An In-Depth Guide for Hospitality Procurement Managers

When selecting tableware for hotels—whether for guest rooms, restaurants, cafés, banquets, or room service—the choice between bone china, porcelain, and ceramic can feel overwhelming. Each material offers distinct advantages in terms of appearance, durability, cost, and service suitability, and choosing the wrong type may result in breakage, poor presentation, higher replacement costs, or a mismatched brand image.

This guide breaks down everything hotels need to know:

• What are bone china, porcelain, and ceramic?
• Their differences in performance and cost
• How guests perceive each type
• Which material suits which kind of hotel
• Recommendations for restaurants, banquet halls, cafes, and luxury hotels

Let’s dive in.

1. What Is Bone China?

The main distinctive feature of bone china is that it is a premium ceramic made by adding 40–45% bone ash to fine clay and feldspar. This formula creates a material that is:

• Remarkably white and translucent
• Lightweight but surprisingly strong
• Smooth, elegant, and warm in tone
• Highly resistant to chipping

Key Characteristics of Bone China

• High whiteness & translucency: Light can pass through the body, creating a luxurious glow that guests immediately notice.
• Lightweight but strong: It is the strongest type of ceramic tableware due to the bone ash content.
• Premium feel: Associated with luxury dining, 5-star hotels, European afternoon tea, and fine restaurants.
• Ideal for decal printing: Perfect for custom patterns, logo placement, and high-end brand designs.
• Slightly higher cost than porcelain or ceramic.

Common Uses in high-end/5-star Hotels

• Afternoon tea service
• In-room amenities
• Fine dining restaurants
• VIP lounges
• Boutique hotel restaurants
• Specialty cafés

Bone china is chosen when a hotel wants to elevate brand image and enhance the guest dining experience.

2. What Is Porcelain?

Porcelain is made from kaolin clay fired at very high temperatures (around 1300°C). It is a classic mid-to-high-end material widely used across hospitality.

Key Characteristics of Porcelain

• Clean, bright white appearance
• Durable & dense body
• More affordable than bone china
• Microwave & dishwasher safe
• Highly resistant to daily wear
• Smooth surface suitable for repeated commercial use

Common Uses in Hotels

• All-day dining restaurants
• Hotel buffets
• Banquet service
• Room service
• High-traffic cafés and restaurants

Porcelain is a strong, reliable choice for hotels, balancing cost, durability, and aesthetics.

3. What Is Ceramic (Stoneware / Earthenware)?

“Ceramic” is an umbrella term—but in hotel usage, it typically refers to stoneware or earthenware.

Ceramic tableware is made of common clay and fired at lower temperatures, producing a heavier, thicker body.

Key Characteristics of Ceramic

• Thicker and heavier than bone china and porcelain
• Lower cost
• Richer, more rustic appearance
• Can have “artisan” or handmade style
• Less resistant to chipping
• Shorter lifespan in commercial settings

Common Uses in Hotels

• Café-style restaurants
• Breakfast service
• Casual dining
• Rustic or natural-themed outlets
• Artisan-style restaurants

Ceramic is rarely chosen for luxury hotels, but it fits casual dining environments well.

4. Bone China vs Porcelain vs Ceramic: Key Differences

Appearance difference among Bone China vs Porcelain vs Ceramic

Material	Appearance	Whiteness	Style
Bone China	Translucent, elegant	★★★★★	Luxury/Modern
Porcelain	Bright white, smooth	★★★★☆	Practical/classic
Ceramic	Thick, rustic, matte	★★★☆☆	Casual/Natural

Durability

Material	Chip Resistance	Strength	Heat Resistance
Bone China	★★★★☆	★★★★★	High
Porcelain	★★★★☆	★★★★☆	Very High
Ceramic	★★☆☆☆	★★★☆☆	Medium

Weight and cost, and Customization look

Material	Guest Impression	Weight	Cost Range	Customization
Bone China	“Elegant” “High-end” “Luxury hotel experience” Softer touch, warmer tone Elevated dining feeling	Lightest	$$$	Best results, vivid colors
Porcelain	Clean, crisp, professional Standard for modern hotels Feels solid and reliable	Medium	$$	Reliable printing
Ceramic	Rustic, café-style Handmade aesthetic Casual dining atmosphere	Heaviest	$	Not ideal for fine detail

6. Which Material Is Best for Hotels?

Best Choice for Luxury Hotels (4–5 Star, Boutique Properties, High-End Resorts): Bone China

Bone china remains the preferred option for hotels that place guest experience and visual impact at the center of their brand. Its distinctive translucency, soft sheen, and refined touch create an immediate sense of elegance that other materials simply cannot match.

Why luxury hotels lean toward bone china:

• Strengthens brand presence the moment guests sit down — its premium look elevates everything from breakfast service to fine dining.
• Works exceptionally well for custom logos and patterns, giving hotels a consistent and upscale identity across outlets.
• Ideal for afternoon tea, fine-dining venues, and VIP areas, where presentation quality directly influences guest perception.
• Lightweight yet surprisingly strong, offering a delicate feel without sacrificing practical durability.
• Creates a premium dining atmosphere, helping hotels reinforce their positioning and enhance the overall guest impression.

For properties where design, storytelling, and refined details matter, bone china naturally becomes the material of choice.

Best for High-Traffic Restaurants (Business Hotels / 3-Star Properties): Porcelain

Porcelain is the go-to choice for hotels that need tableware capable of handling heavy daily use without compromising appearance. It offers a reliable balance of durability and affordability, making it well-suited for venues where turnover is high and efficiency matters.

Why do many hotels prefer porcelain for busy outlets?

• Delivers strong durability at a practical cost, making it easy to replace or expand sets when needed.
• Handles frequent commercial dishwashing while maintaining its surface gloss and structure.
• Performs well in high-volume service environments, especially during breakfast rushes and dinner shifts.
• Carries a clean, contemporary look that fits effortlessly into most restaurant themes.

Ideal for:

• All-day dining restaurants
• Banquet service
• Room service operations
• Staff canteens and back-of-house dining areas

For hotels focused on efficiency, consistency, and cost control, porcelain provides a dependable and versatile solution.

Best for Casual Dining & Cafés: Ceramic

Ceramic works well for venues that want a relaxed, creative, or home-style atmosphere rather than a formal dining experience. Its charm lies in its texture, warmth, and the wide variety of shapes and glazes available, making it easy to match interior themes or brand aesthetics.

Why do many casual outlets choose ceramic?

• Budget-friendly, suitable for small restaurants or boutique cafés.
• Naturally artistic and rustic, giving tables a handcrafted, cozy feel.
• Flexible in appearance, with endless glaze options that complement Nordic, farmhouse, and modern café interiors.

Ideal for:

• Coffee shops and dessert cafés
• Brunch and breakfast restaurants
• Theme restaurants with rustic or minimalist design

Not recommended for:

• Luxury hotels or fine-dining outlets
• Large hotel chains require long-term consistency
• Heavy commercial usage, as ceramic tends to chip or wear sooner than porcelain or bone china

Ceramic is best when atmosphere and creativity matter more than long-term durability.

7. Recommendations Based on Hotel Type

Choosing the right tableware isn’t simply a matter of comparing materials—it’s about matching what your hotel needs in daily operations, branding, and guest experience. Below is a practical guide to help different hotel categories identify which material fits best.

1. Luxury Hotels, Resorts & Boutique Properties

These hotels place strong emphasis on presentation, guest perception, and brand storytelling. For this segment, bone china usually aligns best with their goals.

Why it fits:

• Enhances the overall dining atmosphere with a refined, luminous appearance
• Works exceptionally well for custom logo or emblem printing
• Lightweight and elegant—ideal for afternoon tea, fine dining, or VIP service
• Complements premium interiors and gives guests a sense of exclusivity

Typical outlets:
Fine dining restaurants · Lobby lounges · Afternoon tea service · VIP floors · In-room dining for premium suites

2. Business Hotels & High-Traffic Restaurants

Mid-range hotels focus on efficiency, durability, and the ability to handle large numbers of guests daily. Porcelain generally provides the most balanced performance.

Why it fits:

• Strong durability for constant commercial washing and stacking
• Reasonably priced even for large operations
• Neutral, modern appearance that suits most hotel décor
• Performs well for breakfast buffets, banquets, and room service

Typical outlets:
All-day dining · Banquet halls · Staff canteens · Standard room service

3. Casual Dining Outlets, Cafés & Themed Venues

Hotels with relaxed cafés or specialty restaurants often want atmosphere and style over strict durability. Ceramic works best in these environments.

Why it fits:

• More artistic and handcrafted-looking, ideal for themed outlets
• Wide variety of glazes and shapes to match interior design
• Perfect for boutique cafés, bakeries, or coffee lounges inside hotels

Typical outlets:
Coffee shops · Brunch cafés · Dessert bars · Farmhouse-style or Nordic-style restaurants.

4. Properties With Multiple Dining Concepts

Many hotels operate several outlets under one roof. In these cases, mixing materials is often more practical than choosing one type for the entire property.

Common pairing strategy:

• Bone china → premium restaurants and high-profile services
• Porcelain → large-volume venues (breakfast, banquets, all-day dining)
• Ceramic → specialty cafés or themed casual outlets

This approach helps hotels balance cost, durability, guest expectation, and brand identity across different dining experiences.

8. Final Verdict: Which Is Best Overall for Hotels?

There is no single “best” material for every hotel. The ideal choice depends on your brand positioning, budget, usage volume, and guest experience goals.

Here is a practical way to think about it:

• Bone China → Ideal for hotels that value refined presentation, luxury branding, and premium guest experience
• Porcelain → A versatile option for most daily hotel operations, balancing durability, appearance, and cost
• Ceramic → Suitable for casual dining concepts, theme restaurants, and high-volume outlets where cost and style flexibility matter

Many hotels benefit from combining different materials across outlets rather than relying on a single solution. For example:

• Bone china for signature restaurants or afternoon tea
• Porcelain for all-day dining and room service
• Ceramic for buffets, cafés, or themed venues

By choosing materials based on each outlet’s unique needs, hotels can optimize both guest satisfaction and long-term cost efficiency.

Our tour guide Jovie talks about the bone china factory tour where you can learn about all aspects of our production processes and techniques and see first-hand the skill, talent, and knowledge that goes into every product.

Bone China factory tour-pictures

Bone china factory tour- video

The video shows how an important part of finalizing the bone china products was done, which is mainly about the decal applying, by preparing decal, whiteware, applying the decal on the whiteware, wiping, quality checking, firing, and you get the final goods.

As easy as the steps might seem, many details need to be taken with great attention to, which can’t be revealed through this short video.

Like we always said, leave it to the professionals. When it comes to the customizing of bone china tableware, talk to us, you will not be disappointed.

As simple and old-fashioned as the factory looks, we have quality products delivered to the world every month. With an experience of more than 10 years, as mentioned in the video, there are a few features keep us standing out in the bone china supply market.

Bone china factory Strengths

1. Located in Tangshan, north China, which is the industry center of fine bone china the world, we have a whole mature supply chain behind us. With the supply of whiteware, the technique of decal development and decal application, the application of color glaze and digital printing, and the wide range of shapes and items, you can find whatever you need regarding bone china here.
2. The strict quality control measurements throughout the entire production procedure of bone china tableware, it was the attention paid to every detail that makes us go far.
3. Our service. The concept of growing together with the clients helps us shape our ways to deal with customers with full passion and professionalism. We do whatever we can to help the growth of our customers’ business.

A few questions you might be interested in.

How many years does our factory exist? Do you have photos of the factory? (this is just only for my documentary flow)

Our factory was established in 2000. Please find the attached factory photos.

What percent of the bone meal does BONE CHINA consist of? 

The bone ash content is around 43%. 

What temperature of firing is it? Is the decal handmade or what type is it? Is it a glaze or an underglaze? 

The decal firing temperature is depending on the actual design, for the color design it’s around 730 cent-degree, the design with gold is around 680 cent-degree, and there are designs requiring firing temperature in between the range to ensure the color is right and the design permanently stays. If you are asking about the whiteware firing temperature, as bone china is 2 times firing products, the firing temperature is 1250 and 1150 cent-degree.  The decal is on the glazing technique, that’s the most commonly used technique, as in-glaze or underglaze can’t reach the vivid and colorful performance.

If is it possible to produce the products with our design?

Yes, as I mentioned before, I recommend you use your own designs.

How many people work in the factory? Are the office and the factory located together?

There are around 40 workers in the factory, we have offices in and outside the factory. 

How many years have you been producing the porcelain products and what countries (maybe, companies) you have already cooperated with? 

We have been producing bone china since when factory was established. We work with companies from the US, UK, AU, VN, France, Italy, Brazil, Turkey, Pakistan, etc. I can’t reveal the companies’ names as the brands prefer to keep that as confidential info. 

Hope the bone china factory tour helped you understand our factory and products, any questions, please feel free to contact us.

How does a delay in supply affect your bone porcelain tableware business?

Why does the delay happen?

How to solve the problem of delaying vessels?

The factors that cause the delay of vessels?

The suggestions from experienced couriers.

How does a delay in supply affect your bone porcelain tableware business?

Any delay is bad for business. A shipment delay tends to affect all aspects of your bone china tableware business.

Unhappy customers

Customers are less likely to buy from a supplier who cannot keep to the promised delivery time when they have multiple choices.

Cash flow trouble

If you don’t deliver your goods on time, and you signed a contract with your end customer, you might face a penalty. This creates not only cash flow problems that affect your day-to-day operations, but also the overall revenue of your business.

Events hold-up

If the delayed bone porcelain is for a big anniversary or a huge event, the delay in supply could mean it would ruin the whole event. By the time the shipment reaches, the bone porcelain tableware might be worth nothing. This is a terrible accident we need to avoid.

Additional expense

Having your shipment stuck in a port for an extended period of time (no matter what’s the cause), will have demurrage, detention, and port storage charges, which can prove costly.

Why does the delay happen?

The delay of the supply could be of many reasons—most from 2 main parts. The bone china tableware manufacturer part and the shipment delay, and there are many reasons that account for both. In this article, we are going to focus on the delay of the shipments. We will discuss the delay caused by the manufacturer in another article.

Factors that cause the delay shipments

Some of the most common reasons for shipment delays are

1. Vessel delays.

Bad weather, port congestion, strikes, container shortages, and changes in service schedule can delay shipments’ departure, arrival, loading, and unloading. Additionally, ships can get held up at sea due to navigational hazards (floating ice) and technical malfunctions. Delays also occur when the ship takes a detour, makes additional stops, or skips a port. According to a Schedule Reliability report covering the east-west trade lanes, less than 50% of ships were on time while 10% were late by three days in 2019.

2. Overbooking and rollovers

Shipping lines are known to overbook carriers in anticipation of last-minute cancellations and no-shows. When a ship is overbooked, it might stop your cargo from being loaded and roll it over to another vessel that sails at a later date.          

3. Carrier space shortage

The carrier space shortage can be attributed to an overall shipping slowdown brought about by Covid-19. In the first half of 2020, carriers announced record blanked sailings in response to unprecedented booking cancellations and no-shows and plunging container volumes. With fewer ships sailing, shippers struggled with reduced carrier space.

At the same time, thousands of full containers were stranded at ports for months as a result of government-imposed lockdowns. This created a container shortage. With the outlook for global trade still risky, analysts say tactical sailing cancellations by carriers will continue for some time. General rate increase.

Another price deterrent that could push back your shipment is a general rate request (GRI) – a base price hike implemented by carriers in response to high demand. 

4. Peak season.

Carrier space is tight and prices are high during the August-November peak season when traders ship at higher volumes to catch the Christmas and New Year holiday shopping season. (In India, the peak season falls in February-March, coinciding with the harvest season.)

5. Holidays.

Major holidays such as Chinese New Year, Golden Week, and Eid also see demand and prices go up, and crowded ports cause shipment delays.

6. Falling imports and exports

The drop in shipments, on the other hand, is a direct result of falling global imports and exports, again due to Covid-19. Exports fell 15% while imports contracted by 13.6% in the April-June quarter, according to this World Trade Organisation report.

