Homemade Tile Printer

[Colour Republic]

You'd like that on a tile madam? No problem

Interesting!

[Oli]

I wonder how durable the print is, or if it would wipe of / fade pretty quickly

[Del W]

mmmm. could have a lot of fun with that !

[Dan]

I saw something similar at the stone show. They had a machine that could print on stone. They did it for headstones and whatnot but they had plaques there with trucks, people's faces, they even did a logo for one of the other stands on some of their own stone. Brilliant stuff.

They way they did it,it would only weather naturally. Not sure if this would be quite the same.

[user123]

Did that involve etching into the glaze then - to be inked in wiht the black ink after? I Didn't get what the green was doing...? People do do the baked transfers on tiles, like you can get on mugs and plates, too, but can't get my head round how this works...

[Scott]

If you could get it glazed on top that would be excellent, you could hae SOOOO much fun

[whitebeam]

I like that, printing on tile.

[Max_Damage]

This method is a slant on an old process called 'groundlaying'. The printer deposits an adhesive onto the tile in either half tone dots,default dither or solid from the printer. This adhesive is then used to apply a powdered enamel colour which sticks to the adhesive. The tile is then fired in a pottery kiln or roller kiln to melt the enamel onto the tile glaze. Depending on the flux content of the enamel, it will fire glossy or matt. A layer of clear flux can be applied over the print to give extra gloss and make it weather proof. The process can be used on transfer paper in multiple colours using an adapted laser printer.
Printed Mugs and tiles can use the dye sublimation technique, but it isn't scratch resistant since the mug or tile has to be coated in pastic for the ink to attach to and it's not fired.