In the torrent of the times when industrial civilization is surging forward, the afterglow of the thousand-year kiln fire still echoes in Anhui Daxiang Group (ceramic tile production line). When you touch the warm texture of a piece of ceramic tile, the layers of texture contain the time code of multiple processes, and condense the inheritance and breakthrough written by contemporary craftsmen with their hands.
One: The sea of stars in the ball mill
In the rumbling sound of the three-meter-diameter ball mill, Master Mei, the raw material proportioner, is leaning over to record the instrument data. According to the interview, this craftsman who has been dealing with clay for 20 years can distinguish a 0.5% moisture deviation from the sound of mud flow. The notebook he carries with him is densely recorded with subtle changes in raw materials under different weather conditions. These data accumulated over 20 years have kept the fineness of each batch of mud stable at a golden value.
II: Fingertip ballet in the molding workshop
In the molding workshop, the molding engineer's hands are dancing on the wet clay embryo. His original "three turns and nine kneading" technique allows the clay embryo to gradually stretch into a perfect 45-degree arc on the rotating table. When the laser thickness gauge shows an error of 0.2 mm, he would rather abandon the entire batch of semi-finished products and re-adjust the mold. In his opinion, the arc of the tile end hides the rhythm of flowing rainwater, which is the hand-made temperature that machines can never reproduce.
Three: Chromatography in Glaze Colors
In the glaze preparation room, electronic balances and traditional beam balances are placed side by side. Glaze engineer Master Wang can tell the proportions of 16 kinds of mineral raw materials with his eyes closed, but he will also carefully check the test data of the spectrometer. This dialogue between traditional experience and modern technology allows the peacock blue glaze to reproduce the "rainy sky blue" color recorded in "Yingzao Fashi" in the kiln change.
Four: The philosophy of fire temperature in kiln change
In the kiln control room, the control cabinet panel displays colorful firing curves. The kiln specialist fine-tunes the temperature curve according to the "breathing rhythm" of the flame in the kiln. This experience, known as the "Nine Ways of Fire Observation", comes from thousands of firing records accumulated over twenty years. When the intelligent temperature control system sounds an alarm, the specialists can always predict the subtle changes in the shrinkage of the blank half an hour in advance. This kind of communication between people and kilns, through the precise temperature control of the reducing flame firing process, in the high temperature environment of 1150℃, the iron element in the clay undergoes an oxidation-reduction reaction, forming a unique kiln-changing effect, and finally creating architectural ceramic tiles with dense texture, moist glaze and traditional texture.
Five: Quality manufacturing excellence in the inspection section
Each batch of tiles produced needs to undergo strict quality inspection. The inspection contents include the dimensional accuracy, surface quality, physical properties (such as compressive strength, water absorption, etc.) of the tiles, as well as the wear resistance and waterproofness of the glaze. Through quality inspection, problems in the production process can be discovered and solved in a timely manner to ensure that the quality of the tiles meets the relevant standards and customer requirements. , each position is continuing to write the contemporary footnotes of craftsmanship. These craftsmen who shuttle through modern production lines use the hand-made spirit of the intelligent era to let traditional architectural tiles continue to sing ancient songs on the urban skyline. When the robotic arm and the calloused hands work together tacitly, what we see is not only the advancement of industrial civilization, but also the rebirth of the craftsman spirit in the digital age.
The craftsmanship of clay tiles is a philosophy of life tempered by thousands of years of kiln fire. It takes the earth as its source and the hands as its bridge, and condenses into an eternal artistic language in the long river of time. When the craftsman leans over the clay table, what flows between his fingers is not only the moist clay, but also the awe of nature and the persistence of measure - the force when kneading the clay is as precise as breathing, the arc when shaping it coincides with the roundness of the earth and sky, the waiting when drying in the shade is like the rhythm of the growth of all things, and the tempering in the kiln fire makes the clay transform into art. This spirit transcends the simple inheritance of skills, and is a dialogue between eternity with the simplest materials, the pursuit of perfection in repetition, and the realization of the world in the details, so that each piece of simple pottery tile carries the weight of civilization, and continues to write the craftsman's everlasting sincerity on the house. (Contributor: Liu Caihe)