North America recorded the steepest fall in exports (24.5%) while imports declined the most in Europe (19.3%). The report, however, showed a declining trend in exports and imports since the fourth quarter (October-December) of 2019, before the pandemic hit the global economy with full force.

With trading down, shipment volume has also dropped sharply this year. The good news, though, is that China – the world’s largest exporting nation by value and a manufacturing powerhouse – is showing signs of recovery with exports and imports picking up strongly.    

7. Customs hold-ups.

Violations such as incorrect cargo declaration and incomplete documentation can lead to your containers being held up for customs inspection and examination.     

8. Transshipments and vessel sharing.

A transshipment is when a shipment is moved from one carrier to another when in transit. Your cargo might have to be transshipped if there is no direct route between your ports of origin and destination. A missed transshipment can cause a delay of days, even weeks.      

There are instances where two or more shipping lines share vessels on a specific route to expand their service network. When you make a booking with one such company, your cargo is transported part of the way by another company. The two might not use the same routes and your shipment might end up on a ship with a longer route, thus shipment delay happens.          

9. External factors

Then there are conditions you have no control over, such as wars, terrorist attacks, piracy, natural disasters, vessel collisions, and lost or stolen cargo.

What we can do to avoid the shipment delay?                

A few tips that can help secure the on-time delivery of our goods.

1. Deal with a trustworthy supplier.

Emphasis the importance of on-time delivery of your bone china tableware with your supplier, especially if it’s for an event or some important occasion, work out the production arrangement, and the time-table for production together and check frequently according to that.

2. Work with experienced and professional couriers.

A professional courier is of the same importance as a great bone china tableware manufacturer. It plays a vital role in the successful and timely delivery of your bone china tableware. While many importers focus on selecting the manufacturer and neglected the importance of finding a good courier. Below is the advice from the courier we’ve been working with for the past 10 years.

3. Price is not the No.1 priority.

There are plenty of couriers who offer cheaper prices for the same route, however, in a mature business world. There is a balance between price and cost. Super low prices could result in a few problems mentioned above.

4. Book in advance: But how early is early enough?

It depends. Stay in touch with the courier, check in advance to see if the space is tight. They will advise you when you should book for a particular line.

Before booking, find out the transit time and then add a few extra days as a buffer. This is critical when shipping during peak seasons and holidays when ports are more likely to be congested.  

5. Plan your shipment well  

Booking early isn’t enough. Proper planning is just as important if you want your deliveries to be on time and your customers happy.

While booking, mention the correct number of packages and double-check your cargo details

Make sure the packaging, labeling, and dimensions are appropriately noted.

Ensure your shipment is picked up and gated in on time. connect with reliable transport providers who will guarantee your cargo is on time  

Share the shipping schedule with your freight forwarder, customs agent, or customer.

Prepare and submit documents on time. Make sure they are accurate and complete to avoid delays and extra costs.

6. Buy insurance

Insurance is a service that protects shippers against lost, stolen, or damaged packages. If an insured package does not reach its destination, or if it is damaged when it’s delivered, then the shipper is reimbursed the declared value of the items in the package. Different companies have different rates for the packages, you need to check with them if you want to do it.

7. Set a mechanism to deal with the delay of goods.

If a shipment delay happens, to minimize its bad influence on the selling, we need to have a set of coping methods, like informal the buyers in advance, making a backup plan, etc. Customers are more forgiving when you’re transparent about the reasons for the shipment delay and the adjusted shipping dates.  

Communication Can Help retain Customers who experience late deliveries, while nobody is happy about receiving a late delivery, consumers do understand that weather emergencies and product shortages can cause delays.

Offering a credit, shipping refund, or free gift to customers whose deliveries are late shows that you value their business. These types of small gestures can help you retain customers who otherwise may not return.

By communicating in a way that’s honest, transparent, and generous, you can significantly increase the chances of keeping your customers despite a poor delivery experience.

Conclusion

No matter the quality of your company’s product, your customers will not buy it if you can’t deliver it on time. Very few— if any — companies have the luxury of being late on final product deliveries while simultaneously being able to keep their customers satisfied and coming back for more over the long term.

It’s essential for your to keep your bone china tableware products arrive on time, which means you have to supervise the performance of the supplier and well as the courier, the shipment, to ensure everything is on track.

Above are a few measurements we can take to help to avoid the shipment delay of our bone china tableware. In some cases, delay still happens. However, such actions can help us avoid the situation caused by people, while the unpredictable situation, like hurricanes, or COVID, we just leave it to luck.

Introduction

This article is about the COVID policies in China, a close introduction to the impact of COVID on the bone china industry in Tangshan, China.

What’s China’s COVID control policy?

China’s COVID control measurements’ impact on the economy

COVID impact on bone china industry in China

Suggestions for the buyers who need to import bone china products from China

China’s COVID control policy

What’s China’s COVID control policy?

COVID has been spread for about 3 years now, and the policies to fight it differ from time to time, from place to place. To minimize the impact of the epidemic on the economy, society, production, and people’s normal lives, and to balance the prevention and control of this disease with socio-economic stability, China adopted a new strategy called “Dynamic COVID-zero” from August 2021.

The core is to take effective and comprehensive measures to deal with localized COVID-19 cases precisely, to quickly cut off the transmission chain, and end the epidemic in a timely manner (to “find one, end one”). In other words, China took precise prevention and control measures to quickly find, control, and cure infected people in each cluster outbreak within a specific geographic region to avoid affecting social and economic development in other regions, so as to achieve the maximum effect at the lowest cost.

How does it work?

 When there is a local recurrence, epidemic prevention staff will quickly find close contacts using new technologies like big data analysis before the spread in the golden response time (within 24 hours after each outbreak). The aim is to find and control potentially infected individuals in advance and try to end the outbreak within one or two maximum incubation periods (Figure 2). Big data technology can quickly identify close contacts and risk groups, helping to implement precise prevention and control measures.

The formulation and implementation of this strategy require extensive community involvement, government funding guarantees, application of new technology, motivating mechanisms, constraint mechanisms, and a resilient health system. Strict quarantine and management measures can be subsequently implemented.

This strategy is a summary of China’s experience in dealing with the spread of the Delta variant, considering how to control the epidemic at a higher level, at a lower cost, and in a shorter time.

How does COVID-19 affect China’s economy?

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting families, networks, and organizations worldwide;  It not only harms people’s health, but it has also harmed countries’ financial activities. Controlling the epidemic has necessitated monstrous lockdowns and travel restrictions in China, which have changed human behaviors and hampered contemporary exercises, posing challenges and vulnerabilities to the national economy and human social systems.

China was the first country to announce COVID-19 and is the best at mitigating the pandemic’s effects back to 2020, while the world was fighting the virus and in lockdowns, we were living a relatively free life and factories functioned normally. While the Omicron, with its sneaky and hidden features, has now placed great pressure on China, the rest of the world is trying to gradually get back to normal.

In the first half year of 2022, with the outburst of COVID in Shanghai, China has seen its worst COVID outbreak since the initial height of the pandemic in early 2020 — when the economy contracted. The latest surge in cases, which stems from the highly transmissible omicron variant, has forced some manufacturing hubs across the country to suspend or limit production.

The omicron wave “could cause significant downside to China’s GDP growth and disruption to the global supply chains in the near term, and potentially accelerate the decoupling and supply chain relocation in the medium term.” considering the spillover effect on other regions, the lockdown and tightened quarantine measures this round could potentially deduct ~0.5-0.8 ppt of GDP growth in Q1, assuming no policy responses.

The impact of COVID on the foreign trade business

The external demand shrank dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For one thing, New export orders of some manufacturing enterprises dropped sharply, and even the ones already in production were canceled. As high as 57.7% of the companies reported a lack of demand, and that it will take time to recover as some are facing difficulties in sales. For another thing,  the drop in the new export orders sub-index indicates that the pandemic’s impact on the world economy and international trade has emerged, putting downward pressure on China’s exports. 

With local clustered epidemics have occurred in many places in our country, mainly of the Omicron variant, while compared to some large countries, the cases roll may seem small, but since China has taken a zero-tolerance approach to outbreaks that calls for stringent lockdowns as well as mass testing and quarantine in government facilities. the aggressive measures are taken to contain it has affected the Chinese economy. Many factories are claiming to have a difficult this year.

as the industry center for the world, we’ve suffered a series of problems caused by COVID. Lockdowns have also suspended work at ceramic factories, orders can’t deliver on time.in the industry has been hit hard by the epidemic and the ensuing lockdown, the influence depending on how long the restrictions last.

Cities have closed highway exits or demanded that each driver show a negative P.C.R. test — requirements that have also created miles-long lines of trucks trying to carry crucial raw material among factories and for the drivers who get the containers back and from the port for the delivery of the cargoes. The convenience slows down the speed of production as well as the delivery.

Trucks are being delayed by the testing of drivers. Container rates are rising as ships wait for many hours at ports. Products are piling up in warehouses.

A series of such serious problems have contributed to the drop in sales for international businesses.

COVID impact on bone china industry in China

For the bone china industry, COVID’s impact on the bone china industry is very bad, undoubtedly had a significant impact on the industry, with production lines being shut down, supply networks being disrupted, and customer demand being reduced.

Here in Tangshan, China, we’ve suffered from a 2-month long production disruption due to the outbroke of COVID since late March, production has gradually gotten back to normal since late May.

The ceramic industry has been severely disrupted since mid-March due to strict quarantine restrictions, unlike some firms that can work remotely at home, all the ceramic products need to be done in the workshop. Even after the COVID gets controlled, ceramic manufacturers’ near-term challenges remain, despite the partial resumption of production from mid-April, including worker immobility, raw material shortages, and logistical hurdles.

People are required to wear masks all the time in public places and pay attention to personal hygiene, stay at a social distance, tests are taken on a weekly basis for the early detection of COVID, and factories and facilities are educated to pay close attention to daily sterilize to ensure the safety of the working environment. Prevention drills are taking place so that the government is ready to seal up affected areas and launch a testing scheme once the infection is detected.

All these measures are taken to prevent the spread of COVID.

Suggestions for people who are importing bone china from China.

There is no firm answer to the questions like “Will your bone china factory function normally during the epidemic” “When will the isolation end” or “When can you resume work” if there are new cases of COVID in your city. Experience from previous is that once there are any new cases, the government will do whatever it can to control it, at the cost of the economy, especially in the middle or small cities With uncertainty in scale and duration of the restrictions.

However, the following tips might help your business to function smoothly and get your bone china products on time during the difficult time.

Seek backup suppliers, especially from two different regions. it will help you respond swiftly when one place is locked down. If there is a time that be prepared for rainy days, it is now. Having a backup supplier in place will help companies get products out on time and with minimal disruptions caused by an unexpected increase in demand or regulatory issues with a primary source, thus ensuring a timely delivery schedule and ensuring a continuous supply of bone china products.

To customize products, may seem tricky at the beginning, but while timely delivery means even more than the price in international trading, the efforts are necessary for the business to operate or even grow in the difficult time.

Working with a responsive supplier and staying in close connection with your supplier. Always keep in pace with the status of the city, the factory, and the production, so you can get the timely information needed for the reaction if anything unexpected happened.

Make an annual plan and place orders in advance, to give your Chinese supplier, or I would rather say partner, to have more time to prepare what you need, they can be aware of what is safe and necessary to prepare in advance and make arrangements that best fit your needs, thus minimum the influence of the COVID to your business. While even the most prepared businesses will be impacted by these new lockdowns in China, as flexibility within the supply chain is minimal, what we can do is work full speed when we can.

Check out more articles from our site.

The Ultimate Guide: Customizing bone china mugs

“We’d like to commission a relatively small order of customizing bone china mugs with our art design (two different designs on, say 50 mugs of each design). We’d like straight-sided mugs with a large handle and a capacity of around 300mls. Could you tell us what it would cost to order these from you + shipping and how we would proceed?”

“Hi, would you be willing to manufacture a small quantity tea set? around 50 pieces each?”

“I have my own design, can you print my design on your sets? What is the minimum order quantity?”

“I would like more information on pricing for this product with my own custom artwork. Also, what is the minimum order?”

The keywords here are small quantity, customize design, cost, if those are the topics concern you, please read.

The 3 key factors determining the cost are the product, the package, the shipping cost, and the choice of each factor to determine the overall cost.

The topics of this article include the following.

1. What’s the advantage of bone china mugs comparing to porcelain and ceramic mugs.

2. What is the procedure of customizing bone china mugs.

3. What’s the minimum order quantity.

4. How much is the cost of the customizing bone china mug.

5. How much is the freight.

6. What kind of services do we provide.

When you require a refined, premium coffee mug or teacup, you can’t go past the beautiful bone china range of drinkware. If you want to customize a mug for business use, bone china is the premium choice you can’t miss. It is a more elegant and refined type of porcelain developed in 1748 and is claimed to genuinely improve the taste of a cup of tea or coffee.

1. Advantage of bone china mugs comparing to porcelain and ceramic mugs.

While bone china has a well-earned reputation for being a premium product, due to the complexity of the production and firing process, we are proud to offer products made of quality fine bone china without the huge price tag. Each mug is expertly crafted using traditional production techniques and fully customized with your promotional branding. Bone china mugs make perfect executive gifts and are bound to be regularly used by your recipients.

Bone China is recognizable across the world for its high mechanical strength and strong resistance to chipping, which makes bone china mugs ideal for corporate campaigns that require products of high quality. Lightweight and comprised of thin phosphate-derived porcelain, bone china mugs can be fully branded to showcase your corporate logo or personal design, it is the preferable choice for high-end gift and promotional choices.

Non-Lead. Health and Eco-friendly are our principles. The bone china is famous for its low lead and cadmium content. (see test result). It has a good appearance and is also a healthy choice.

2. What is the procedure of customizing bone china mugs.

The procedure of customizing bone china mugs can be described as below.

1. Select the ideal mug shape.

2. Send over the design you want to develop.

3. Determine the design effect, like the size of the logo, the position of the design or logo, whether you want gold or silver decoration at the rim or handle.

4.Determine the order quantity, the package, and delivery time.

5. Factory evaluates the cost based on the above information.

6. Sampling. After confirm the shape, design, quantity, package, unit price, sampling charge, delivery time, we will start sampling. The sampling time depends on the difficulty of the design after the sample is done, we can take the photo or send the sample to the client for approval or improve adjustment.

7. Bulk order confirm. After the sample is approved, we will start bulk production. Before that, a deposit is required before the production. Depending on the total amount, the deposit can be 30%, or 50%, or the full amount.

8. Bulk order production arrangement. The production of bulk orders is around 30-60 days depending on the difficulty of the project and the production arrangement. If the client is of urgent need, please notify the manufacturer for coordination.

9. Quality check and prepare for shipment. When the production is about to finish, we will notify the buyer of the rest payment and arrange to ship.

10. Provide the necessary documents for shipping and assist with the custom clearance.

3. Minimum order quantity of customizing bone china mugs.

The MOQ(minimum order quantity) of the customizing bone china mug varies, depending on the difficulty of the design. Usually, the order quantity we suggest starting with is 500pcs/design.

As explained in the article, MOQ of Custom Bone China Mugs, if customers use the existing mug shape, the MOQ mainly comes from the decal printing which is used for the realizing of the design.

Decal paper is used to decorate the surface of bone China products, that’s how we do custom design.

The production of decal paper involves a series of processes, (check the making process), each decal paper sheet is of the size 700*500 mm. Within this area, we can layout different items with customer’s designs, like mugs, plates, etc. To better control the cost, the decal production manufacturers require a minimum order of 200 sheets based on each design. This is the major factor we use in measuring a bone china project is worth developing or not.

In the article MOQ of Custom Bone China Mugswe have a detailed explanation of the layout. Here we just list the conclusion.

For 1-3 color designs, the MOQ is 300.

For designs with more colors, if the customer just wants to develop a mug, the MOQ is 1000.

