Ceramics - How it's made | Ceramic Tiles

 

"BISCUIT" 

After their first firing, tiles destined for glazing are known as "biscuit" (sometimes, though mistakenly, "bisque") tiles; and the same term is applied to the first firing itself –"biscuit" firing. This is curious, since biscuit – from the French bis cuit – means twice baked, the original edible biscuits having been so named because they were baked (on hot plates) first on one side and then, after being turned over, on the other. From the cooked biscuit, however, the name was passed on to the dough from which it was made, thence (because of a certain superficial resemblance between the two) somewhat facetiously applied to potters' clay, and finally extended to pottery itself – at one time to pottery in all its forms, but of late years only to the once-fired ware awaiting glazing. 

After their biscuit firing, then, the biscuit tiles are placed, as we have seen, on inspection tables. On these (square flat boards resting freely on long roller-top steel benches) they are closely examined, and any defective ones – any that are chipped, specked, or fire-cracked, for example – are rejected. This process over, the board with its load is slid over the rollers to the appropriate glazing department or, when that department is at a distance, to the conveyor system connecting with it. 

Inspecting biscuit tiles

 

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From: "A Century of Progress 1837-1937" a publication to commemorate The Centenary of Richards Tiles Ltd.