Ceramic Tile Framing advice, Thank you

[Eoinb]

Hi Framers,

I'm looking for advice and you might be able to help me.

I'm looking to start selling framed ceramic tiles. They will be single ceramic tile that measure 10" x 8". The way I see them is displayed in a shadowbox frame and raised off the mdf backing board by about .05" (half an inch) or so, so that they'll "float". There will be an inch or so around each tile to internal edge of frame.

In your experience what is the best material/way to do this?

I was thinking of using a glue such as: Gorilla Glue Construction Adhesive - its strong and flexible.

I was going to glue the tile to a MDF spacer and glue the spacer to the MDF backboard to lift the tile from the backboard.

What material is best for the spacer? Marine MDF, Plywood, Mdf, hardboard… anything else?

Any help appreciated.

[Eoinb]

By the way the tiles way about 590g (1.3lbs)

Would Foamboard be strong enough to float mount the tile?

[prospero]

That's the way I would recommend, except I'd probably use epoxy to fix the spacers to the tile.
And I would screw the spacers to the backing for the sake of reversibility. For this reason I would
use solid wood or ply for the spacers to better accept a screw.

** If the back of the tile isn't glazed then most glues would hold. I believe in over-engineering though.

[Eoinb]

Thanks Propero

[pramsay13]

I've done a couple few tiles, mostly close framing so the edges of the frame overlap the tile.

The one I did that was 'floating' I just used tile adhesive and silicone on the mountboard.

I haven't heard so I assume it's still floating.

[Not your average framer]

You might not be thinking that the weight of the tiles is much of a problem, but over time that sort of weight needs to be well supported by the backing boards, which does not want to yield and distort with the amount of weight hanging from it. on the other hand, every extra peeny that you spend on making a really solid job of this, is money that you cannot have as profit.

Spainng the tile forward from the backin board by 1/2 of an inch is pretty likely to cost you more than the cost of spacing it forward by say only 1/4 of an inch, so it something to take account of. Also don't under estimate the time and therefore the cost of assembly of the whole finished item. You do need to produce realistic costings of how much cost is going to go straight out the window, instead of being available as extra profit to you.

If a customer came to me with such a job, my likely approach would probably be to use 12mm MDF for the spacer and 6mm MDF for the backing board and I would go for 4 countersunk screws for fixing the spacer to the backing board. I would almost certainly want to try doing one first to decide which adhesive would best fix the tile to the spacer. As popular as this sort of thing may be, there may may not be as much profit in this as you might be hoping for.

Try to ensure that you can do as much work as you can yourself to make sure that as much money as possible, comes your way as opposed to going to anyone else. Be careful not to under estimate the time and the costs of doing something like this. It's quite time consuning to do things like this.

[Eoinb]

Thanks Pramsay and Not your average framer.
Very good advice.

[girlfromkent]

Eoinb did you complete this?

About to do similar and wondering how you got on and what method you found best

I'm weighng up mdf vs solid wood
Epoxy vs CT1 vs some sort of gorilla/araldite instant contact

Anyone else have experience of framing ceramic tiles?

[fitz]

I recently framed a couple of heart shaped ceramic tiles that were made especially with the footprint and hand print of newly born babies pressed into the tile whilst in its wet clay form then dried and glazed. A piece of ribbon had been stuck onto the back using silicone as a hanging strap and this had already been hanging on my customers wall for years prior to them deciding they would have them framed. The ribbon was still very secure so I used this to my advantage and cut a slit through a piece of mountboard (double laminated for added strength) and taped it onto the back of the mountboard. I then applied two blobs of silicone to the back of the tile and stuck it to the board. A bit belt and braces but it was very secure. This all went into a deep rebate moulding with glass spacers made from the same mountboard backing. Customer was very happy.

[Justintime]

My favourite adhesive for this kind of thing (as I said on a previous post) is "Bond-It Saves Nails SF", it's solvent free low VOC and can be removed at a later date with a blade. If you're glazing a piece like this, it's important to be aware of off-gassing issues with some solvent adhesives as they can cause clouding issues as gasses are released into the frame. I'm no expert on this, just going with what I have been taught.
I would just be careful about which adhesives you use inside a glazed frame. CT1 for instance is so strong that we used it to anchor our dividing walls in our studio when we couldn't drill into our underfloor heating pipes! It is likely to be high VOC and overkill for anything inside a picture frame (and very costly too).

[girlfromkent]

Thanks all.

Justintime thanks I'd not heard of the Bondit, looks good. Id already ordered the CT1 though and have just done a trial with it, and was decided on going with that until I read your post. Says solvent free on the back and there's no high VOC warning. Would you think that would be OK?

[Justintime]

Yup, you're right. I had no idea it was so clean! It has a load of certificates. I'd say go for it .

[girlfromkent]

Fab, thanks for the reassurance Justintime. I'll definitely get some bondit in as well for future stuff.

While we're on the topic of outgassing, and apologies because I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but how do people feel about wood inside frames?

I'm thinking specifically of using pine strip wood to float my tiles on, but generally as well. Pine has natural VOCs. Does that mean the wood itself could outgass? How about mdf?

[Justintime]

I tend to use Obeche because I have loads of offcuts and it's light. I've not heard any concerns about wood offgassing only about the work not coming into contact with the wood frame due to acidity issues.