Ways to decrease the MOQ

A. Develop a series of products instead of a single mug.

B. Pay deposit for the left decal for future use.

As mentioned above, the MOQ of multiple color design is 1000, while if the customer finds the quantity is difficult to start with, we can start with 500, and stock the rest decal for a repeat order. Thus customer needs to pay the cost of the decal of the rest 500, and this amount will be deducted when the customer places a repeated order.

C. Develop similar designs at the same time.

A similar design means designs of the same colors. If designs are of the same colors, we can lay them on the same layout, thus the quantity of each design is reduced.

D. Accept some increased costs of each unit.

There is no doubt that a big quantity always means a better price. When we can’t reach the MOQ, there is an all-covered cost charged for the decals, which means the cost of developing decals for 1000 and 500 is the same if we only produce 500 pieces, the unit cost of each mug will increase. This applies to one-time development.

4. How much is the cost of the customizing bone china mug.

The unit price of customizing bone china mugs depends on the information mentioned above, we can not give a quote unless we got the full information needed for the project. However, we can provide economical bone china options for the following reasons.

Direct from factory.

Without the middle man, and with our one-stop service, you can save a bunch of time and cost. This allows for considerable savings in production.

Geographic advantage.

Tangshan is the industry center of bone china in China, this gives us the advantage of multiple choices, low price, as well as great quality.

Professionalism.

Been in this field for more than 15 years, We are a professional bone china tableware manufacturer, with rich experience in developing customizing bone china mugs projects. If you are looking for a solid customizing bone china mug supplier, you are in the right place.

Strict quality control

Top-notch raw materials were chosen to ensure the best quality, skilled workers strictly follow the international standard of producing.

Strict quality control measurements are conducts throughout the entire production process.

Inner QC online and third-party QC for finished customizing bone china mugs. we aim at saving your time and energy for after-sale service.

5. How much is the freight?

The freight of the customizing bone china mugs depends on two things, the delivery method and the weight/size of the goods.

Delivery method

Getting your products across swiftly is essential for customer satisfaction, and getting them across inexpensively is essential for your financial results. So choosing the right mode of transportation is key to an efficient and cost-effective international arrangement.

The four main modes of international transport are road, sea, rail, and air. Each mode has its perks, drawbacks, and conditions pertaining to the type of goods being exported or imported.

Among them, the most commonly used methods are sea and air. Your choice of transport is heavily dependent on your type of goods and the business requirements needed for the venture. You should match the transport mode with your goods to balance service, quality, cost, organization, and time. For example, comparing air and sea delivery, the sea delivery is slow but cheap, the air is fast but expensive.

For a small quantity business, freight is a big concern, as in most cases, the freight can be as much as the value of the goods.

Revenue Ton.

A revenue ton is a unit measure used in marine transport, on which a shipment is freighted. Cargo is rated as weight or measure (W/M) depending on the commodity. Weights are based on metric tons and 1 metric ton = 1,000 Kilograms (2,205 lbs.) Measures are based on cubic meters (M3).

Regardless of which method is used, the one that produces the highest revenue, between the weight calculation, or the measurement calculation, will be considered the revenue ton.

To simply put, a pack of foam, even though the weight is very light, the freight is collected by the measurement instead of the weight.

In the case of customizing bone china mugs, as most of the products are individually packed and some with EPE, the freight is usually collected by measurements. Therefore, the sizes of the boxes matter in determining the freight.

For whichever transportation method, we need to confirm the quantity and the preferable transportation choice to ask the forwarder for the quote of freight, and given the current fluctuation of the ocean and air freight, the exact quote can only be provided when the goods are ready.

6. What kind of services do we provide.

Here at Longway Ceramics, we are trying to provide a one-stop service of customizing bone china mugs to our clients if needed. From the idea of developing the project to the package design, and delivery to local warehouse assistant if needed.

Package development

The packaging attracts the customer’s attention and turns it into interest. Some people think that “every package is a billboard.” Good package design of the customizing bone china mugs can improve the attractiveness of the products, the value of the packaging itself can also attract consumers’ desire to buy a product. In addition, increasing the attractiveness of the packaging is less costly than increase the unit price of the bone porcelain product.

Here we have different package options for customers’ selection, customers can choose the method that tailed to their needs. There is no perfect solution to all requirements, you need to balance among look, cost, and function. As mentioned before, the package method of customizing bone china mugs affects the freight cost too.

The detailed disucssion about the package desgin of customizing bone china mugs can be found in the article. 3 Ways of Package Design for Bone Porcelain Giftware

A qualified or good package design should meet the below requirements.

1. Protect the safety of the goods against breakage or damage, porcelain is a kind of fragile material, even though bone china is relatively strong, it is still fragile needs to handle with care.

2. Providing convenience like bar-code or description information for the customer to easily identify the products inside.

3. Help improve the brand image or can help the products sell at a higher price thus create profit.

The detailed discussion and options about the package design can be found here.3 Ways of Package Design for Bone Porcelain Giftware.

Transportation assist

You can skip this part if you are an experienced importer.

We will assist with all the documents and certifications needed for the smooth transportation of your customizing bone china mugs. As most of the first-time clients don’t have much experience regarding international transportation or customs clearance, we can assist with these if needed.

However, the forwarder in China still need to cooperate with local forwarder and forwarder at your place would know the local policy and situation better, for the long development of your business, we suggest you contact a few local forwarders for suggestions and services.

Other products sourcing service

You can find nearly everything you want in China. For some clients, we offer sourcing services for the other products they are interested in and help deliver together with the bone china products they made. This would help them save time and energy dealing with different suppliers in China.

For more information about your own customizing bone china mugs project, please feel free to send us your design. If you have more questions about the topic, please send us message via the form below.

How to Check the Quality of Bone China Ceramic Tableware

Introduction

People always say they want good quality products, how do we determine the quality of bone china ceramic tableware? What’s the checklist for quality? How do I find out if the products’ quality is good enough? Here comes the topic: Checklist for bone china ceramic tableware’s quality.

This subject main includes 3 categories.

1.The basic principles for bone china ceramic tableware quality checking.

2.Appearance quality check for certain bone china ceramic tableware products.

2.1 checklist for bone china ceramic plates and bowls

2.2 checklist for bone china ceramic cups and saucers

2.3 checklist for bone china ceramic teapots

3. Other quality factors for bone china ceramic tableware.

3.1 Handle and mouth bearing inspection

3.2 Surface scratches inspection

3.3 Dishwasher resistance test

3.4 Microwave oven resistance test

Some basic rules of daily-use ceramic products

1, The product can not have chips, cracks, or other serious quality conditions. Touch and feel with your hands to check the glaze surface to see if it’s smooth or if there are any bumps or uneven dots.

2, The shape should be circumscribed, put the bone china ceramic products in an even place and observe, it should stable sit and with small or no deformation.

3, Hold the bone china ceramic products on the palm of your hand, gently knock the surface with your fingers, or knock two pieces with each other, if the sound is crisp, indicating good quality; while if it’s of dull or hoarse sound, it indicates that there is a breakage or not fired well.

4.If the bone china ceramic is of pattern or with gold or silver, rub it hard with your finger to see if the color and gold wear off.

5.If the tableware is with a pattern, check whether the pattern’s color, location, shape, size are the same as the customer’s requirement, whether there is a missing pattern at certain places.

6.If the tableware is of a set, like 61 pieces of bone china ceramic tableware, we need to check each piece’s glaze color, pattern, luster, style, it should be consistent and proportionate. The color of each piece should be the same or very similar.

Different kind of ceramic has its features. For example, for good quality bone china tableware, the plates or bowls should be milk-white, very thin, and light with uniformed thickness.

Generally, for the daily-use tableware products like bowls, teapots, mugs, cups, the inner side is of plain white color, for plates and saucers, the middle area is usually without any decoration either. People tend to think plain white tableware is better for people’s health.

Daily ceramic products can be divided into bowls, plates, cups, pots, sugar pots, milk jars, and others such as spoons, soup tureens, salt-and-pepper bottles, etc. .

The following testing requirements apply to all ceramic products.

Appearance quality check for certain bone china ceramic tableware products

Appearance inspection includes the following aspects.

2.1 checklist for bone china ceramic plates and bowls

1. The number of black spots and glaze defects. The permissible number of defects varies according to different factors, such as the type, the size of the black spot, the apparent and non-apparent side. For example, for the visible side of the plate, the number of defects of black spots should be less than 2, tints should be less than 2, the missing glaze should be less than 2, the combination of different defects should be less than 2.

 For the non-visible side, the number of defects mentioned above should be less than 3.

2 Observe the shape of the ware to see if there is any deformation. The larger the size of the daily-use ceramic products, the more easily they be deformed. The shape should be round, square, or in line with the requirements of the customers.

3. Observe if the bottom is flat. Place the ceramic product on a flat surface to see if there is any shaking.

4. Check if there is a black background situation at the bottom. If the black part exceeds 1/4 of the total area, the product is not up to standard.

5.Observe whether the bottom is smooth after being polished. The polished bottom should be even and there should be no dent marks. Touch your hands to see if it’s sharp, otherwise, people would be easily got hurt when using it.

6.The logo should be centered at the bottom.

7. The products should be clean. If the products are dirty, inspectors should inform the factory for improvement in time to avoid future potential quality disputes.

8. Packaging should not be loose, the packaging should meet the export packaging requirements, easy for handling and transportation.

9. Shape and size should be strictly consistent with the customer’s requirements. For size less than 9 inches (including 9), the size error can not exceed 3%; For size, more than 9 inches, (excluding 9”) size error can not exceed 2.5%.

2.2 checklist for bone china ceramic cups and saucers

For cups and saucers, other requirements include the following aspects.

1.The color of cup and saucer to be consistent, color variation should be avoided, especially for color glaze products.

2.The bottom plate center can not be too large, and can not be too shallow, it should fit the bottom of the cup well, if the cup can easily slide out of the middle concave area, it means the saucer is not fit or qualified.

3.The cup handle jointed to the cup can not have a crack, the handle must be in the correct position and not out of alignment.

4.Cup, dish class size error can not exceed 3%.

2.3 checklist for bone china ceramic teapots

1.The spout can not be deformed, nor can it have an extra glaze on it. The teapot handle jointed to the teapot can not have a crack.

2.The flowing water hole of the teapot needs to be in the right position, neatly arranged, of the same size and unobstructed, not too small or too large.

3.Put the lid on and shake it slightly to see if the teapot lid is firm enough to match the teapot. Pour water to see if the lid comes off easily.

4.The teapot, handle and lid of the pot can not appear as obviously touchable mold line.

5.The teapot lid and teapot body’s color should be consistent, color variation should be avoided, especially for color glaze products.

2.4 checklist for bone china ceramic spoon

Special attention needs to be paid to the spoon.

Spoon: the hole on the hand should be located in the same position and be in the middle, the hole should be smooth, without any stains. size error can not exceed 3%.

3.Special quality checklist for bone china ceramic tableware.

3.1 The bearing capacity test of the handle and mouth

The hollow products, such as cups, pots, etc., are often used to hold food, and these products have external components such as handles, mouths, etc., which can be used to lift objects to move if the bearing capacity is not enough, it is easy to break when using, especially when the food is heated inside the container, there could be human casualties.

3.2 Surface Scratch Test

Scratch is inevitable as the plates are usually used together with knives and forks. While the scratch affects the appearance greatly.

The appearance of scratch is closely related to the hardness of the surface glaze, and the data from the test method stipulated by Vickers hardness standard are different from the actual use, so now some companies use Mohs hardness, metal knife, fork scratches, or with sandpaper friction method for testing.

3.3 Dishwasher resistance test

For the Dishwasher test, the main test is about the ability of resistant acid detergent or alkali detergent, neutral detergent ability in the dishwasher washing process.

3.4 Microwave Oven Test

Microwave oven resistance testing can be divided into three categories.

1. The damage detection to the decorative surfaces by the microwave.
2. The influence of the microwave on the temperature of the surface of the product.
3. Detection of product damage by the microwave.

The details of the various tests will be explained in a separate article.

Conclusion

The quality inspection of ceramic products should be carried out in every step of production, to effectively avoid the appearance of defective products. How to conduct the quality check, you can refer to our work procedure. The Guide to Bone China Tableware Quality Control

The article explains the aspects of the inspection. Buyers can check their products against the checklist above to see if the products they got are qualified or not thus they can find whether their suppliers are qualified.

Product quality is related to the development and image of enterprises. As one of our clients put it.“Remember, the most important 3 things are always quality, quality, quality.” It always plays an important role in the development of enterprises. 

Introduction

Aside from decal application, there is a technology that’s been widely used on bone china plates, mugs, cups, and saucers in recent years, which is color glaze bone china ceramic tableware. In this article, we are going to discuss this technology.

This article mainly includes the following topics.

• What’s the color glaze bone china ceramic?
• Features of color glaze bone china ceramic.
• Difference between high-temperature glaze and low-temperature glaze.
• Is color glaze bone china ceramic safe?
• Color glaze bone china ceramic tableware products demonstration

1 What’s the color glaze bone china ceramic?

Porcelain uses clay, kaolin as raw material, processed into a variety of shapes of the body and then sprayed a layer of white glaze, and then fire in kiln for a few hours to form a transparent glazed layer.

The difference between bone china and ceramics mainly includes two aspects-raw material and firing process.

Bone China’s raw materials include a certain amount of animal bone powder to make the finished product thinner and tougher, with the bone ash added in, the molding is more difficult. Meanwhile, two times of firing are required in the making process, which are called biscuit firing and glaze firing.

The detailed information can be found in the article: All you want to know about fine bone china.

With the layer of transparent glaze on the surface of fired porcelain, the porcelain shows the characteristics of light and delicate. The existence of glaze makes the ceramic tableware chemical stable, acid, and alkali resistant, not easy to engage in a chemical reaction with the food or water. It also makes the tableware easy to clean, water can wash off stains and the low water absorption rate makes the ceramic surface dense with fewer pores, thus not easy to penetrate water or scratch.

In addition to the transparent glaze mentioned above, some consumers now like to use a variety of colors of glaze decoration tableware, so there is an additional decoration method in addition to decal applying, which is called the color glaze. In the application of bone china ceramic tableware, a layer of color glaze is sprayed on the surface of bone china which has already been sprayed with a transparent glaze and then fired.

Bone China color glaze mug

2 Features of color glaze bone china ceramic.

2.1 Available in a variety of colors.

Different colors are available for color glaze bone china ceramic. Color glaze raw material factory can blend many colors as customer requirements to achieve different decorative effects.

2.2 High cost.

Raw materials for color glaze and the transparent glaze are not the same. Color glaze raw materials are divided into the low-temperature color glaze and high-temperature color glaze. To ensure the follow-up application of decal or gold-applying decoration, the high-temperature color glaze is used here. The cost of high-temperature color glaze is higher than that of low-temperature color glaze.

(color glazed cup and saucer with decal printing and gold decoration)

2.3 The process is demanding.

While the ceramic glazes are generally conducted in two ways spraying glazes by machine or hands, the colored glazes can only be sprayed by hand. To avoid the situation that the colors sprayed are different or missing, the technical requirements for glazing workers are higher than those for white porcelain glazing.

(man-made spray)

2.4 Stability

Although the color glaze sprays on the transparent glaze surface, after firing, the pigment soluble in the transparent glaze, which is in fact in-glaze color, so the color is stable, not easy to scratch.

3.difference between high-temperature glaze and low-temperature glaze

The difference between high-temperature glaze and low-temperature glaze mainly includes the following aspects. Firing temperature, characteristics, color, feel, sound, porcelain texture, water absorption, and so on.

3.1 Different temperatures

High-temperature glaze: firing temperature is about 1300 degrees.

Low-temperature glaze: firing temperature is about 800degrees.

3.2 Features difference

High-temperature glaze: high-temperature glaze firm, corrosion resistance, resistance to friction.

Low-temperature glaze: low-temperature glaze is relatively weak, easy to fall off.

3.3 Colors difference

High-temperature glaze: high-temperature glaze porcelain compared to low-temperature glazed porcelain, color is more vivid n smooth.

