Dinnerware franciscan

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body originally used in the UK in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an essential part. It is characterised by brilliant whiteness, strength and translucency. dinnerware franciscan may be an example of this process.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is credited to Thomas Frye in the mid eighteenth century in which he used it to make a kind of soft-paste porcelain. In Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Josiah Spode carried on with further developments, and consequently made it popular, by combining it with kaolin, China stone and china clay to compete against the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

The manufacture of bone china normally involves a 2 stage firing process where the first "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280