by aleida, on February 19th, 2010
After our November sit-down with Paul Burns, the founder and chief ceramicist of Fireclay Tile, we just had to see the manufacturing process with our own eyes. He recently invited us on a tour of his showroom in San Jose, CA and his manufacturing facility in Aromas, CA.
Kevin provided a pretty thorough background on Paul, the company, and the products here, so we knew, more or less, what we would see at their facilities. But the tour was way cooler than expected.
We started off at the showroom, where it was almost impossible to focus on any single item because it is literally packed with examples of the hundreds of colors, sizes, shapes, and styles offered.
Eventually we moved outside to the Fireclay Boneyard, where there was row after row of “samples, left-overs, over-runs, and seconds,” as stated on their charmingly hand-made welcome sign. There were thousands of pieces to discover, and all of them going for only $5 per square foot.
The tour led us into their inventory section, where we saw a collection of all their discontinued pieces, including boxes of gorgeous number tiles. Deeper into the back rooms, sample kits were being assembled and the shelves were packed with Debris series stock. My favorites were tiny little squares that looked like candy.
But we had yet to see how all of those pieces were made. For that, we had to travel south to Aromas, CA. As it became obvious that we were really close to the manufacturing facility, Kevin and I were highly impressed by what seemed like an enormous operation: industrial structures spouting off steam, and even train tracks leading right up to them! Our amazement was short-lived, though, as we realized our destination lay down a little path off the side of the road, and just meters from those steel structures. That proximity, though, clearly illustrated Paul’s story about how the Debris series came to be. The structures we saw are the very rock quarry that had accumulated rock dust for almost eight decades before reaching out to their next door neighbor for some help figuring out what to do with it.
Once at Fireclay’s buildings, we were not surprised to see the usual sacks of raw material lining the walls. The actual making of the tiles was more nondescript than I ever thought: very simply, the ingredients are measured in large containers, poured into the mixers, extruded, and then cut by a person wielding either wires or steel plates. The process gets a bit more involved with more intricate designs, and we saw an enormous library of nothing but molds. At the painting department, every color is applied by hand, and a quick stay in or run through one of the kilns has the pieces ready for packaging. We found out that all orders are shipped out directly from the manufacturing facility to avoid a drive up to San Jose.
One of my favorite aspects of the facility was the complete lack of one entire wall – this provided an amazing view of the immediately adjacent crop field and the mountains beyond.
Thank you, Paul, for an amazing visit!
Click the icon below for more tour photos:
Thanks for the post Kevin! Keep up the great work!
- Eric and the Fireclay Team
No problem Eric,
You and Paul are doing some great things. We love telling your story where ever we can.
[...] is that there's flexibility in … He went on to say, once you fire the product, you purify it. …on tour: Fireclay Tile threadposton tour: Fireclay Tile. by aleida, on February 19th, 2010. After our November sit-down with … Eric [...]