Low-temperature glaze: the color of low-temperature glazed porcelain is relatively dull.

3.4 Feel difference

High-temperature glaze: high-temperature glaze porcelain feels more smooth.

Low-temperature glaze: low-temperature glazed porcelain is slightly rough.

3.5 Tapping sound difference

High-temperature glaze: high-temperature glaze of porcelain beating out the sound crisper.

Low-temperature glaze: the sound of low-temperature glazed porcelain knocking is relatively dull.

3.6 Texture

High-temperature glaze: hardness of high-temperature glaze porcelain is more solid than low-temperature glaze porcelain .

Low-temperature glaze: low-temperature glazed porcelain is more fragile;

3.7 Water absorption difference

High-temperature glaze: high-temperature porcelain water absorption rate is lower.

Low-temperature glaze: the water absorption of low-temperature porcelain is higher.

4. Is color glaze bone china ceramic safe?

It is common sense for people to think that when the color is too bright, the ceramic tableware is more likely to be poisonous. Is it correct?

The answer is not affirmative. It greatly depends on the glaze material and the firing temperature.

As mentioned above, Raw materials are divided into the low-temperature color glaze and high-temperature color glaze. The low-temperature glaze firing temperature is 800 degrees, after firing, with color glaze is on the transparent glazed surface, there is a risk of falling off. If the color glaze used contains lead, the color glaze may ingest into the human body, causing health problems.

The firing temperature of high temperature colored glaze is 1200°C. In the high-temperature firing, color glaze soluble in transparent glaze inside, because the glaze itself is dense, the color glaze is not easy to dissolve, so it’s relatively safe.

As for raw materials, to control budget, some manufacturers might choose cheap raw materials, these raw materials are more likely to contain lead and other harmful substances, certain harmful ingredients may spill out at temperatures ranging from 600 °C to 800 °C, or lead may leach out by the organic acids in food when food contact with pigments.

Therefore, in the purchase of bone china ceramic tableware, customers should choose the large-scale mall or these quality assured shops. As the daily use of dinnerware affects our health, it is recommended that you take it seriously.

The lead leaking can be avoidable with proper firing temperature and environment, technology, and the choice of qualified raw materials. So when you want to custom color glaze ceramic products, you should choose a professional manufacturer that can be trusted.

Color glaze bone china ceramic tableware products demonstration.

To see more of our products, please view here:

Conclusion.

Feel free to leave a reply if you have more color glaze bone china ceramic tableware-related questions!

Digital printing decals is not a new technology, but the usage on bone china tableware, it is still new application with much potential.

Background

Years ago I have a client asking me what was the printing technical way was using. It was actually a very professional question, as for many of our clients, they didn’t know which printing method used nor did they care, all they want is the right effect for their patterns or designs they are using.

He was reluctant when he heard the answer of silk printing.  It took me great effort to persuade him that we could achieve great effect with this technique and this the technique we that have been used for decades. At last, he gave it a try and the result was not quite satisfying and we didn’t close the deal.

It was until last year that the digital printing applying on the decal started to emerge in the tableware decal printing market here. It is also till then that I found that digital printing decal method was the technique he was looking for. The exact effects of the designs no matter how difficult the designs are.

What’s digital printing decals

While the most commonly used method for decal printing is silk screen printing, also known as the traditional decal printing method, it requires the steps of separating the colors, set up layouts, print each color each time see bone china decal paper production process.

Digital printing decals is a method of printing from a digital-based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small-run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large-format and/or high-volume laser or inkjet printers.

Digital printing decals have a higher cost per page than more traditional offset printing methods, but this price is usually offset by avoiding the cost of all the technical steps required to make printing plates. It also allows for on-demand printing, short turnaround time, and even a modification of the image (variable data) used for each impression.

The savings in labor and the ever-increasing capability of digital presses means that digital printing is reaching the point where it can match or supersede offset printing technology’s ability to produce larger print runs of several thousand sheets at a low price.

Features for digital printing decals

Low MOQ

As in the article MOQ of Custom Bone China Mugs, when using the silk screen printing method, the MOQ for each layout is 200 sheets, while 1 layout can lay around 6 cup and saucers, which means the MOQ for one design cup and saucer is 6*200=1200 sets, this doesn’t suit the case when people want to run a small quantity to test the market.

Order minimum 1 sheet, so digital printing decals are well suited for small run personalized project, like photo as it captured photographic images well. it is best suited for photographic images project.

Better color performance

Silk screen printing decals are significantly more limited when it comes to colors. Because of the traditional process, applying color has to be done one-at-a-time, using a separate stencil and screen in order to avoid color mixing.

When it comes to color detail and variation, digital printing decals are clearly the winner over screen printers. It works well for very colorful images with color gradients.

Digital printing decals have endless color possibilities and combinations, allowing you to print nearly any logo or design. The only limitation you have with a digital printer is you cannot print white ink, although this is slowly changing with the newest, state-of-the-art digital printers. The high-resolution photographic rendering is unmatched by other printing processes.

Cost

Cost is always considered with the quantity, we can not judge the cost of certain decal printing method without considering the order volume. There are so many variations between each customer order that it’s difficult to qualify which printer is the cheapest.

The cost for the silkscreen process will depend on the number of sheets, the number of colors, and the color palette used. We have leaded and unleaded colors for glass, ceramic, and porcelain with metallic colors available. 

There’s a reason the screen printing method has been around for centuries. Its cost-effective approach is perfect for large-scale orders and is tough to beat. The lower cost truly depends on each individual order you make. For example, extremely high-volume runs – 25,000 decals or 10,000 posters – screen printing is clearly the more cost-effective option.

On the other hand, if you’re printing 250 decals of a complicated piece of artwork you’re better off going with high-quality digital printing decals that will create the decals in just a day or two.

Each layout and each color requires the creation of a unique screen, therefore there is a one-time setup fee per layout. If one were to reprint this same layout even in a different color, there would be no setup fee.

Sample cost and leading time

There is a one-time setup fee for silk screen print decals per design/layout. The cost is variable depending on the difficulty of the design, usually, we charge $100-150, this amount can be deducted when bulk order placed. The sample leading time is around 15 days, as printing a sample is of the same process of printing the bulk order.

For digital printing decals, there is no setup charge, there is also very little discount for bulk orders, so the sample cost is the same unit price we offer for bulk orders, the leading time is a little short too.

Use occasion

Digital printing decals have benefited from advancements in technology that allow these machines to be more creative, print on a variety of different surfaces, and do it all very quickly.

If you’re looking to print a quick run of decals that display a complicated piece of artwork, digital printing decals would be your best option.

Also, if your design is complicated and you are looking for the best display effect of the design, you should go with digital printing.

While cost is your main concern and the quantity is big, and the design is relatively easy to achieve, we should choose silk screen printing to lower the cost.

It’s a good discussion to have, but ultimately the best printer depends on your product, the quantity you’re looking for, the difficulty of your designs.

Screen printing still has its place in printing and manufacturing – and likely always will – but digital provides more quality options now and in the future.

We’re happy we can offer both the digital printing decals and screen printing options because it provides our customers with more options that best serve their needs. If you’ve wondered about our technique or the prices we quoted, hopefully, this in-depth comparison helps you understand why we chose a certain printing method for you.

The Best decal Printing method for You

If your still confused, don’t fret! We are here to help, let us make the decision for you. Contact us for any assistance, share us your design, your idea, the quantity you need, your requirements, your budget, we will work out a proposal and then you can decide whether it’s worth a go! Don’t just ask about the price and MOQ, share us more information, it could help you understand your project better too!

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1 Quality standard quality of ceramic tableware

Since the reform and opening-up policy, China’s ceramic products have become the first large-scale export commodities. With the continuous increase of the output and export of China’s daily-used ceramics, China has become a well-deserved large-scale production and trade of daily-used ceramics. The quality of ceramic tableware products has become a serious topic.

Many countries in the world have put forward more strict quality and safety requirements for daily ceramic tableware products in China. There are many factors that could result in the hazard if anything goes wrong during the production process. So what are the main quality standard in determining the quality of ceramic tableware?

The main technical indicators for evaluating daily ceramic tableware include the following aspects, appearance quality, and safety indicators.

2 Appearance quality

Appearance quality is an important standard for the classification of the quality of ceramic tableware. The inspection of appearance quality includes the error of capacity, caliber, height, weight, and defect. Different regions and areas have different methods and requirements for appearance quality ranking.

The diameter, height, weight of the same batch of tableware products should be the same. The samples should within the error range, and the deviation should be more. How many visible and non-visible defects of different types, these are the indicators to be measured when determining the appearance quality of ceramic tableware and different standard have different tolerance to these above factors.

The excellent products can be equal to the international advanced level, first-class products for the domestic advanced level, qualified products for the domestic general level. The appearance quality of high-quality goods requires high, small deformation. Comparing to the excellent class, the first-class and qualified tableware products allow the existence of defects in a more relaxed way.

Specific reference can be made to the specifications of different household ceramic products, such as ‘National Standards of the People’s Republic of China- Bone China.’‘National Standards of the People’s Republic of China- porcelain.’

3 Safety indicators

The safety indexes in the quality of ceramic tableware mainly include lead and cadmium release, thermal stability, dishwasher stability, microwave oven stability, radioactive material content, and potential pollution to the environment.

3.1 Lead and cadmium release.

Lead and cadmium release is not only an important safety and health index of daily ceramic tableware products, but also a very concerning issue, the amount of lead and cadmium directly affects the health of users.

The presence of lead and cadmium is due to the raw material, the firing environment, surface decoration patterns, the presence of lead due to the composition of the ceramic pigments in the patterns, and possibly the addition of lead due to the low firing temperature of the surface glazes of the products, improper control of the production process can easily lead to excessive release of lead and cadmium in the process of use.

The frequent use of such products is liable to lead and cadmium Heavy Metal Poisoning. you can refer to the article “Factors That Affect Daily-use Ceramic Decal’s Lead and Cadmium Dissolution”

Given the capacity limit of these chemicals, the country has strict mandatory standards and requests, its scope of application has covered all daily use ceramics tableware.

Different sizes, shapes, requirements, and standards impose different limits on lead and chromium content to the determination of the quality of ceramic tableware

3.2 Thermal stability

Thermal stability is referring to the exchange of the product in the heat and cold suddenly without cracks or damage. The quality of thermal stability can reflect the service life of ceramic tableware products. The larger gap in the temperature of heat and cold exchange, the longer the service life of the ceramic tableware products.

The standard testing method generally refers to putting the products in the hot water of 180 degrees, and taking out and then putting in 20 degrees water and taking out, observing whether there is any damage, if the products can pass this test, its service life can reach above 2 ~ 3 years commonly.

3.3 Safety testing of microwave ovens

Due to the extensive use of microwave ovens and dishwashers, foreign-invested importers must put forward washing resistance and microwave oven safety “requirements for daily ceramic tableware in China, testing methods of washing resistance and microwave oven safety mainly includes “test method for mechanical dish-washing resistance of domestic ceramic ware”

The test method of microwave-safe measures whether the electric arc is produced in the microwave heating process and if damage occurs and the maximum surface temperature of the daily ceramic product after microwave heating under the condition of moisture.

Products suitable for a microwave oven can not use metal surface decoration, such as gold line decoration or a pattern that includes gold pigment. the thermal stability of a variety of products has a corresponding testing method.

For case study, pls refer to is bone china microwave safe?

Bone china tableware that is microwave safe (no gold pigment)

3.4 Safety testing of dishwashers

The current standard for dishwashers is the “test method for the resistance to microwave heating of mechanical domestic ceramic ware”.

In this test, The unused sample is placed in a static solution of a specific alkaline detergent at 75±1 degrees for 16 hours, and then the sample is visually examined and compared with similar untested samples to determine the color and glossiness, to see if there is any change due to the detergent.

Personally, I don’t recommend clients choosing this kind of design if the use occasion includes dishwasher, as the gold could wear away after many times using.

3.5 Products environmental technical requirements

the standards stipulate that the pollutant discharge of the product production enterprises must meet the requirements of the national or regional pollutant discharge standards. In the actual production and operation, the regulations also affect the normal operation of producing factory, thus affecting the timely delivery of products.

4 Other tests

Other tests that concern the quality of ceramic tableware include Radioactive material, water absorption, deformation, glaze hardness, transmittance, whiteness, dimensional defects, permeability, gloss, permeability, and so on.

According to the application scenario requirements, and then following local regulations and policies, the test is conducted by the relevant professional testing institutions.

Common international testing standards for quality of ceramic tableware

Lead contamination of imported and domestic ceramics by FDA/ORA CPG 7117.07-1995

Cadmium contamination of imported and domestic ceramics by FDA/ORA CPG 7117.06-1995

California Prop. 65(California Prop. 65-2002)

Israel SI 1003-1999 metal dissolution and marking of ceramic ware

Permissible limits of lead and cadmium release:

International Standard ISO6486/2[1999(E)] permissible limits of lead and cadmium release from ceramic products in contact with food

European Union Directive 84/500/EEC permissible limits of lead and cadmium release from ceramic products in contact with food.

German DIN 51032 limit values for dissolution of health hazards in household utensils

Sri Lanka’s import regulations DOPL No. 326(29 February 2000)

Lead and cadmium in Sri Lanka’s ceramics are permitted to be dissolved to the limits specified in the International Standard ISO6486/2[1999(E)].

12) Oct P 50186-92 national standard of the Russian Federation “Permissible limits of lead and cadmium release from ceramic utensils in contact with foodstuffs”

5 Test demonstrations

The quality of ceramic tableware has always been a big concern for all people. Different market requirements have different requirements, in our daily work, we cooperate with customers’ requirements to apply different tests. Here’s a report on lead and cadmium.

Share your thoughts on the topic!

Promotional Gift Choice- Customized Bone China Mugs

Introduction

customized bone china mug

Can you customize a mug according to the pattern we provide? Every day we get inquiries like this from our clients. Today, more and more companies have the requirements of customizing a gift for customers to maintain customer relations for different occasions, like business gifts, conference gifts, advertising promotions, employee benefits, holiday gifts, opening ceremonies, anniversary celebrations, of all the choices of the gift options, like the handbag, USB disk, umbrella, what’s the best choice that fit your needs?

The value of customized gift

Customers received a lot of gifts, many of which are repeated gifts, so how to stand out? Something that’s worth keeping is a smart move. If you choose a customized bone china mug, the gift is carefully selected, compared to those ready goods, the gift has an appearance of higher novelty, unique, craft and practicality, it’s a great way to win the hearts and minds of customers.

When it comes to customization, even a small design like printing on the corporate LOGO is better than just a plain mug, it can not only play a certain role in promoting the corporate brand, but also more to convey the sincerity and intentions of the enterprise.

A good promotion project can improve the market effect for the company at a very low cost.

Customized ceramic mug is a common gift customizing choice, it is actually one of the most commonly used gift choices. In the numerous gift choices, more and more people choose the customize bone china mug or the bone china cup and saucer. So what’s the difference between a custom-made bone china mug and a regular ceramic mug?

Differences between customized bone china mugs and ceramic mugs

Originated from the United Kingdom, bone china used to be the exclusive choice for the noble royal members. It is known as the first class of porcelain now, while porcelain is recognized as the better ceramic choice, the relation of the 3 would be like below. Favorable by a large number of people, a customized bone china mug not only can be useful but also of artistic value.

Appearance

Compared with ceramic mugs, bone china mugs have a more exquisite appearance. Bone china has the laudatory name of being as thin as paper, as white as jade, and as clear as a mirror, good quality bone china cup surface delicate and transparent, beautiful and elegant shape, makes the customized bone china mugs stand out in a number of mugs choices.

Craft technique

The craft of making bone china cup is very complicated and needs to be fired twice before it can be formed, the complicated craft is naturally much more exquisite and has high artistic value. People can use it as a cup for daily use, they can collect it as art.

Raw material

Bone China is made from animal bone ash and charcoal mixed with clay. It does not contain harmful chemicals such as lead and cadmium. It is more healthy and environmentally friendly to use the customized bone china mug, make tea or coffee with bone china without worrying that the chemicals in the porcelain will melt into the water or enter the body.

