Acrylic dinnerware

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body originally produced in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an important constituent. It is distinguish by brilliant whiteness, strength and translucency. acrylic dinnerware may be an example of this procedure.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is credited to Thomas Frye in in the late 1740s in which he used it to develop a type of soft-paste porcelain. In Towards the end of the 18th century, Josiah Spode undertook further developments, and duly made it popular, by mixing it with kaolin, china clay and China stone to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

The original elementary recipe of four parts china stone, six parts bone ash, and three and a half parts china clay is still the standard English body.

Bone china production normally makes use of a 2 stage firing process where the first "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280°C (2336°F) giving a translucent product and then it is glaze, or glost, fired at a lower temperature below 1080°C (1976°F). acrylic dinnerware is probably produced using this approach.

Soft-paste porcelain

Soft-paste porcelain is a kind of porcelain and consequently a ceramic product.

Its history dates from the initial exertions by European potters to imitate Chinese porcelain by using compounds of china clay and ground-up glass (also known as frit); lime and soapstone were also known to have been used in some compositions. As these first combinations were prone to high pyroplastic collapse, or slumping in the oven at high temperature, they were not economical to manufacture. Concoctions were later developed based on quartz, kaolin, nepheline syenite, feldspars and other feldspathic rocks. These were technically superior and are still in production to this day.

Hard-paste porcelain

Hard-paste porcelain is a hard, dense ceramic that was initially made from a concoction of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at extremely high temperature. It was first manufactured in China in around the ninth century.

The secret of its manufacture was unknown in Europe until the early seventeen hundreds, when Böttger of Meissen, Germany discovered the formula. Despite attempts to keep it secret, the process was employed by other German ceramic manufacturers and finally became known throughout the length and breadth of Europe.

Hard-paste porcelain is known to be fired at a range of temperatures to manufacture many different end results. Depending on the firing technique, hard-paste porcelain can be manufactured to resemble earthenware or stoneware. But generally, it is unnecessary to use hard-paste porcelain for such lower temperature ceramics. Hard-paste porcelain can be employed to create porcelain bisque, a hard crystalline material fired at very high temperatures in a pressure controlled environment. This process generates a translucid bright white ceramic. Unlike other bisque ceramics, porcelain bisque is almost impermeable by water, making it unnecessary to glaze the body before decorating. Manufacturers such as Lladro, Precious Moments and Hummel make use of hard-paste porcelain exactly for this reason, this could include acrylic dinnerware.