Tile printing

before start, KNNBCCB can also means "Kite not navigating because cloud clear background"

It has been 7 years since my last service towards tiles industry.... i decided to do reminiscence of the past experience. Let's see if I can still recall the pieces.

Wow, I missed those days... Everyone in office makan all go together 1pm, or we have a canteen everyone like buka party. Very harmony... those were sweet memories.

so in tiles we deals with inches. 3x3, 6x6, 8x8, 8x10, 12x12 etc. granite tiles, marble, mortar, limestone, some mixture of cement and porcelain, glaze or no glaze. But my nature of work is based mostly wall tiles and tabletop tiles.

Firstly we have a silk screen printing machine or handprint for special order. In silk screen, we have various level, from very fine mesh to very large mesh hole. so if we were to print gold reflective coating we are not allowed to fine mesh. The more liquid the coating the finer mesh it can pass trough. So, in design the silk screen usually i use Photoshop, using Alpha to break the color into several coating. we have a rule that all design must leave 3mm blank on edge to avoid coating burn and smearing. all the color layers design are made into positive film.

Second is the preparation of the silk screen. coat the emulsion inside the border evenly with a rubber press. Once dried, place the positive film on a powerful lightbox and place the silk screen board on top of film, close the lid and let it for 1/2 hour. Once done, use pressure water pump to wash away the coat, it will remove the exposed area, free the art area from the emulsion. Let It dry and keep away from exposing direct sunlight.

Third is the preparation of color, I forgot what is the chemical name of the color, it is a type of ceramic mixture that can be glazed with the surface of the tiles. If the tile surface is glazed we need to use petroleum or thinner bout 3%, if non glaze is just plain water will do. then stir evenly, coz stirring is boring part.

Fourth is placing the silk screen on printer and then pour the color. start printing. The printing part lagi susah mau explain. After printing take out silk screen and replace with second layer color. something like if print a leaf, print the light green, then print the shadow green and lastly the black outline.. my record so far is 1000 tiles per hour for 3 color design. my hand kena hempit by the print head few times... sakit like hell.

After that it is placed on an oven of 1000 degree celcius (normal cremation one 500 degree), means if i jump inside i become ash before 1/2 way. 1 hour of time used for firing, once out if you want to play "pop pop" you pour cold water on it, coz it will crack 1/2. so we let it cool naturally. after that kautim, can bungkus.

Some tiles cannot be fired more than 3 times, except for White Horse punya glazed white tiles... tried 7 times oso won't crack. Carefully chose tile, make sure the climate of the imported tiles suitable.

During my working in tiles company, I've played around lots of tiles art. We got pearl gloss effects, gold plated coloring (small % real gold mixture, super expensive), metallic effects, and most dangerous of all, vitrosa or emboss art effect. Vitrosa using glass powder most beautiful but extreme caution is taken when creating. Have to balut body, mask, helmet. if not, the glass powder will burn the skin and if masuk mata, bye bye.

Well, thats all the simplify version of the ceramic printing process. Set of tiles, we have listello (rectangle) and inserto (the corner tile), and then there is a pencil tile (for narrow framing).