Price

Given the above advantages, the price of a customized bone china mug is more expensive than other materials like porcelain or ceramic.

Conclusion

So how to customize a bone china mug? what’s the process and technique involved? Any tips you can follow when you choose a supplier to fulfill the project? We have many customized bone china mugs choices, the rich experience of developing promotional gift choices gives us the advantage of fulfilling the With all the questions, if you want to customize a bone china mug or a bone china cup or saucer set, the next article will help you understand the process of customized bone china mugs, and how to select a qualified professional bone china mugs manufacturers that exactly deliver you needs.

Stay tuned.

Happy New Year!

To all of our customers and future partners,

By the end of this exceptional year, I would like to express my gratitude for all the hard work of our customers and their teams.

Worldwide, we have Covid-19 and trade conflicts this year; internally we have problems related to raw material, exchange rate, and so on. Despite all these difficulties, we managed to maintain our business relationship fairly successful.

Although there was no easy start for any relationship, especially when it comes to business, we learn from the mistakes and move on.  The quality problem was recovered and stamped to the heart of our workers so much that their sense of quality is highly improved.  The problem fixing experience turned out to be our strong competitive which facilitate us to have more confidence in dealing with other similar issues in the future.

Still, it’s a great pity that some of the business relationships ended much sooner than expected, for one reason and another, and we are going to learn from the experience and will perform better in the days to come.

Moving forward, we want to do more business with more customers around the world, for some customers, this has been years of relationship and we do enjoy working together with them, we also welcome new customers to have their trust on us, we are going to provide all the necessary support like always. Many good things going on, and I hope you can be our witness.

As our motto goes, it’s a long way, but we never stop trying.

Thank you for all the support for 2020, and see you in 2021.

Happy New Year!

Introduction

When I search for bone china, porcelain, and ceramic, I found that many articles on the front page actually didn’t make it clear. Here we organized the top related questions that people are interested in, and hopefully, you can stop searching for the answers from elsewhere!

Topics of this article includes

What is bone china?

Difference between bone china, porcelain, and ceramic?

Bone china vs new bone china?

Why is bone china expensive?

Why do people add bone ash in bone china?

How to tell if you bone china products are real?

Bone china, porcelain, ceramic, which one should I choose?

Difference between bone china, porcelain, and ceramic?

Ceramic is the largest category of standard terminology, ceramic often divided into two categories, pottery and porcelain. Pottery includes earthenware, stoneware, and faience. Porcelain includes soft-paste, hard-paste, and bone china.

As mentioned above, bone china is a kind of porcelain, but with some different making processes and ingredients, while porcelain is a kind of ceramic.

As the finest porcelain, bone china are thin, translucent when held up to light; they have a particularly smooth texture, a beautiful luster, and they are comparatively lightweight, which make bone china the best choice for high-end hotels, gift choices.

From the appearance, Ceramic mugs have thicker sides (although the degree of thickness will vary), they are always opaque, and they are comparatively heavy and sturdy, while porcelain mugs are usually much lighter and whiter.

You can check our article before: Difference Between Ceramic and Porcelain (1) for detailed information.

Bone china vs new bone china?

Many people maybe confused by the two concept. Well, new bone china, also called new bone, is not bone china, it’s a term to confuse clients and in fact, it is still porcelain, some business merchant uses the conception to confuse new buyers.

Main differences between new bone China and bone China

1. Use different ingredients. More than 40% bone powder was added to the bone China, and no bone powder was added to the new bone China.

2. Bone China is fired twice and new bone China is fired once.

3. Bone China is softer than new bone China in whiteness, higher in transparency, lighter in weight, and far better in appearance than new bone China.

Why is bone china expensive?

1. From manufacturing aspect, the cost of bone china is within most of people’s budget, price is not as high as expected, for example, most of the white bone china mugs from factory is less than $1, which is apparently affordable.
2. The manufacturing cost of bone china is more than other ceramic products for 3 reasons.

The adding of bone ash.

The adding of bone ash is the reason of light-weight yet durable features of bone china.

The firing process.

While other ceramic products only require 1 time firing, the making of bone china requires two times firing,

The difficulty of making.

Still, with the adding of bone ash, it’s difficult for the forming of bone china products, especially for the bigger items, that’s why price for large bone china plates, bowls, mugs are much more expensive than smaller ones.

For many customers, they are paying extra for the designs and brands. The price customers buying are much more than the actually cost, this is the case with almost all kinds of different products,bags, shoes, cloths and so on. The fancy brands are also made of ordinary materials, the designs, details, brands, marketing methods makes the differences.

Why do people add bone ash in bone china?

While the porcelain was first made in China, the invention of bone china was originally from UK, we don’t know how exactly they come up with the ideal of adding bone ash into the ingredient, but we do know that the adding of bone ash makes the porcelain look fantastic, translucent, extra thin, and from the very beginning, it become the choice of the UK imperial and royal families.

Now in Tangshan China, the industry line of bone china is quite mature, from the choices, quality and quantity of white bone chinaware, the design development, it has been ranking in the top places of making of bone china for many years.

How to tell if you bone china products are real?

Don’t trust the logo you see on the bottom of the products. Yeah, sad fact. Unless your pieces are handed down from long time ago, or you are buying from the formal channels, there is a high chance that the logo doesn’t mean much, as bone china manufacturer can make the products just as their customers requirements, from design, shape, or logo, like any other products.

On the other hand, there are also some ways you can check whether the pieces you are choosing are bone china or not, you can check the quality of bone china by your eyes, hands, and ears. Here are some identification methods we’ve talked about before. How to identify bone china and porcelain.

Which one should I choose?

It all depends.

There are so many options to choose from that it can be hard to know whether you’re making the best decision, however, there is no best choice, but right choice that suits your needs. the choice among bone china, porcelain and other ceramic mugs should be made on the basis of occasion and suitability. Bone china mugs are good choices if you aim at high-end market and you want something good,an air of elegance is desired, porcelain mugs are good choices when durability is not a major concern and it’s just for ordinary use. Other ceramic mugs are good choices when practical, sturdy mugs are needed.

Of course, cost is also a major concern. In most cases, bone china is relatively of higher price than porcelain, and porcelain is more expensive than ceramic.

Stay tuned if you want to know more information about bone china and porcelain, pleas leave a message if you find anything useful in the article, that would help us to be seen by more visitors who want to know it just like you!

Bone china dinner set for sale!

Plenty of new designs available.

Good news, we are now promoting our bone china dinner set, with rich production experience and plenty of new designs designed for different market, no matter where you are from, you will find the designs you like.

Different countries and regions have their own usual dinner set combinations, also their own favorite designs, like for certain parts of the UK, the bee is quite favorite, for most USA area, they care more about the unique shapes of the whiteware. While for some Middle-east areas, the design looks more fancy and luxurious, the more they like.

For example, in Pakistan market, the dinner set often of 61 pieces. Consisted by the following compositions.

1.Dinner plate*8

2.Side plate*8

3.Soup plate*8

4.Dessert plate*8

5.Small bowl*8

6.Cup and saucer*8

7. Salad bowl*1

8. Casserole*2

12’ over platter

14’ over platter

Coffee pot

Creamer

Sugar pot

For the tea set, it usually consisted by 24 pcs, which are:

(24 pcs tea set)

10.5 inch plate*1

8 inch plate*6

Coffee pot*1

Creamer*1

Sugar pot*1

Cup + Saucer *6

(When we count the total pieces, the teapot would consider as 2 pieces, as it has a cover, so is the sugar pot).

For some South and East Asia area, the tea set can be 14 pcs, which are 1 teapot, 6 pcs cups and 6 saucers, 1 teapot saucer.

Or a classic bone china coffee set can consist of 15 pcs, which are 1 coffee pot, 1 milk jug, (also known as creamer), and 1 sugar pot, 6 pcs of cups and 6 pcs of saucers.

How to develop bone china dinner sets

To customize the dinner set,

1. you need to figure out how many people you are considering for one set.
2. What’s the dining habit of the local people.
3. Choose the ideal product shape/looking.
4. Determine the designs you want to customize.

Check some of our bone china dinner set.

A formal bone china dinner set includes the following items:

1. Dinner plate. Often in the size of 10.5 inch.
2. Side plate. Often in the size of 7.5 inch or 8 inch.
3. Soup plate. Often in the size of 7.5 inch or 8 inch.
4. Dessert plate. Often in the size of 6.5 inch.
5. Small bowl. Often in the size of 4.5 inch.
6. Tea cup and Saucer. For serving tea.
7. Coffee cup and saucer: For serving coffee, usually of same shape as the tea cup and saucer but of smaller shape.
8. Mug.

The above items’ quantity varies according to the quantity of the people for the set.

The below are the other complementary tableware, some of them are optional, you can consist according to your need.

• Big bowl: Served as salad bowl, often in the size of 9 inch.

10’ oval platter: used as fish plate.

12’ over platter: used as fish plate.

14’ over platter: used as fish plate.

Casserole: Serving soup

Teapot/Coffee pot

Sugar Jar

Milk Jar/ Milk pot

Gravity boat: For serving the special sauce

Gravy boat holder:

Saucer:

Salt and Pepper Jar: For salt and pepper

Big spoon: To match the cassrole.

Small Spoon.

Below are other common compositions of dinner set welcomed by the market.

Bone china dinner set for 12 people

125pcs bone china dinner set.

1.Dinner plate*12

2.Side plate*12

3.Soup plate*12

4.Dessert plate*12

5.Small bowl*12

6.Tea cup and Saucer*12

7.Coffee cup and saucer:*12

8. Big bowl *1

9. Salad bowl*1

10’ oval platter*2

12’ over platter

14’ over platter

casserole

Coffee pot

Creamer

Sugar pot

Gravy boat

Gravy boat holder

Salt and pepper set

Big spoon

Bone china dinner set for 6 people (66pcs of dinner set)

1.Dinner plate*6

2.Side plate*6

3.Soup plate*6

4.Dessert plate*6

5.Small bowl*6

6.Tea cup and Saucer*6

7.Coffee cup and saucer:*6

9 Salad bowl*1

10’ oval platter*1

12’ over platter*1

casserole

Coffee pot

Creamer

Sugar pot

Salt and pepper set

Send us a message if you want to do your own bone china dinner set, we have many new designs for the whiteware and the designs! Contact our salesperson for the photos of new designs or you can send your ideal designs, we will do it for you!

Decal definition

Have you ever wondered how did the custom-made design of bone porcelain produce? What’s the technology involved?

The main way to realize the custom-made design of bone China products, either it’s bone china mugs, or plates, or bowls, is decal technology. Decal, also known as water transfer decals, is a decorative process in which designs are first printed on a special paper pre-coated with water-soluble Glue, then soaked in water, and then transferred to the surface of bone China products. The decal paper consist of 3 layers, the bottom of the paper (also known as paper-based), the middle layer is Sol, and the surface of the cover oil.

The main production process of the decal paper for bone china products, you can refer to:Bone China Decal Paper Production Process

Decal classification

According to the production process, the decal paper production can be classified into three categories, which are on-glaze color, in-glaze color, and under-glaze color.

on-glaze decal

Bone porcelain that made of on-glaze technology is by directly applying the decal paper on the glazed surface, or paint directly on the surface of the bone porcelain, and then fired at 700-850 °C.

Because the firing temperature did not reach the melting temperature of the glaze layer, so the designs remain to stay at the surface and can not sink into the glaze layer,. If you touch with your hands and rub carefully, you will find that the surface of the product has a concave-convex sense, and you can observe uneven height with your eyes. On-glaze color is the main technical methods used in the massive bone porcelain production with its features of bright color, mature technology, easy to operate, and low price.

In-glaze

The firing temperature of the in-glaze technology is higher than that of the on-glaze, which reaches the melting temperature of the product glaze. The Ceramic Pigment sinks into the glaze when the glaze is melted and is covered by the glaze layer after cooling. If you touch the surface of the bone porcelain products, there is no obvious concave-convex feeling, its wear resistance is good, high surface brightness, high product grade, the cost is also relatively high.

The technology for the in-glaze decal is difficult, and the requirements for porcelain, kiln, and paper are strict. The test results of lead and cadmium can meet the requirements of the FDA and California Standard. This is a development direction of the ceramic field since people are paying more and more attention to the safety of the products.

Under-glaze technique

Under-glaze colored ceramics is a traditional decorative method in China.

All the colors of the products are decorated on the ceramic body and then glaze. After glazing, the products are fired once at a high temperature. Like the in-glaze technology, the surface is covered with the glaze layer, and the surface is bright and smooth, there is almost no sense of elevation. As a result of high firing temperature, the colors are easy to diffusion during the process, making it’s difficult to realize good decorative fine patterns effect, so the patterns used in under-glaze decoration, in general, are relatively simple.

With the color and pattern restrictions, under-glaze technology is unlikely to become the mainstream of the daily porcelain decoration method. Because of the features of high cost, the color is not abundant and the technical difficulty of in-glaze technology when comparing to on-glaze, the lead-free on-glaze decoration is the main development direction of ceramic decoration with no doubt.

What’s next

After the bone porcelain is decorated with the designs, it must be fired in the kiln at a certain temperature to make the designs permanently stay, this process is called decal firing. Different materials require different firing temperatures. After the appropriate temperature fired, the finished products are with bright colors, with patterns or designs stick to the porcelain surface, that’s not easy to scrape.

Classification of the decal by firing temperature

According to the firing temperature, the decal can be divided into high-temperature decal paper and low-temperature decal paper.

Low-temperature decal

The main component of low-temperature floral paper is ink material, when making pigment dry slowly, need enough time to fully dry to carry out the second process; low-temperature Floral paper firing temperature: at around 120-180 degrees. Low-temperature floral paper price affordable, bright color, versatility, gloss, three-dimensional sense of strong, anti-corrosion, and environmental protection, but weak adhesion.

The service life of low-temperature floral paper is shorter than high-temperature decal paper, the best applique time is used up within a month, too long then easy to oxidation, therefore it’s hard to keep stock for long use. The low-temperature technique is not applied to bone porcelain tableware.

High-temperature decal

High-temperature decal paper includes the three classifications we mentioned above, which are on-glaze color, in-glaze color, and underglaze color decals.

The on-glaze decal technique is mainly used for daily porcelain, its firing temperature is about 780 degrees, vary according to the color and materials of the decal surface. Gold-containing decal paper should be fired at a lower temperature. In-glaze and under-glaze colors are mainly used for artistic porcelain and daily porcelain that has very strict requirements for safety.

Why do we need to use a different temperature for firing

With firing temperatures ranging from 1,250 °C to 1,380 °C; high-temperature decal paper has good wear resistance and will not fall off even if it is placed for a long time, with strong adhesion, but its price is higher than that of low-temperature patterned paper, which is prone to go wrong during firing and with poor color performance.

Select the right temperature for firing the decal paper is particularly important. We need to choose different temperatures according to different colors n materials. In particular when the pattern is with gold, if the firing temperature is too high, it is easy to burn black, discoloration; too low, the color is not bright but dark. Furthermore, in the insider’s words, if the products are not fired sufficiently, the decal paper lead combustion is not sufficiently volatilized, leading to excessive lead content, which would have a bad influence on the health of the users in the long-term.

Conclusion

Once the decals are applied to the porcelain products, the products need to be thoroughly dried and then wiped with a dry cloth strip. After that product can be put into the kiln firing for around 4 times, and then the quality inspectors will select the qualified products and then pack in the boxes. Till then our production process will be over.

As easy it may sound like, there is much more knowledge involved in the producing of the custom-made bone porcelain, each step requires much experience. And besides the appearance, the safety of the products should be put in a more important position.

This principle not only applies to bone china tableware but also other daily ceramic tableware.
If you can’t be sure if the design is with microwave gold or not, refer to the instruction, otherwise, avoid putting the bone china tableware in the microwave might be a safer choice, what do you think?
Hope the above words helped you understand the is bone china microwave safe question. If you are interested in more bone china tableware knowledge, check the below links and share us your thoughts.

