrape. We don’t have much problem with keeping them straight but stopping them from curling tends to be an issue since only one side of the clay has been scrapped.
Angi’s brother has a knife grinding and template service so he makes our templates from computer drawing on a CNC. Our customers can provide us with a molding sample from their home and we can match it by just adding the shrinkage of the clay body to the template measurement.
An extruder is the way to go but until I build ours this will have to do.
I’ve been following your blog for a couple of years now and your work is awesome.
Scott
Thanks so much, for the explanation of your tile making and your kind words of my work.
I love the tiles you all are making great work! I never thought of having someone make a template for me. Great idea I always think in the make it my self frame of mind when it comes to making tools and moulds, I need to rethink that I know. Someone else can make it better and faster saving time and money in the long run, but its still your own design.
Thanks again
-Blaine
Where you are in NC you should have no problem finding someone that has a template/moulding knife grinding service. A template should be around $15. The beauty of doing it on a CNC is the repeatability and scaling. If you want I could ask my brother in-law Shawn who works for Weinig in Moorseville for some names.