The Straw Man

Day 6 of the 6 day shift cycle. Shift 8:00 pm till 4:00 am
Press - Mulder
Tiles made: Ventilation 33 Paille 4500
Dry Tiles unstacked: Ventilation 33 Xahara, Littoral & Rouge

Well, making the tiles was easy enough, the Mulder was behaving, and even stacking wasn't too bad, even tho the chain did get full. The problem was the paille (straw) glaze.

This glaze gets spread over the clay slugs, on their way to the press. A little pump feeds the glaze from its tank, through a little pipe wich drips onto the clay slugs, just before the cutter. A shaped sponge then spreads the glaze evenly over the slug.

Or it should. But, the glaze tank has a motor to keep stirring the glaze, otherwise it seperates out into water and solids. The pipe that feeds the glaze to the clay has a habit of wrapping itself around the motor. So we turn it off. Then as the glaze seperates the thick sludge blocks the pipe. And when the pipe gets rinsed and stuck back together straw glaze flies everywhere, and I get covered.

On top of that, the tiles we were unstacking were being painted in Xahara and Littoral patterns which requires straw glaze (again) to be sprayed onto the tiles through oscillating spray guns. The big pump thta supplies the guns went on the fritz and while reparing it I got sprayed.

So by the end of the night I had a lovely dappling/freckling of straw. To the amusement of all, sauf moi.