All you want to know about bone china
If you want to develop your bone china project. Refer to the below topic.

How to develop a bone china mug?

Leave us a message if you want to know more about custom-made bone porcelain.

Package Design of Bone Porcelain Giftware

The importance of package design

Almost all the products are packed, and the bone porcelain giftware is no exception. In addition to the protection, convenient transportation, and storage of bone porcelain products, what is more important is its role played in promoting the sale of goods and meet people’s aesthetic psychological needs.

Package design is the first visual experience of the bone porcelain product, it is the direct and main transmitter of the product personality, the direct expression of the positioning of the corporate image. Good package design is one of the important means for enterprises to create profits. Product package design with accurate strategic positioning and in line with consumers’ psychology can help enterprises stand out among many competing brands and win the company a reliable reputation.

We have talked a lot about the bone porcelain products developing(check related topics here), in this article, we are going to talk about the package design for that.

The article includes the following topics.

1. The importance of packaging
2. Main factors to be considered in package design
3. Packaging design
4. Case presentation
5. Conclusion
   

The role of packaging

A good bone porcelain package should include the following aspects.

(1) Protect the packaged bone porcelain products against risks and damage, such as discoloration, breakage, confusion, etc. . Protection is important from the time the product is manufactured to the time before use, and packaging that fails to protect the contents is a failure, therefore, the protection of the products should be considered as the first and foremost factor.

(2) providing convenience. Manufacturers, marketers, and customers move products from one place to another, labels on boxes can avoid confusion.

(3) In order to be distinguished, the package must be marked with the type, material, introduction, quantity, brand, and name of the manufacturer or retailer. Packaging can help warehouse managers accurately find product info, but also help consumers find what he wants.

(4) Promote the sale of a particular brand, especially in self-service stores. The packaging attracts the customer’s attention and turns it into interest. Some people think that “every package is a billboard. ”good package design of the bone porcelain can improve the attractiveness of new products, the value of the packaging itself can also attract consumers’ desire to buy a product. In addition, increasing the attractiveness of the packaging is less costly than increase the unit price of the bone porcelain product.

Factors to be considered in package design

The customer’s first feeling about the quality of the product is reflected in the packaging. Money and attention spent on the package design are something well worth invested.

(1) Basic info about the products and make it as eye-catching as possible. Besides, whether or not the national requirements of the packaging norms are reflected. Otherwise, it can’t be sold on the market, and even if it is, it would have a negative impact on the product.

(2) Price. For many people, this is the most important factor. Product positioning determines your packaging positioning. The same product with different packaging represents a different price positioning. Different packaging requirements different MOQ(minimum order quantity) and are of different prices, customers have to choose according to their actual situation.

(3)Promotion. What kind of sales promotion is your package suitable for. Different packaging has a different impact on future promotional activities, For example, the delicacy, the product packing capacity size, and so on. Therefore, before carrying on the product packing design, people must consider future promotion activity influence.

(4)selling channels. How do you want to sell your products? The packaging should be of appropriate channel requirements. For example, if you are going to sell online, you should pay special attention to the security of packaging, to ensure that users receive the product, which is intact.

(5) quantity. If you only can start with a few hundred, you can not be customized packaging, because the cost will be too high. In that case, we would recommend using our existing packaging.

Package design

When we develop the packing design, it mainly includes two aspects, the outer box choice, and the inner divider choice.

Classification of outer boxes

There are three main types of packaging in common use. Which are general packing, color box packing, and gift box packing.

General packing

The purpose of general packing is only to meet the most basic requirements of packing, that is to say, the same products are packed together and shipped to another place for reprocessing or sale. The main objective is to save costs, the only concern is to be safe, the main feature is no features.

Color box packing

Color box packaging refers to the folding carton and color corrugated box that is made of cardboard and fine corrugated cardboard. Its features include the lightweight, cost-favorably, portable, wide source of raw materials, environmental protection, and exquisite printing.
Color box packaging is more and more favored by enterprises because of its advantages of easy processing and exquisite printing effect and becomes

the best choice for commodity color box packaging.
With the continuous progress of printing technology and color box manufacturing technology, there will be more delicate and practical, colorful box packaging presented in the future.
Other commonly used printing process also includes bronzing, hot silver, laminating, concave-convex effect, embossing and so on.

Gift box packing

Gift boxes are generally used as high-end packaging. It can be made of a variety of materials, cloth, paper, leather, wood and so on. It involves much manual work, and complex surface treatment and post-processing.
Gift boxes are generally suitable for relatively high-grade goods, such as high-grade jewelry, wine, tea, and other industries, it is also an excellent package choice for bone porcelain giftware.

The products packed in gift boxes are more attractive, the boxes are made of high-grade materials and are made of better materials. People tend to think that the products are of better quality when they are in high-end boxes, they will feel that the money is worth spending. At the same time, a good package enhanced brand recognition invisibly.

Method	Advantage	Disadvantage
Bulk Package	Cheapest	not attractive
Color Box package	lightweight, good printing	high MOQ
Gift box	Looking fancy	expensive

There are tons of different modelings of color box packing boxes and gift boxes. Both of them can be customized according to the customer’s request and are of a variety of forms. Generally speaking, the MOQ of the color box is higher, usually starts with 1000, the more quantity, the cheaper the price.

For example, the price of 5,000 and 10,000 will vary greatly. The minimum order quantity of ordinary gift boxes is low(without printing required), gift boxes are more expensive than the color box. The gift box is more exquisite, thicker, can better guarantee the product safety, also can better establish the brand image. And the price advantage of the color box, also makes it become the choice of a lot of people.

If the quantity is less than 500, we also have the standard color box to choose from. This color box style is unified, the quality is good, the price is also attractive, the unique internal design can guarantee the bone porcelain products safely, which is also an excellent choice.

Classification of the inner divider

When there is more than one piece of bone porcelain packed in a box, we need to use the divider to avoid direct contact with the product to ensure safety. Such as bone porcelain tea set, coffee set, Cup and saucer, and so on. The divider is used to separate the different items to ensure that the products will not be damaged.

The commonly used inner divider includes a paper divider and an EPE divider.

The paper divider is the thick cardboard placed directly inside the box, as shown in the below picture.

Pearl Cotton, also known as EPE, its molecular structure is polyethylene.

EPE is very common, it’s the white foam we have seen in many packages, in fact, it also has black. The use of EPE can greatly reduce shock, which can protect the bone porcelain product from damage to the greatest extent.

A lot of buyers go for the EPE. people may find that some of the EPE is very hard, very dense with small pores, in other words, very high density, while some are very soft, loose, big air holes, that is to say, EPE has different densities, high and low, you can choose according to your actual need and budget, as clearly, the high-density EPE would be more expensive, while in most cases, the lower density EPE is enough to meet the requirements of shock absorption.
In general, the price of the paper-based divider is cheaper, while the EPE divider is more expensive.

There is another option for the inner divider which is by using foam, while the MOQ is big with a high mold developing charge, not quite commonly used.

Case presentation

Below are some of our previous designs for packing bone porcelain products for your reference.

Conclusion

The package design of the bone porcelain products has the marketing function of establishing brand cognition, that is, the seller needs to present the brand information, establish the brand identification, make the consumer know the brand name and the brand attribute of the commodity, and then establish the brand image.

The attention of the consumer to each product is very short-lived, therefore, we must seize the consumer’s vision from the shelf sweep of the moment. Only packaging can make comprehensive use of color, shape, materials, and other elements while showing the connotation and information of products, brands, and other enterprises, highlighting the common interests of products and consumers, forming a more intuitive impact on consumers.

As an important part of product development, package design is as important as product design. Hopefully, this article will help you to have a clearer understanding of your packaging choices of bone porcelain products.

Check out the links below for more information about bone porcelain projects development.

Private label your bone china mugs

MOQ of custom bone china mugs

How to develop promotional bone china mugs project?

Leave us a message if you have anything to share.

Why private label bone china mugs?

Retailers interested in filling their shelves with products featuring their brand name have a good reason. Private label bone china mugs are a good choice of products to get started.

Advantage and disadvantage of private label bone china mugs

Private label bone china mugs can have a lot of advantages. You can control the whole production process, from the idea to the products you choose, the way you decorate, the way you pack, what’s more, you can control the pricing, and the level of profitability its products provide.

The disadvantages of adding a private label line are few, as long as you have the financial resources to invest in developing such a product. The main disadvantages include:

Manufacturer dependency-whether the project will be as exact as expected greatly depend on the manufacturer you choose, since the production of your bone china product line is in the hands of a third-party manufacturer, it’s important to partner with someone you trust.

Although private label products are typically sold at a lower price point than their name brand brethren, some private label brands are now being positioned as premium products, with the higher price tag to prove it.

What’s the article about?

In this article, we are going to discuss the way of common decoration method of private label bone china mugs, we aim at using our experience and knowledge in the bone china industry to better present your design, provide suggestion from the insider to help you build your brand from the beginning.

when it comes to private label bone china mugs, the design is more important than other things. if we consider the whole piece of work as a show, the design would be the leading actor, while the material n shape of the mugs are acting as the supporting roles and the way we present the design matters too.

Different bone china mugs decoration methods

According to the way that the designs are decorated, bone china tableware can be divided into white bone china and designed bone china and color-glazed bone china.

White bone china

White bone china usually refers to bone china whiteware without any decoration. Some will add a logo at the bottom, the cost is the lowest, at the same time, people feel that such tableware is safer, it also maximizes the bone China tableware’s features of thin, translucent, white, bright. The use of multiple colors can raise health concerns. But of course, pure white can also be a bit plain, so white bone china is less used in private label.

Decorated bone china

The main classification of designed bone china mainly includes decals applying and gold decoration. That’s the main topic of this article.

Decal

Definition

The decal is the main way we achieve private label, also known as water transfer decal, the designs are printed on a special paper pre-coated with water-soluble Glue, and then after soaked in water, the colored designs are moistened and transferred to a ceramic surface by skilled decal apply workers.

Decal paper decoration is the main form of ceramic decoration, which is the most widely used decorative technique of all ceramic products, used for mass production, thus reducing costs and prices. With the progress of science and technology, now decal technology is also increasingly refined, advanced decal ceramic has long been rid of the poor image of long ago, with a very good decorative and artistic feeling.

Simply speaking, the production process of the decal paper includes plate making, screen drying, color mixing, sampling, and so on. The details can be found in the article Bone China Decal Paper Production Process.

Decal decoration technology is characterized by rich color, stability, durable wear, durable, it can show different styles according to different requirements of clients and suitable for mass production.

Decal decoration can be divided into overglaze color, glaze color, underglaze color according to the production technology. The pros and cons of each method will be discussed in more detail in another article.

Ways of decal decoration

According to the coverage of the surface, decal applying can be divided into part design, round design, and full design, covering different sizes of the surface of the bone China mugs. The client can private label the bone china mugs according to the effect he wants. Different decorative forms and parts can achieve a different effect.

part design. The design can be placed anywhere on the surface. Right in the middle or on the side as you need, comparing to the other two, this one is easy to apply, and for massive production, the cost is cheaper since, for a same size decal sheet, the number of the design of each sheet can be much more than round and full design.

Below is a private label bone china mug with part designs.

Round design. The design circled the edge of the bone china mug, greatly used in the dinner set, combining with bone china plates, bowls, tea sets to form a luxury bone china dinner set.

Below is a private label bone china cup with round designs.

Full design, the design’s pattern covers the entire visible surface of the bone china products, also widely used in the giftware industry, as it shows the design to the maximum.

Below is a private label bone china mug with full designs.

Comparison of the 3 methods

From the cost and production difficulty, their difficulty and cost are gradually increased. The production cost of the paper, and the number of color types, specific colors, requirements, whether the design includes gold or not and other factors directly determine the production cost, this is why we always ask customers such questions when they are asking for quotations. What kind of product do you need, what kind of pattern do you need, what’s the quantity and what is the packing requirement, we can only calculate the cost after we know all these information, and a clear statement of these information helps the clients to officially begin the private label business.

Gold applying

People often amazed by the shining gold line exist at the edge of the bone china products, mugs, and plates, bowls, etc. The gold line takes the luxury of the bone china tableware to a new level. The gold was painted by professional techniques with a unique pigment which containers a certain amount of gold element. After that, the bone china products are sent to kiln n fired for 4 hours at the temperature of 800 degrees, the shinning effect achieved.

The gold is applied by the professional artisan using different brushes, these brushes are similar to our makeup kit, different size brush for a different use, the gold usually brushed around the edges, such as plate rim, bowl rim, mug rim, cup handle. The decoration may be a line of different width. The addition of gold makes the bone China tableware look more upscale. But the cost of gold is very high compared to color design, so with gold decoration bone China products are generally more expensive.

Suggestion

When you private label your bone china mugs, it can be a mix of different decoration methods. You can position the design in the middle and round, or position the design in the middle, and with gold rim if the design color matches the gold.

Other decoration methods

In addition to the decorative methods mentioned above, other methods include hand-painted and color-glaze.

Hand painting is purely drawn by hand and has a lot to do with the technique of the painter and is not suitable for mass production.

Color glazed porcelain is to add a kind of high-temperature color agent in the ceramic glaze, so that the glazed products after firing show a specific color, such as yellow, blue, green beans, and so on. Many colored glazes are done by spraying an additional layer of glaze on products to cover the original milky white color of white bone china products.

Conclusion

When you private label your bone china mugs, it can be a mix of different decoration methods. You can position the design in the middle and round, or position the design in the middle, and with gold rim if the design color matches the gold.

After the design or gold applied, the bone china products will put into kiln firing for more than 4 hours at a temperature of more than 800 degrees. The firing temperature of gold and color is not the same, so the mix of two different decoration methods will need to fire two times.

Hopefully, this article will help you get some inspiration for private label your own bone China mugs, very best luck with your new business. 

You may also want to read the below topics:

MOQ of custom bone china mugs

How to develop promotional bone china mugs project?

For more questions, feel free to leave us a message.

Introduction

Is bone china microwave safe? Are bone china products strong enough? These questions are often asked when people consider using bone china products.

Bone China is a kind of daily ceramics, as the highest-grade ceramics, bone China products is characterized by light, transparent, thin, white on the appearance, this is because a certain amount of bone ash(don’t panic, not human bone ash) is added to the raw material when produced, at the same time, because of its low lead and cadmium content, the appealing appearance and healthy features makes bone china tableware more and more popular.

Although it looks thin, it has a higher density and hardness and is harder than ordinary household ceramics. But it is a kind of ceramic after all, so it is easy to break.
As bone China products are fired at least 2 times, sometimes 3 or even 4 times at high temperature, the firing time is up to 8 hours or more, the highest temperature of firing up to 1350 °C. So under normal circumstances, it is safe to put bone china in the microwave oven heating.

When can I put bone china tableware in the microwave?

So, when is bone China not allowed to be heated in the microwave oven?
The answer is when bone China has gold in its decorative surface.

If the surface of bone china is decorated with gold border and gold pattern, once we put the bone china products in the microwave oven, when it’s working, the gold layer on the bone china surface will generate a strong electric spark under the intense microwave radiation.

The radiation will seriously damage the gold layer and lose the yellow brightness, and the sparks would cause panic and danger, which will matter more than just ruining the bone china tableware.

Here comes another question, how do you tell if there’s gold in it?
The answer is to see with your eyes.
The use of gold makes the cutlery shine and makes it look more beautiful. There are two colors of gold, platinum and gold. And there are two main ways to decorate with gold. One is a line drawn in gold water, the other is in the designs, in addition to color pigments, but also the adding of gold.
Below are a few examples of bone china products with gold.

• 

What’s the difference between this gold and our usual jewelry gold?
The difference in gold content and making method.
The liquid gold used to decorate the ceramic products is a chemical raw material.

The main ingredients are acid, gold, silver, bismuth, resin, Turpentine, essential oil and other components, according to a certain proportion of the formula, and formed by complex chemical reaction. It often has an appearance like brown oil and liquid.

