Plastic Forming

Abstract

Plastic forming is a term used in this book to define any forming process that utilizes the deformability of a plastic body to manufacture ceramic ware in its final shape. Slip casting utilizes plasticity for assembly and finishing, but it does not use it as a final forming process. Extrusion utilizes plasticity sometimes to form precursors for subsequent plastic forming or dry finishing, and sometimes to make final shapes; brick are made in their final shape by extrusion. Some tile are made by extrusion of a ribbon of body which is then punch-cut to tile dimensions or plastic repressed into tile. Flat tableware and cups, suspension and pin-type electrical insulators, thermocouple “spaghetti,” injection molded products and other very complicated shapes, calendared battery fuel elements, and many other products are made using the plasticity which has for centuries been associated with ceramics. In fact, the book of Exodus in the Bible, begins with a labor dispute in a brickyard.