Steve and the Tile Press

A few postings ago I had wanted to show a picture of Steve at the Tile Press and then tell the story about it.  Well I still can't get that cool picture to work, so Sandy A. graciously sent me one she had.  Everybody all cozy and comfy?  Ok, here's how it went.  Al took us all over to meet a potter friend of his in Phoenix.  You can check out his website at http://www.hjalmarsonpottery.com/.  He had made his own tile press and was willing to show us how he had done it.  Additionally we got to see his studio, salesroom, and kiln area.  He also talked to us about making tile.  And we were more than willing to learn, knowing NOTHING!

While he was walking us around he pointed out an old compression ram press, telling us he had never had any luck with it.... it was irretrievably broken.  He asked us if we wanted it, with all the stuff.  It would help him to clean up his studio area and give him more work space.  Duh!  Of course we did. 

So we took it with us and Steve took on the project of getting it to work.  He proceeded to clean it up, find the parts needed, and fix the press.  Then he schooled himself on how to make the molds, not an easy process, I can tell you.  Then he taught us how to make our molds, and we went to work. 

It's only broken down once, and he got that fixed too.  I think I can honestly say for all of us, with the scope of the project that we have had, we couldn't possibly have done this without Steve.