• 

While precious metals are the main component of gold, due to international gold price fluctuations, while the price of gold is different every day, so is the price of liquid gold for ceramic decoration.
The higher the gold content, the brighter the fired products, also the price would be higher.

To solve the problem that the products with gold can not be heated in the microwave oven, more and more people choose to use microwave gold instead of ordinary gold to make the dough. Compared with ordinary gold, microwave gold is relatively dull in color and looks less attractive than ordinary gold.

Advice from bone china factory

This principle not only applies to bone china tableware but also other daily ceramic tableware.
If you can’t be sure if the design is with microwave gold or not, refer to the instruction, otherwise, avoid putting the bone china tableware in the microwave might be a safer choice, what do you think?
Hope the above words helped you understand the is bone china microwave safe question. If you are interested in more bone china tableware knowledge, check the below links and share us your thoughts.

All you want to know about bone china
If you want to develop your bone china project. Refer to the below topic.

How to develop a bone china mug?

Introduction

Quality of bone china products is critical to satisfying your customers and retaining their loyalty so they continue to buy from you in the future. Quality bone china products make an important contribution to long-term revenue and profitability. They also enable you to charge and maintain higher prices. Therefore, Bone china tableware quality control is essential to building a successful business that delivers products that meet or exceed customers’ expectations. So how do we ensure the quality of bone china products? What are the quality control measurements we take?

Case study

As a business owner or a buyer for companies who have been in tableware business for many years, you must have met many suppliers in person, let alone the cold emails you got in your mailbox. All claiming to have the best quality as they know that’s what you care about.

“What’s the feature of your products?” You asked.

“We have the best quality with the lowest price!”

Having heard that so many times, I can imagine your eyes rolling. Still, you asked,” Could you be more specific?”

“Hmm… Er…”

End of story.

What a pity! Quality is an arms race between you and your competitors, each time your competitor improves their products, they change the basis of competition, of course, you want to take the initiative here and give yourself a chance to win this race, but finding a qualified bone china products supplier seems so hard you just had to keep searching.

Here is the case with us.

You deserve the highest quality that matches your demand when it comes to manufacturing and packing selection, for bone china tableware, it is more obvious, as a high-end choice of ceramic, people always have a higher expectation for quality and user experience, you don’t want to let them down. Besides, any breakage during the way from the factory to your warehouse means that all efforts are in vain, as no matter how attractive your designs were, they are just trash when broken.

That’s why our quality control system extends throughout the whole process, from raw material to final delivery to the warehouse.

So why did we emphasize on the quality?

Disadvantage of bone china tableware quality control

The disadvantage of bone china tableware quality control is obvious

1. The process is difficult, time-consuming, and costly. It brought complaints from workers, extra cost for hiring more people doing more jobs while in some factories, these positions don’t even exist or these jobs are neglected.

2. The principle scares some clients away as they assuming the products we offer are expensive. (We are NOT by the way!) However, price is not our advantage though, those who aim at getting the cheapest price are not a good fit for us. With the extra efforts and cost to control the quality, we don’t compare ourselves with those who just deal with stock and do one-time-job service.

3. It does not prevent waste of resources when products are faulty.

4. It requires all people involved to be more responsible. The overall quality control need for factory-wide commitment to quality improvement, and the difficulty of achieving this commitment. All levels of workers must be on board for the program to be truly successful. Any lack of effort or resources will undermine the success of the program, causing negative ripples throughout the factory.

Advantage of bone china tableware quality control

The advantage of bone china tableware quality control is obvious too.

1. For B2B cooperation, we always aim in the long run. Quality is the first and most important factor to get the business to survive and expand. Providing good quality products can help you form a stronger cooperation relationship with our clients, and expand the business in the future, not only with existing customers but also with new customers from referrals.

2. Avoid any risk or complaints from clients or end-customers that resulted from poor quality. Manufacturers with quality control procedures in place are far less likely to face product recalls or place customers at risk from poorly made products. There was a report that someone got hurt when enjoying his beverage as when the hot water pouring in, the cup just exploded, how scary is that! Although they were settled in the end, it ruined the company’s reputation, this danger was caused by the missed inspection of a major flaw which should avoid in the first place. With proper quality control the cost associated with these recalls can be steep. 

3. As it seems hard to believe, it shortens the production time and avoids the waste of related material, as we don’t wait until the end inspection to identify the mistakes and redo over, we control it from the beginning.

The list goes on.

·Maintain or improve your position in the market

·Improve safety

·Reduce liability risks

·Contribute to overall positive branding of our fine bone china product.

So how do we control the quality of our bone china products?

How to Implement bone china tableware quality control during Production

So how to conduct bone china tableware quality control?

Bone china tableware quality control can be painful. Often, it is done at the end of the production process, only catching defects after the fact.

However, The key to quality control is not to check the goods when it’s finished but to control the quality of raw materials and the whole production process.

By monitoring products at the end of production as well as reviewing the products’ production process, factory can solve problems more efficiently, saving time and money.

Except for forming a standard quality management system, what’s more important is strictly following the standard in the actual production process.

As easy as it may sound, many companies find it difficult to stick to it for a variety of reasons in practice. This is often the main reason for repeated product problems.

To implement an effective quality control program, first create and document the approach to bone chin products quality control. This includes:

• Defining the quality standards for each piece of bone china product
• Selecting the quality control method
• Defining the number of products/batch that will be tested
• Creating and training employees for quality control
• Timely report and correction action.

Bone china tableware making process

To explain the So how to conduct bone china tableware quality control process, let’s start with a brief introduction of the production process here.

First, we need to prepare white bone chinaware and the decal, the decal sheet is what we used to decorate the surface of the bone China products with the designs provided by the customer. We will cut and apply the decal paper on the surface of the white bone china products after soaking in water, then after some cleaning and drying job, the products will be put into kiln and fire for 4 hours at the temperature of 700-800 degree, then we will get the products with the design stick on the surface that will never fade.

To know the through production process of fine bone china, click here.

If the products are with gold decorated the edge or handle, professional technique workers will paint the gold with brush and after it’s dry, the products will be put in the kiln to fire again for the same amount of time, and then we get the final bone china products.

Bone China tableware quality control management

So how do we conduct the bone china tableware quality control? Starting from the selection of bone china whiteware, there are 4 times quality checks during the production and 2 times of checking after packing, all in the purpose of ensuring the quality of the products.

We will discuss the whole bone china tableware quality control process by classifying the conduct person, standards, inspection reason, and tasks.

1. Incoming raw material quality check

The raw material here means the white bone china products, including bone china plates, mugs, bowls, all of them. Quality control mainly comes from 2 aspects.

A. Choice of white bone chinaware.

After the bone china whiteware produced in the factory, before they packing, a professional inspector will check the quality and classify them into 3 rates. A – good quality. C- average quality. D – sub-quality products. For orders that have very tight price control, to gain profit, suppliers might use AC mixed rate products to lower the cost or some just use D which will result in serious quality problems in the future.

In the choice of bone china whiteware, we always use the Grade A products to ensure quality.

B. Quality check of the bone china whiteware before using.

Conduct Person: Professional bone china whiteware quality inspector

Purpose: To make sure the products are up to standard before using them.

Standard: National Standard GBT13522

Job explanation: The first step of bone china tableware quality control. Double-check the quality of bone china whiteware to phase out the disqualified products that are neglected by inspectors in the bone china whiteware factory.

2. First In-process check

Conduct Person: All the decal application workers

Purpose: To double-check the quality of whiteware, like the fractures on the bottom of the items which could be easily missing checked.

Standard: Factory workers handbook

Job explanation: As the production of bone china requires much manual work. It works as a supplement to the previous check, in case any flaws were ignored in the previous check.

3. Second in-process check

Conduct Person: Professional pre-firing quality inspector

Purpose: To find out the flaws before production, as till now the mistakes can be corrected. After firing, the designs will be permanently stuck on the surface of the products.

Standard: Factory quality control measurements

Job explanation:

a. Check the logo and designs if they are in the right places.

b. To make sure the decal applies workers have done their job right, the pre-firing inspector will touch and inspect every product to check if the designs firmly stick to the surface, any bubble inside would result in the missing of the part of the design, which will be a quality problem.

4. Outgoing products quality check

Conduct Person: Pre-packing quality inspector

Purpose: As the next step is packing, this is the final thorough check, any products that have flaws should be phased out. To make sure all products ready for shipment and shelf.

Standard: Comparing to the sample confirmed or referring to the export standard.

Job explanation:

A vital step of the bone china tableware quality control. To select out the products will different kinds of quality problems. These flaws might only appear after firing. The quality problems can be divided into 2 categories, these can be repairable and these are not allowed.

Repairable cases such as black dots in the bottom, missing part of the designs, or the discontinuity of the gold line, the random gold or design that appears in the wrong places. For these products with minor infects are separated and repair until the flaws disappear.

The not allowed quality problems including the cracks that appear at the edge of the products, the fracture that appears at any place of the surface. The wrong color and place of the designs etc. These are phased out and need to produce new products to replace them.

5. Shipping inspection

Conduct Person: 3-rd party inspectors appointed by customer.

Purpose: Make sure all products are up to standard before shipping.

Standard: GB2828

Job explanation: Quality inspection conducts by 3-rd party inspectors or video check between sales and customers. Random inspection is conducted here.

6. Customer follow-up and improve

Conduct Person: Merchandiser of the PO

Purpose: To follow up on the feedback from the customers and make improvements regarding the production and delivery, to form a healthy cooperation relationship between clients and ourselves and help the growth of the business.

Standard: Feedback from customers.

Job explanation:

Improve any parts related to production and delivery that’s within our power to make a better bone china tableware quality control performance.

Conclusion

Quality comes from the details

Your customers may not be an expert in your products, but you should be and always try to offer better things for your customers.

And when customers feel that they can count on the consistent quality of your products, they’re more likely to come back again for more and spread the good words.

Consistent quality takes hard work, attention to detail and systems for monitoring and assessing whether your products meet the standards you have set. Quality control is an ongoing process that touches everything from purchasing to manufacturing to distribution.

Introduction

From our website, we found that many people are interested in identifying bone china and porcelain. They want to know how to tell the difference between them. In this article and video, we are going to share with you some tricks we use to, hopefully, they will help you. Let’s get started.

So in the below picture, there are some ceramic mugs, some are made of porcelain, some are of bone china. Let’s take a closer look, can you tell the difference? Ok, I will just reveal, the two with the gold-covered handle are porcelain mugs. And the one without handle, the rest are all bone china mugs. So, how to identify?

Method 1

The most common method we use is by using the torch on our phone. Everyone got the phone by the side, right? Now, take a close look. We will switch the torch on and Let’s put the torch underneath the mug, and see what will happen.

We can compare the two mugs’ looks. The porcelain mug looks dark overall, with some area relatively bright while the rest area is dark, it is the same with other porcelain mugs. When we try with a bone china mug, and you can see the difference, the whole mug is translucent, the light can go through the mug, giving the color of warm yellow. Let’s take a look with another mug and we find out it’s the same. This is the method that we usually use, you can try this method with your mug.

Method 2

Here comes the 2nd method, by listening to the sound when knocking on. First, hold the mug you want to identify on your palm, gently, not firmly, and use another mug to knock on it and listen carefully.
We can also use another mug to knock, and listen again to avoid mistakes.
When we knock the porcelain mug, the echo is short and the sound is sharp and strong, while when we knock on the bone china mug, the echo is long and sound is dulcet.

Method 3

The 3rd method would be comparing the weight, if we compare the same size, same shape bone china mug and porcelain mug, the mug that made of bone china would be much lighter, don’t take it wrong, the thinner one is actually stronger, as that’s the bone china’s feature, delicate and strong.

Method 4

Another way we usually use is by checking the appearance of the mug, bone china mugs are of high whiteness level, gives people a warm feeling, and it has a thinner texture than porcelain. It’s hard to pick up on video, you can check the below pictures.

Conclusion

A nice cup and saucer can make a cup of tea taste better, as when it comes to ceramic, the better choice is bone china. I hope the above article can help you with identifying bone china and porcelain. Leave me a message if you have related questions.

If you have a bone china products developing project, click here to find moer about bone china products production process, or leave message below, we will get back to you as soon as possible.

This article applies to custom bone china mugs, custom bone china cup and saucer set, custom bone china plates and so on.

Introduction

When it comes to custom bone china mugs, the most frequently asked question we get every day is, what’s your price? The second question is, what is your MOQ(minimum order quantity)? Neither of the two questions can be answered in a single sentence. In this article, we are going to explain the MOQ issue, hope to make it clear once and for all.

(Bone China Mugs)

Let’s start with a quick overview of the custom bone china mugs’ process. Check detail here, How to develop promotional bone china mugs project?

First, we need to prepare white bone china mugs and the decal, the decal sheet is what we used to decorate the surface of the bone China mugs and realize the design provided by the customer to get the ideal effect. We will cut and paste the decal paper on the surface of the white bone china mugs, and then after firing, packaging, and finally you will get the bone china mugs with your own designs.

Of course, as it seems easy, the actual production process will be much more complicated than that. But you don’t need to know the details and exact steps, as that’s why you are looking for a professional bone china mugs manufacturer to get the job done for you.

MOQ Classification

The minimum order quantity includes two classifications, MOQ for the white bone china mugs and MOQ for the decals.

1.MOQ for white bone china mugs

For custom-made bone china mugs shape, the minimum order quantity usually is 5,000. In general, we recommend our existing bone china mugs shapes, our existing bone china mugs are available in a wide variety of shapes, covering a wide variety of shapes commonly available on the market to meet the needs of different customers. Below are some of our existing bone China mugs shapes. Choosing from our existing bone china mugs have a lot of advantages, lower cost- we don’t need to develop new mold, faster production time- most of them and lower initial order.s. So we can start at 1,000 or less.

2. MOQ for bone china decal

While the choice of white bone china mugs is quite flexible, the decal is another story.

As the decal sheet is almost all custom made according to customer requirements, there is no ready stock(here we just discuss first time customizing), so the decal paper part has more quantitative requirements.

(1) Decal

To get started, a brief introduction, what is a decal?

Decal paper is mainly used to decorate the surface of bone China products, that’s how we do custom design.

Bone China products can be divided into flat items and curved items, such as bone china plate is flat, while mugs are of the curved surface, which is quite obvious and easy to understand. For the bone China flat plates, we just need to make sure the design in accordance with the size, with the white bone china mugs, for surface, we need to protect the surface onto a flat surface.

For the bone china mug below, we need to expand the surface into a rectangle, and then design a pattern on the top of the rectangle, and that’s the first step of making the decal paper.

(2) How is it made?

According to the design of the bone china products, we will combine the patterns of the bone china items, the designs, and drawings provided by the clients. After the steps of color separation, plate making, etc. , we will print the special paper or plastic film with the special ink made of special pigments, to make a special paper which is called decal paper.

The decal paper production process is divided into on-glaze color, in-glaze color, under-glaze color. Different processes have their own advantages and disadvantages. The most common way we use is on-glaze color as on-glaze gives us more color options, and the colors look more vivid.

Here comes the part that you are most interested in.

(3) MOQ  of decal

The production of decal paper involves a series of processes, check the making process, each decal paper sheet is of the size 700*500 mm. Within this area, we can layout different items with customer’s designs, like mugs, plates, etc. In order to better control the cost, the decal production manufacturers require the minimum order is 200 sheets, attention, it is based on each design. This is the major factor we use of measuring a bone china project is worth developing or not.

To help you understand it, let’s look at the below example. This sheet is a typical bone china mugs layout, the bone china mug is of the shape as the picture. From the layout we can see, to get the maximum use of the layout space, we can lay at least 8 mugs in just one sheet, and in the below cases, it’s 10 mugs with no extra space left for anything else.

In the above layout, there are 10 mugs in 1 sheet.

Still, confused? Let’s look at another example.

In the above sheet, we lay 3pcs of 8inch plates, 5 pcs of the 6-inch plate, and 5 spoons. While the MOQ of the sheet is 200, you can do the math of MOQ of each item.

Below are some figures we used when clients ask about the MOQ for just one typical product.

