Ceramic Tiles
Material : ceramic
Ceramic Tiles for All Kinds of Tiling Projects
From tiles created by some of the world’s top designers to enhance your kitchen or bathroom to cheap functional wall and floor tiles that keep costs to a minimum there’s a ceramic tile for every budget and purpose
Ceramic Tile Manufacture
Ceramic tiles are made from fired clay finished with a protective and decorative glaze in a range of colours, thicknesses, patterns and hardness for most applications; including floor tiles for high traffic areas although, personally, a porcelain, quartz or stone tile may be longer lasting in the most demanding areas or commercial establishments
Ceramics Mimic Other Tile Materials
The amazing thing about ceramic finishes are the amazing opportunites to mimic other tiling surfaces; marble is a classic example where ceramic tiles in takeaways, hotel bathrooms and wash rooms can recreate the appearance of the finest conglomerate and patterned marbles while being easy to keep clean; plus, being a manufactured material the colours are better controlled than natural stone tiles where every tile will have a slightly different pattern and shade difference
Ceramic Wallpaper
Unlike any other tiling material, ceramics can act as a form of resilient “wallpaper” with their regular repeating floral, leaf patterns or geometric shapes
What is a Ceramic Tile
Ceramic derives from a Greek word meaning "of pottery" so ceramic tiles could best be described as tiles made from fired clay either with or without a glaze.Usually wall tiles are glazed earthenware (high water absorption and low firing temperature) or stoneware (low water absorption of less than 3% and medium firing temperature) . In theory porcelain tiles are also ceramic but fired at a much higher temperature using materials where the clay particles don't just fuse together but actually melt and form a glass-like solid with a very low water absorption of less than 0.5%
Cutting Ceramic Tiles
The traditional way of simply cutting a ceramic tile was to score it with a tile cutter using a hardened metal wheel to sheer the surface glaze and create a line of weakness so that the tile would break along the score line with slight pressure. Complex shapes would be prepared using a form of pliers to nip the tile and crumble off small pieces. Today, portable, water cooled diamond saws are available that make cutting tiles and forming intricate shapes possible and relatively straight forward. Holes for electrical sockets, pipes and cables are more difficult and usually rely on ceramic drill bits to form a starter hole which can then be enlarged and shaped using a special coping/fret saw blade