Tile Trials: Ceramic Digital

Tile Trials: Ceramic Digital

Having been disappointed by my firing of a batch of transfer decals from Stoke manufacturer Digital Ceramic I thought I'd try an alternative decal producer, Ceramic Digital (confusingly also of Stoke) to see how they fared.

I sent them the same artwork and asked them to fire the decals onto some handmade tiles of their own. This is the result.

The tiles themselves are a bit nasty but again a good blue colour. Perhaps not the true Delft cobalt blue but pretty damn close.

So the question is: Why did the decals I fired turn out so grey and crappy? Two possible options as I see it: A kiln malfunction at my end, or an issue of 'bad chemistry' between the decal transfer and the crackle glaze tile surface. Need to get DC and CD to fire decals onto the dutch tiles I've ordered next to see which it is.

Have also bought some Cobalt Oxide on glaze to try painting directly onto the tiles.

Tile Trials: A Mystery..

Tile Trials: A Mystery..

Having fired a second batch of lighter, brighter decals onto delft tiles and been disappointed with the washed out look of the results, I approached Stew at Digital Ceramic, where the transfer decals were made. He suggested that I send him a spare decal if I had one and he would fire it there in Stoke and send me back the finished product.

Here is the result. What a difference! Dick Turpin here is much, much closer to what I was after. Markedly so.
Question is: Why are the results from the same batch of transfers so different? Something to do with the kiln at Mile End where I got mine fired? Who knows, but now I'm thinking maybe I should let (pay) the guys who make the decals also fire them...

The large white tile is DC's firing, the two grey and washed out ones on the righthand side are mine. Below Mr Turpin is a spare unfired decal to show how they differed once cooked.

Tile Trials: The Second Batch (close-ups)

Tile Trials: The Second Batch (close-ups)

Having fired one bunch of transfer decals and found the designs too dark, I created a second, lighter set of transfers.

They looked great before firing - blue and vibrant. But after a night in the kiln (closely following the manufacturer's instructions) I was rather disappointed with what came out - the designs look faded, washed out and grey. Sigh...

There was also an issue with bubbling of the transfers. Probably not from trapped water (I squeezed the buggers to within an inch of their lives to remove any moisture using the old 'rubber kidney'!) but more likely from excessive dabbing with a linty hanky or dust in the room (oops!) - once in the furnace the dust/ lint burnt off, taking the decal design with it. Oh dear...

Cupid toots his whistle

A Vase of Flowers

A Triton or Merman

A Bottle of Sack (Sherry)

A Tattoed Sailor

Towser the Dog

Whale or Leviathan

Tile Trials: The Second Batch

Tile Trials: The Second Batch

Having fired one bunch of transfer decals and found the designs too dark, I created a second, lighter set of transfers.

They looked great before firing - blue and vibrant. But after a night in the kiln (closely following the manufacturer's instructions) I was rather disappointed with what came out - the designs look faded, washed out and grey. Sigh...

There was also an issue with bubbling of the transfers. Probably not from trapped water (I squeezed the buggers to within an inch of their lives to remove any moisture using the old 'rubber kidney'!) but more likely from excessive dabbing with a linty hanky or dust in the room (oops!) - once in the furnace the dust/ lint burnt off, taking the decal design with it. Oh dear...

Back to the old drawing board. Maybe the original, dark colour wasn't too bad after all...

Tile Trials: Trial by Fire

Tile Trials: Trial by Fire

These four tiles are four of the first (dark) batch of transferred Delft tiles that I subjected to extreme heat and pressure to test their durability.

I lined the bottom of a brazier in the back garden with these four, filled it with wood, corks and papers and lit it. We kept it going for several hours until a sudden deluge of heavy rain put a stop to our fun. Red hot, white hot embers for the duration and bubbling, molten plastic (some of the 'corks' I'd put in turned out to not be cork at all!) in intimate proximity.

These were the results when I came to extricate them from the damp ashes a day later. Three of the four tiles has cracked in half (not surprising as each was standing unsupported with a weight of burning wood against it!), but all in all the transfer designs seemed remarkably unaffected. Especially in light of the fact that in a domestic setting (kitchen, bathroom or hearth) the conditions would not be anything like as extreme. A great result!

Tile Trials - the first batch (fired)

Tile Trials - the first batch (fired)

Here are the first batch of transfer delftware tiles after firing. The images have become completely fused to the surface glaze of the tiles. Scrubbing, scratching, soap and water, fire and ash will not move them (pretty much). All good news.

But for me, the colours are way too dark, alas. I was warned that ceramic transfer decals could appear duller than the original artwork and they weren't wrong. In full sunlight they're not bad, but I really want something closer to the bright cobalt blue one sees on original dutch Delft tiles, if possible.

The images above are all of transfer decals fired onto authentic Dutch delft tiles, which is a white marl-rich clay with a variety of blue-white tone glazes and crackled surface. That below is the same batch of transfer decals fired onto traditional English delft tiles (thicker terracotta with negligable surface crackling) from Fired Earth.