Learning the Hard Way

Trials and Tribulations of a Young Tile maker

By Josh Blanc

Flash Point

Vol. 11, No. 1,2
(Jan-Jun 1998)

I like to document the things I do in my life.  I offer here a written history of the way I saw the events which led to my reproducing tiles for an outdoor ceiling at the Minnesota State Capitol.  Little did I know what my initiation into the real world of tile making would entail! 

              In 1994 I graduated from Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus Ohio, with a BFA in ceramics and moved to Minneapolis that summer.  In March of '95 I was hired as the foreman at a handmade tile shop there called North Prairie Tileworks (NPT) but with no previous experience in making tiles.   The owners at NPT thought it was more important to hire a person with energy than with experience, and I was cheap-just $7 an hour.  I made the glazes, fired all of the kilns and made all of the tiles.  I was 23 at the time, idealistic and ready to run the whole operation.

              One of my ideals was to work with people who had no background in ceramics, the concept being that someone with no knowledge would not know what could not be done.  I hired Mark Walker, 19 who had a background in ventilation systems and wanted to be an inventor.  He fit my ideal perfectly, and in the end my gamble paid off.  His ideas were on of the main components in successfully completing the State Capitol project.  There was also Josh Heffelfinger, 18 and recently out of high school.  He turned out to be a great motivator with his quick wit and comedy routines.

              In the summer of '95 the Minnesota historical society approached NPT with a project for the reproduction of tiles for an outdoor ceiling under the steps leading up to the Capitol's main entrance.  We bid the job at $24,000 and won the contract: 1800 square feet of 6" x 12" grooved turquoise tiles-roughly $13 a squared foot.  We believed at the time that we could make the tiles in 45 days and we were right.   What we hadn't figured, however, was that it would take us 45 days just to figure out how!  We had made a sample tile that was an exact reproduction. But making 3600 perfect tiles with that original die was an-other matter.

              We did not start the project until September.  Our projected due date was October 15th - 45 days later.  We had a Bluebird extruder, a mixer, three electric kilns, a large gas kiln and about 4000 sq. ft. of studio space.  The studio had everything we needed to finish the job-except experience.

              Our first and biggest problem was the lexan plastic die, the template attached to the extruder.  We were used to cutting a desired shape in the plastic--whatever shape was required for any particular job.  For reasons unknown to me, one of the owners of NPT, an architect, decided that our normal des was not going to work for the state capitol project, even though we had successfully completed every job with the plastic die up to that point.  He formulated that we need to make a brass die that had teeth (for the grooves in the tile) already cut into it. We would then bolt the brass die to the plastic one.  This worked just long enough for us to get the sample out and the contract awarded.  We made two dies like this, but once we stared the job they kept tearing and ripping the clay as it came out of the extruder.

              We then went back to the old method using the plastic die alone.  Up to that point it was believed that beveling the back of the die was the proper way to make it-in fact, Bluebird Extruder Company recommends beveling in its literature.  The architect made the new die based on this recommendation with the bevel behind each tooth, which would but only for a short time.  We were still getting a lot of tears in the clay, and after an hour of extruding the die did not work at all.  But if we let the machine rest for a long time, we could extrude for an additional half hour and then take the rest of the day off. In the morning it would work again in the same fashion.

              We talked to Tim Berry at Architectural Ceramics Art in Omaha, who had an extruder and who, by coincidence, had been on of the designers of the Bluebird extruder.  He told us that sometimes the barrels of the extruders get hot and that machines should be not placed in the sun-which ours was after 10 a.m.  We started extruding at 9 every morning; we put up shades; and we even brought in ice packs for the barrel.  It helped, and we managed to get an extra hour or so out of the machine each day.

              After much discussion we believed the next step was to make as perfect beveled die as we could.  Again, it worked well for only a short time.  Before long we were back to square one.

              In the meantime we had finished tiles to bisque and glaze.  Being 12" long, the tile posed a great problem in the bisque firing.  After many attempts we realized we could stand the tiles on end for this part of the procedure.  Unfortunately we lost many tiles in finding this out.  Heat spots and cracks were our main obstacles.

              Glazing was the next challenge.  As we dipped each tile in the glaze, we started to see hairline cracks right in the middle of many tiles.   We tried to examine each tile before glazing so as not to waste glaze, but he cracks did not appear until the glazes applied.  We must have lost 500-700 tiles to this problem-very demoralizing to say the least.  Happily we did manage to solve 98% of this problem later on. 

       Another problem was that some of the tiles were turning into banana shapes during the firing.   There are always variations in the temperature within the kiln, and some areas do not reach a high enough temperature for the clay to vitrify.  Right before the kiln reaches maximum temperature, a tile curls up in the form of a banana, and when the kiln shuts off the tile cools in that position. (I solved the problem a year later after I left NPT.  I just fired the clay again to its mature temperature and the tiles flatted out.) Unfortunately at the time, I thought we had done something to the tile in some other part of the process, and I was so embarrassed I just threw them out! ) I very rarely throw anything out anymore.)

              By chance, a friend of a friend who ran the Creamette noodle factory production line in Minneapolis came to the tile shop to see what advice he might offer. As we talked, he couldn't believe how similar making tile was to making noodles; he had had the same problems I was having with his extruder and drying process.  To minimize the tearing of the clay as it was extruded through the die, he recommended cutting the die wider and adding wire on both sides to cut the edges were the tears were originating.   This was pure genius!  There after, all of the tiles were made this way with the wires attached with a hot glue gun.  Next he told me that his factory had a room just for drying where the temperature was controlled so that the noodles would not dry too quickly.  Although I lacked the equipment to do what Creamette had done, I moved the extruded tiles in to areas of the shop where the temperatures were more consistent and dramatically reduced the number of hairline cracks. 

              We still did not have the key ingredient to finish the job-a good die.  Up to this point the architect had made 4, and I reluctantly asked him to make another.  He did and it failed again.  We were 30 days into the project-all of our expendable time was gone-we were going to be late no matter what.  At that point the extruder broke down.  We wondered if while being repaired the motor could be altered to slow down the extrusion process, thinking that the speed of the clay through the die might be causing the ripping.  In the meantime, we explored the possibilities of using air release molds for our experiments were less than satisfactory.  We even looked into a ram press as an option, but the money wasn't forthcoming to buy one.

              In an independent step, Mark Walker took it upon himself to make a die, perfectly straight cut, perfectly smooth and with no bevels.  It worked!  Finally we were in full production and it felt great.  We were making over 150 tiles a day and morale was high.  After extended use of the die, some tearing begin to reappear, I called upon our friends in Omaha once again and was told to take a torch to the plastic die to remove the burrs.   This was the final turning point, the last that we needed.  We finished the project a few days after Thanksgiving 1995 and delivered the tile to the Capitol.

              I learned more than I bargained for at NPT.  There are few people in the world who are given $40,000 worth of equipment with 4000 square feet of space and told to make tiles-when they are fresh out of college.  I had near complete autonomy, and I learned a great deal, a lot from my own mistakes.  In August of 1996, having left NPT in March, I attended an architectural tile making workshop in Aspen taught by Cary Esser.  Upon returning home to Minneapolis, I was determined to start my own business, opening Clay Squared on November 5th 1996.

To get a order an original copy of the article from the Tile Heritage Foundation Flash Point Magazine click on link below.

 http://www.tileheritage.org/FP-Vol11No1,2.html