Fashions and trends are always evolving and changing in the tile industry, one of the newest manufacturing techniques is inkjet printing.
In the past the most common method of printing onto ceramic tiles was the rotary printing technique. This involved the body of the tile to move along the conveyor and then pass under a drum that would roll out the pattern onto the face of the tile.
The timing using this method is important as the pattern can be easily smudged, looking blurry an out of focus if the conveyor and rotary drum do not move together.
Another feature of this method with ceramic tiles is that most ceramic tiles are pressed, this means that when the body of the tile is made, a press comes down, cuts them and is then raised. In order for the tiles to be left on the bed, they have a slight bevel on the edges to allow them to fall out of the press. Tiles that are rotary printed will only be printed on the flat surface, often leaving a white, unprinted edge. This rarely causes a problem as grouted joints will cover a portion of this and it is a perfectly acceptable manufacturing technique.
Inkjet tiles overcomes many of the issues common with rotary printing. The first improvement is the quality of the print. The patterns are often much sharper, creating strong colours and shading, stone replica tiles look more like polished marble than almost all rotary printed tiles. Another plus is the printing goes right to the edge of the tiles, eliminating the white border commonly found on rotary printed tiles.
Hopefully this not too technical article helps explain a bit about inkjet printed tiles.
Thank you for reading
