Joey the tile maker

Joe's been helping me out in the workshop today. I'm trying to teach him some stuff and it's given him a chance to earn a few quid.

The boys used to come to the workshop and make stuff when they were little, but in recent times, there's been little attraction for them to spend time in a shed in the middle of nowhere.

A while ago, our village bus service was cut (by bureaucrats who have probably never caught a bus in their lives), so it's impossible for the boys to get work outside of the village. It works well for them to earn some money doing jobs at the workshop, and it's been really helpful for me to have Joe there today, blending and pugging my clay.

Today we went down to the stream and dug out some more native clay for Matt's tiles and he learned how to remove all the rubbish and then knead it into a usable condition. I want to start training him up on the wheel soon, so this is a good starting point.

Today, he also learned how to make tiles in the Wenford tile mold.Here he is packing the mold
and wiring off the excess
pushing out the tile
and trimming the edges
Completed tiles, toughening up in readiness for decorating next week.