tiles-art - 5/9/97 "To Make Tiles, Bricks or Other Building Materials of Clay" by Tryffin ap Myrddin. NOTE: See also the files: tiles-msg, sculpture-msg, pottery-msg, block-printing-msg, salt-msg, ceramics-bib, Ceramics-Intro-art. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:01:41 -0600 (CST) From: Wendy Robertson & Tim Weitzel I have been interested in doing tiles for a while, but never have gotten >around to it. I did find this neat book called Medieval English Tiles (or >something like that), that had some great info in it. The picture of the >only surviving wood-block stamp was real interesting. I'v been hoping to >bribe some of my woodcarving friends into carving it for me so I can make >some tiles from it. > >Do you have any suggestions for a beginning tile maker? I'v been throwing >pots for a while now, so I am familiar with clay and glazing etc., but I >know very little about tiles, especially period tiles (other than the one >I mentioned above). > >Christiaen >Calontir To make tiles, bricks, or other building materials of clay The most common period depiction of making brick, which is generally assumed to be highly similar to making tiles, is found in a 15th c. manuscript from the Netherlands (Additional MS 38122, f.78 verso*). It shows the tiles and bricks stacked and drying. A kiln is being fired in the right background. In the left background, a worker is forming the bricks on a table. the process of making the tiles is described briefly in Basing 1990* and is echoed and elaborated in Eames 1992.** Starting in the fall, the clay is dug and hauled to the tile works. It is left in the winter weather to crumble by rain and frost. Around the end of December the clay is turned over. In spring, water is added back to the clay and it is worked up to the proper consistency. Stones and organic matter are removed. Sand may be added. When the proper texture is achieved, the clay is cut into pieces and is ready to be formed into wooden frames. The frames are set on a table. The frame and the table are both finely sanded (this is assumed from the fine sand baked into the surface of the tiles, and it makes sense to help prevent the clay sticking to the tools. The mold frames are the shape of the final tile, so they are square, round, rectangular, or whatever. The roof comb tiles are especially elaborate. Floor tiles for mosaics can be elaborate too. A wire is drawn over the top of the form to cut off the excess clay. Surviving late 19th-early 20th century wood forms had metal frames attached to the top to assist in cutting off excess clay. The same tool kit had a metal bow into which the wire was attached to assist drawing it over the mold frame. It is assumed these tools are highly similar to the ones used in the middle ages. The tile (or brick) is removed from the frame. A smooth piece of wood, called a strike, is wetted and run over the surface to smooth the tile. The tiles may be shaped or decorated now. Shaping: Roof tiles, for instance are pushed together on the sides so as to make the middle taller and arched. Many floor tiles have incised lines, cut hemispheres, or punched holes in the bottom of the tiles. It is speculated that this is to help dry the tiles or to assist mortar adhesions when installing the tiles. Decoration: Stamps of wood or metal*** are used to apply decoration. The design may stand above the tile surface or be pressed into the tile surface. Wood stamps appear to be better for high/deep relief impressions, such as a fleur-dis-lis surrounded by a line-box. The one surviving English stamp for making relief tiles dates to the mid-17th to18th centuries, although it may not be that different from medieval stamps for relief tiles. Relief tiles do not seem to be as popular as inlaid tile designs during the Middle Ages (although there are some pre-Conquest relief tiles at Winchester, and a group from c.1200 York. I also am aware of some tiles from an abbey floor that was built in the 7-8 c.). Relief tiles were produced on a commercial scale in the 14th century. The one existing relief design stamp is 16 x 16.25 cm square and 4.3 cm deep. The mold received considerable pressure when being pushed into the clay based on cracking along the grain of the wood.