Troubleshooting services for sanitaryware

Reduce defects and wastage with our troubleshooting services

If you’re encountering issues with slip preparation, casting, drying / inspection, glaze preparation, firing or glaze defects, we have the ceramics expertise to help you overcome these challenges and reduce costs.

Slip preparation

We can support you in overcoming challenges with slip preparation, including:

Difficult blunging of clays or too high residue
Problems adjusting density or rheology
Too low density or too high viscosity
Too high thixotropy
Aging

Casting

Low casting rate / low thickness
Drainage
De-molding
Air bubbles
Casting cords, stains, slip meet
Lack of plasticity
Too high shrinkage in the mold

Drying / Inspection

Drying is usually the stage where most rejects are generated, especially because of drying cracks. The root causes often stem from defects at the casting stage that were not seen during the finishing step, for example, cracks in hollow parts of products or joint parts.

Too fast drying, uneven atmosphere (temperature or moisture), careless storage are also potential causes of drying cracks.

Sanitaryware drying

From a raw materials point of view, the use of minerals confers good particle packing able to absorb or prevent the generation of cracks leading to a significant improvement in yield.

Handling between the de-molding and kiln phase applies stress on the pieces. Using higher plasticity clays is sometimes needed to increase the strength of the body. See lack of plasticity under casting above.

Glase preparation / Glazing

We can help you tackle glaze preparation and glazing issues, including:

Sedimentation of the glaze
Wavy or undulating surface
Powdering
Cracks, detachment
Excessive drying time
Settling

Glaze defects

Glaze defects can also cause major headaches for sanitaryware producers. Our teams are skilled at troubleshooting solutions to issues such as:

Crawling
Pinholes
Crazing and shivering or peeling of FFC
Black spots / Stains
Popping / Chipping

Firing

Many of the defects found during sorting after firing are generated at previous stages of the process: casting, drying and glazing. Our experts can help reduce: