Antique or puristic – achieving expressive brick and tile finishes

»1 A full-face coating can be applied to imitate the effects of fire on colour and decoration

»2a, b Colour effects like lime/cement stains can be achieved by various means: spraying, pouring, slinging and strewing

»3a »3b, »3c, »3d, »3e Imitated ageing in the form of smoke stains, weather exposure, moss and other forms of vegetal overgrowth, bird droppings, verdigris

»4 Modern spray technology yields multifarious surface finishing effects

»5 Multicolor-Anlage: Glasur-/Engobe-Umlauf

»6 With a multicolor system, both the spraying pressure and the fan air can be separately ontrolled

Which impression should the wall or roof make: antique, showing signs of wear and tear, or puristically monochromic? The client wants an individual touch, and the brick and tile producer wants to make reproducible products. This contribution investigates some methods with which to best implement both trends in the surface finishing of bricks and roof tiles.

1 Introduction

Antique or puristic – as far as surface finishing goes, neither excludes the other. But then, what do those two terms actually mean within the brick and tile industry?

“Antique” is an everyday word that everyone understands as meaning “old”. “Old” is something that was made a long time ago. Exactly when that was is rarely deemed important. Masonry bricks and roof tiles, for example, used to be shaped with the aid of wooden frames and slats, respectively. Over the centuries, the techniques of manufacture gradually changed. All the while, though, roof tiles retained their original...