**** This suggests the tiles were allowed to dry quite a lot before they were decorated. This makes sense because there would be little chance of the clay sticking to the tile. It would also explain why there are so few left for us to look at. A stamp for making inlaid tiles has been found at Winchester. It appears that while relief designs occurred frequently, impressed designs were more common. Sometimes, the depressed designs are filed with clay, giving white on red tile designs that seem to have been popular. Metal stamps appear to be good for "incised" designs, where fine lines are actually pressed into the tile surface. These also can be used to score the tile to make accurate breaking of the tiles easier during their installation. This would be more of a shaping than a decoration technique, but sometimes is both. Scraffito is a type of decoration that was used in period but is fairly rare. In this technique, the white clay is made into a slip with the addition of water. Then the slip is applied over the surface of the tiles and allowed to dry. A line design is incised into the surface of the tiles. Then, the background is carefully scraped off revealing the orange clay beneath. The characters and objects are left white, with orange outlines. The Trynge (sp.?) tiles have a series of drawings scribed into them that tell a story in pictures, in this case it was a religious story. All of the above decorations can be done without the use of tin or lead glazes. Moorish and some Spanish and Italian tile were very brightly colored. The Moors in particular made wide use of plants and astronomical objects in huge wall coverings of tile. Bad news. Multicolor (polychromatic) tiles always used lead or tin glazes. More subtle glaze colors occur in late northern European and English tile floor mosaics and pavements. These likely used lead as well, but may possibly be reproducible with medium to high-fire clay bodies unlike the modern brightly colored glazes that "burn out" fairly easily. Henry VII and Elizabeth I both had elaborate floor decorations made with many colored and shaped tile designs. It is likely possible to make glazes for these projects as well. They would take a huge amount of space and even more time and energy to create. Suggestions: Medieval tiles are often quite thick and meaty in feel and appearance. This lends problems with drying time and loss when firing. Don't be fooled by modern tile which makes use of automated production lines and engineered clay bodies. Every indication given shows that there was not a high amount of tinkering with the native lowland English clay. This means that firing the kilns must have been a highly skilled trade. They didn't have temperature cones either, and had to have judged temperature by sight alone. Glazing tiles is certainly not necessary to make medieval tiles and this is one way to avoid lead glazes. It is possible that some of the colors can be reproduced in modern glaze recipes that match the firing temperatures of a given clay body. This may take a fair amount of experimentation and delving deep into "glaze theory" in order to come up with your own glaze recipes that do specifically what you want them to do. Wall tiles would be smaller than floor tiles and, again, both are thicker than modern tile. Roof tiles, on the other hand, don't seem to have changed much at all but roof combs are not seen as often. The clay bodies are almost always earthenware. Only the Germans and Low Countries made much use of stoneware in period! It worked well with all their salt glazing. With the exception of some coal-fired kilns, the tiles are wood fired. Because they were into very high production, they used lots of wood and had big kilns. If your are really into the building tile thing, you might try what I have done and actually set your tile using period mortar. In Basing 1990* this recipe is given as 2-3 parts sand to 1 lime and sufficient water. Adjust as necessary. If done properly, the mixture becomes firm and will hold. Too much sand or water, and it crumbles too easily. A mixed sand may be better in some instances than one that is all course or all fine. Note that this mortar will never get "hard" like modern concrete which uses portland cement. For roofs, they would sometimes pack the roof tile with moss or point the ends with mortar. And don't use mortar it if you are building a kiln. Just use clay in between the bricks. Hope this is entertaining for at least some of us, Have fun! Tryffin ap Myrddin Shire of Shadowdale Kingdom of Calontir M.K.A. Tim Weitzel Notes: I highly recommend looking at each these books yourself. The first two in particular are written in a very accessible style, really! I imagine anyone who is interested in this subject will quickly get through these two books and be asking for more. Conveniently, both have bibliographies for further reading. The rest are excellent if you wish to specialize in mid-late period English glazed tiles. *Basing, Patricia, 1990._Trades_and_Crafts_ in_Medieval_Manuscripts_. New Amsterdam Books: New York. **Eames, Elizabeth, 1992. _Medieval_Craftsmen:__English_Tilers_. University of Toronto Press: Buffalo. ***Eames, Elizabeth 1980. _Catalogue_of_Medieval_Lead-Glazed_Earthenware_Tiles _in_the_department_of_Medieval_and_Later_Antiquities,_British_Museum_I_&_II. British Museum Publications: London. ****Keen, Lawerence. 1969. Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Lead-Glazed Relief Tiles from North Devon in _Journal_of_the_ British_Archaeological_ Association_3_ (22)_. Edited by Mark S. Harris tiles-art Page 4 of 4