How They're Made
Every one of our glass splashbacks and glass tiles is meticulously crafted entirely by hand, through several skilled and time-consuming stages. Here's a brief introduction to how we do it.The base material for our splashbacks and tiles is a glass we have selected for its compatibility with the enamel colours that we fuse with it. The base glass imported from Poland, where it has been handmade in the traditional ‘drawn’ method.
The base glass has to be cut to size for each individual splashback or tile, which may contain as many as five layers of glass, depending on the particular design.At present there are around forty designs and each one has its own unique recipe of ingredients, which we have created. The specially selected colours are applied individually to the component parts of the splashback or tile.
In this picture, one of the five colours that goes into our Palazzo Parisi design (Lazio collection) is being applied to the squares of glass that will later be fused inside the tile.
Here, thin strips of glass, which have been cut to size are being individually coloured and will be fused back together again to form the 'Blue Stripe 9' design from our Stripe collection.
The numerous layers of glass and coloured pieces need to be assembled carefully and transferred to the base of the kiln.The kiln is then fired overnight. It is carefully controlled to ensure that it heats to the correct temperature and then cools down at a pre-determined rate. If it heats up or cools down too quickly, the glass will crack.
During kiln-firing, the glass and the coloured enamel layers transform as they ‘slump’ and are fused together. Tiny air bubbles are trapped inside to give the tile its 'zingy' texture, and some designs will have a wonderfully tactile surface.
Here are before and after kiln-firing pictures from our Kiwi and Palazzo Parisi designs.In the case of tiles, once they are sufficiently cooled, the process of finishing the edges can begin.
Each tile edge is painstakingly ground flat and slightly bevelled using a series of four differently graded diamond discs. Then a final polish disc will give a beautiful shine to the glass. This process alone can take an hour for a single large tile!And that, in a nutshell, is how we do it!