Bone china Mugs.  —-1000pcs

Cup and saucer set. —-1000sets

8 Inch plate. —-1000pcs

Ways to decrease the MOQ

While the number seems quite large for start-ups, is there any way to decrease the number somehow?

The answer is yes.

Below are 3 options if the above quantity is way too big for you to start.

(1) Option 1

Instead of just custom bone china mugs, we can start with a series of bone china products. Here is the thing, in the example given above, if we just print the mug, the quantity for the mug would be 2000, but if we lay different product in a sheet, such as the bone china cup and saucer set, 10-inch dinner plate, 8-inch side plate, each one in the layout, the final quantity would be just 200 when we print 200 sheets. It’s also a feasible method for marketing, give customers more choices and if they like the design, they tend to purchase the whole set.

(2) Option 2

When the design is relatively simple, here the simple mainly refers to the color, such as the design only has 1-2 colors, then we can get several designs developed together by putting them on the same layout. So that quantity of initial order of each design reduced.

(3) Option 3

Accept some increased cost of each unit.

There is no doubt that big quantity always means a better price, but if we can’t do 1000, we can do 500. When we can’t reach the MOQ, there is an all-covered cost charged for the decals, which means the cost of developing decal for 1000 and 500 is the same, if we only produce 500 pcs, the unit cost of each mug will increase. For example, consider the cost of developing the decal is 600 USD for 1000 pcs mugs, the decal cost of each mug would be 600/1000=0.6, while when we only do 500 pcs, the decal cost of each mug comes to 600/500=1.2 USD.

From the example, you can see that the price we quote for custom bone china mugs is based on the actual cost, and we always try to get down to the base price and help the customers reduce the cost as much as possible. Usually, the price range we quote is between 2-4 USD, while most of the customers can sell them at the price of 19.99 USD or even more.

(4) Option 4

If your design is just of 1-2 colors, we can start with a small quantity like 500.

For quantity less than that, we would recommend you reconsider before starting the project as the cost would be even more for each product, not only for the production, but also for freight, transportation fees, and other cost caused by international trade, such as import taxes, all these factors need to be considered. And if the price is too high, it would impact on market competitiveness with no doubt.

Conclusion

When you have the idea of custom bone china mugs with your own designs, instead of asking us what’s your MOQ, you can just tell us the approximate quantity you can accept, What is the scope of your cost control? What are your other demands? The more specific, the better. And then our quotation can also be adjusted according to your requirements. In this way, we can truly customize the project according to your requirements, not only just custom bone china mugs but help you develop a product that will truly help your business. We believe that other than a super low price, you pay more attention to the effect of the design and the quality of the product, and more importantly, whether our products or service can be qualified as a great partner.

We hope the above information helped you understand the making process of custom bone china mugs and explained the MOQ clearly for you. Feel free to let us know if you have any more concerns regarding the topic. At last, if you have any demand for custom bone china mugs, or you are looking for a professional supplier with your current on-going bone china products business, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Details in choosing a fine bone china mugs supplier

Complains

“Their fine bone china mugs are the same as yours but they are 30% cheaper!!”

I received tons of such Comments almost every day from my prospective clients, for the fear of falling victim to our “lucrative Business”.

It’s a common story in almost every industry, where the Copycats are disguised as the “economical Originals” and lure consumers into their clever advertising.

“30% cheaper for the same quality.”

Very Eye-catching indeed.

Facts

Though a wise buyer shall put a question mark on it as there must be trade-offs when the Copycats compromise on the cost:

By choosing poor quality material that you can’t even tell if it’s fine bone china or porcelain;

By using pigment that is even dangerous to health ;

By skipping some of the inspection processes just to save time and labor cost;

By using disqualified poor packing material and accessories that caused the breakage on the way.

…

Yes, They “look” like the same.

Potential Risks

But Devils are in the details.

You will start to be panic as they disappear from time to time after you paid the money;

You didn’t want to miss the promotion season as the supplier cant deliver the products on time.

You didn’t expect to see your bone china products severely damaged because of poor package.

You didn’t realize that you would have no clue about how the production goes and you have no idea when you can get the goods.

You didn’t expect to see the quality of end bone china mugs differs heavily from each other and the products are not even the same as the sample.

You should have cared more about Your brand image, starting from the first investment.

You didn’t expect to get quality complain from your hard-earning clients whining about the quality problem after a few months of use. – Yes, many people don’t know this, some quality problem starts to appear after a few months use.

It has always been a golden rule. You get what you paid for.

Good investors think in decades.

Not quarters.

What we offer

Here in Longway, we conduct many steps to help eliminate the above concerns:

As we believe, quality is in details as well.

Quality comes from the places you may never have a chance to know.

Ask your current fine bone china mugs supplier, how many times of check do they go through before sending the end-products to you. If you can’t get a direct and instant answer, and if you do care about the quality much, you may be dealing with the wrong fine bone china mugs supplier.

Here is what we offer.

1.Quality Grade of white bone china products.

For example, the fine bone china whiteware was graded when they ready, please don’t be naive and believe you can get good quality products at a very low price, that is just not true in business field, here in Longway Ceramics, we always ask our clients a question, what’s your requirement for quality, and the answer is always “I want good quality”, well, of course there are some basic rules to determine the quality of the products, which we will share in detail in the coming posts(Stay tuned!), there is also an important concern whether the so-called good quality is necessary, as there are about 5%-10% price difference for A grade products and AB grade, which your bone china mugs supplier may have never mentioned to you.

2.Quality check

Under our internal QC regulation, we will at least 5 runs of quality check for semi and end products.

As we mentioned above, the products would be graded before use, here with Longway,  before applying with your design, there is an extra step of check which conducted by professional workers, they will check again if the products are actually qualified as they called, and if there is any missing check, the disqualified white bone china products will be selected and send back to white bone china ware factory, while for small companies or factories, they don’t have the sense or the people or the energy to do this.

After applying the designs and before firing, there are steps of wipe, clean and dry, here we have someone check the bone china products again, one piece by one piece, to check if the decal applying workers have done their job correctly, if there is any flaw caused by improper operation, the products will be sent back and redo,This minimizes the occurrence of defective products.

While some quality problem only occurs after firing, it’s important to check the end-products again before packing, and that’s what we do. This inspection is the most important one as once it passed, it will be sent to our clients, professional quality check person will check carefully and the defected products are graded out.

At last, the responsive salesperson will do a random inspection of the well-packed products before delivery, sometimes video check together with clients to make them feel safe.

3.Packing details

Packing cost here with us might be a little higher than other places, but we don’t want to cut the cost, poor packing leads to too many troubles after products arriving at the customer’s site and there is no way to remedy, especially for vulnerable bone china products, to be honest, we have our lessons learned in a hard way.

Here are what we do.

Thick EPE foam will be used between each piece when packing to avoid breaking. Pragmatic carton designs will be provided by our experienced packing factory partner. we will adopt both our clients’ demands as well as the factory’s suggestion, to come up with the best packing solution.

The pallet will be used to protect against possible bump resulting from long distance traveling and shaky sea transportation for small quantity order(Mostly for LCL), step by step to ensure a protected sea traveling to client’s Home.

Words we want to share

There are much more we can share with you about our quality control over our bone china products, and there is no absolutely Perfect &flawless  fine bone china mugs supplier. You have to balance out its merits and flaws. Be level-headed and detect it when suppliers try to brainwash you.

Bear in mind what are the most important factors for you and share it honestly with your supplier, a good bone china products supplier should not be just someone who earns from you oversea, but an important part of your whole supply chain, a trustworthy partner who you can count on, who can grow together with you. that’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s who we will continue to be in the future.

So if you are suffering from the pain mentioned above, if you are looking for a change, if you are looking for a solid fine bone china mugs supplier, team up with us, We always strive to help you handle bone china production more easily.

we will not let you down.

 

How to develop promotional bone china mugs project?

Why bone china?

Fine bone china, which is known for its combination of whiteness and strength. The pureness of the material enables a certain vibrancy of color, giving a classy and contemporary look to your corporate identity.

A beautiful mug can make a wonderful gift, and every opportunity should be taken to make full use of the vibrancy of colors that bone china affords – and its everlasting permanence too. Apart from their use as decorative features in the home or office, they are particularly suited to awards, presentations, memorial gifts and trophies.

Plus, these retail-style promotional bone china mugs will strengthen your corporate identity especially if you want to get across your ‘cozy’ image.

What for?

If you are fund-raising, promoting your business, celebrating a special event or anniversary, or perhaps a tourist gift for your very own exclusive shop sales – whatever it is that you are seeking to do – send us your artwork or its components and let us help.

If your business can’t stretch to giving these printed promotional bone china mugs out for free, then you can always use them simply to offer tea and coffee to clients during visits, meetings and seminars instead. Trust me, they will be impressed.

How to proceed?

To put it simply, things you have to do are easy, prepare the artwork, either it’s something you paint or your company’s logo, and send to us, make a decision about the bone china products you want to develop, like determine the mug shape, the decoration effect you want, and when it’s all set, you just pay the sample charge and leave the rest to us, the sample usually can be done within 1 week(for logo) or 1 month(for multi-color designs).

Why choose us?

Our range of Bone China products including mugs and cappuccino sets make fantastic promotional gifts. Bone China is a combination of typical ceramic clays and calcinated bone, the result is an immensely strong ware with a great looking finish. All our products in this range can be personalized to carry your companies logo or message.

Below are some samples of the shapes of bone china mugs we provide, whether you want something unique or more commonly-liked, you can always find the perfect choice with us.

 

With our many years of continuous development of our own in-house decoration techniques, we believe we offer our customers complete and the most advanced bespoke bone china design service in our Industry.

What’s more?

Gilding

Add a splash of color with gilding on your personalized mugs. Most of the gilding is gold and silver, which will make the products look more luxurious.

Backstamp

Add a stamp of authenticity, provide some additional information and increase your brand awareness by using a backstamp on our mug range!

Customized Boxes

Don’t forget, even our packaging can be fully personalized to suit your company design. These items are brilliant as luxury giveaways, gifts and presentation awards!

Questions you may have.

What’s the MOQ?

As we mentioned in the article Bone China Decal Paper Production Process, that the less the quantity, the higher the cost would be, this is not just the case with decal, it is the same with package, whiteware, also, the designs’ color, cover space would also affect the MOQ of the project, therefore, there is no standard answer to the question of ‘What’s your MOQ for a new bone china mugs project’, the smart move to save your time is to be as specific as possible when you send your inquiry.

Send us something like this,

“Hello, I would like to customize my own design on a bone china mug/bone china cup and saucer set, here I attach the design I want to develop, and the quantity would be around **, the bone china mug shapes that I prefer are **, my other requirements are (like whether gild, backstamp, customized package are required, etc)

Inquiries like this can not only help us save the time of communication, but also give yourself a clear idea about the things you actually want to do, plus, we can study the feasibility of your project without wasting much time.

How much is sampling?

For customized project, while the unit price of each customized bone china mug may between USD 2.5-4.5/Pcs, the sampling charge of each design is around USD100-500, (usually USD 200 for a 4-6 colors design), price varies due to the difficulty of the design, and this amount usually will be deducted when bulk order placed.

Tips to speed up the process and cut some cost

Selection of white bone china mugs.

Since the bone china mugs whiteware production takes around 1 month, and white bone china ware factories have their own production schedule, therefore, it would be ideal if we could use the existing stock of white bone china mugs, and the good news is that, for most of the common shapes, factories keep producing and holds some stock! Which is great news when there is limited time for promotion.

For example, last month, we closed a deal about 2000 pcs mugs, and the buyer needs the mugs in urgently, luckily, when checking with whiteware factory, they just produced a similar mug with a slight change to the handle, and customer approved the change, bang! the whole production time shorten for 1 month at least!

Prepare the AI documents of the design you want to develop.

When you are all set about the project, prepare the AI document which helps separate each color can help the technician to speed up the decal making process.

Package design.

The MOQ of the customized package is 1000pcs, if you cant reach this quantity, you can choose our standard package, it has been proved to be safe for delivery and will save you a lot of costs.

 

Leave me a message if you have an inquiry to make or a comment if there is anything you are still confused with, try us especially when you have promotional bone china mugs project to launch, we aim to earn your delicate trust to help you handle bone china projects more easily.

 

Bone China Decal Paper Production Process

1. Introduction

• Have you ever wondered how the beautiful patterns on the bone china(also called bone porcelain) plates and bone china mugs were realized? To be specific, Bone China Decal Paper Production realized? 
• Have you ever questioned why it is just a simple sample, why do bone china manufacturers charge you a relatively huge sample fee?
• Have you ever wondered why there is a MOQ in the development of bone china products?

Bone china products with decal

The article mainly includes the below subjects.

1. What is the decal paper?
2. What’re the main steps of making the decal paper.
3. Factors that affect the price of decal paper price
4. Conclusion.

1. What is the decal paper?

Want to understand these issues, let me take a look at the production process of ceramic decal paper. The flow chart below briefly summarizes the production process of ceramic decal paper.

 

 

Fine bone china decal production process

1.1 What’s decal paper?

Decal paper, also known as water transfer decal paper, is a decorative process that first prints the pattern on a special paper pre-coated with water-soluble glue, and then wets it by water to transfer it to the surface of the object(like ceramics). Decal paper is mainly used for the decoration of irregular surfaces of ceramics, glass, sports equipment (helmets, rackets, etc.), metal, wood and other objects.

Bone china bowls with decal

1.2 What’s decal paper composed of? 

The ceramic decal paper is composed of the bottom paper (also called paper base), a sol middle layer, and oil surface cover.

In this article, we mainly discuss the related content of bone china decal paper. Bone china is a kind of ceramic, and its production process is the same as the ceramic decal paper.

2. Bone china decal paper production process

The bone china decal paper production process is mainly divided into 3 steps, which are pre-print preparation, printing control, and post-print inspection.

Bone porcelain paper is a kind of high-temperature decal paper. After the decal is dried, it should be fired for four hours at the temperature of more than 600 degrees. For high-temperature decal paper, the pre-print part is extremely important, including design, color separation, layout making and material selection.

High-quality small-film decal paper, the pattern is clear and delicate, the color is saturated and accurate, there is no picture defects or grain, it has better ductility and is not easy to break when applying, and the firing effect is ideal. The ability to meet these quality requirements depends to a large extent on the pre-print processes.

2.1 pre-print preparation

(1) Design and color separation

As the color separation of bone china decal paper is limited by the nature of the pigment, it is not as simple as ordinary three primary colors. The ceramic pigments must be fused with the surface of the enamel through a medium-high temperature firing to present different colors. Different ceramic pigments contain different chemical components, and these elements cannot be mixed with each other, plus, individual pigments have higher requirements for printing.

Understanding the properties of bone china pigments, and color in the pre-print separation process will help greatly when making judgments and dealing with some practical problems.

How to accurately review and color separation? How many colors does a pattern have? Whether each color can be overprinted, which greatly tests the technical level of the professional.

(2) Screen manufacturing

The bone china decal screen has a relatively high requirement for the thickness of the color layer, so the quality of the printed ceramic paper cannot be judged by the fineness degree when the number of screen lines for the pattern is high, it is necessary to use a high mesh screen.

The use of high mesh screen has three disadvantages:

• High cost;
• Color layer is thin, it is difficult to express the hue of ceramic color;
• Easy to block the net. The standard screen is a 300T polyester mesh.

The screen-printed color layer is easy to access to ceramic pigments, and the screen and pigment costs are low, and the printability is optimal.

After selecting the number of screen lines and the type of screen, the more difficult process is to make a screen (commonly known as screen exposure). The following points of printing screen exposure should be strictly noted:

• Choose the net.
• Use capillary film or good photosensitive glue to ensure good image reproduction.
• Whether the tension value of the screen is suitable will directly affect whether the printing color is accurate.

 (3) Color adjustment

Screen printing ink is prepared by mixing a coloring pigment(ceramic pigment) and varnish in a certain ratio (confirming the mixing ratio according to the specific gravity of the pigment), and the viscosity is suitable for screen printing.
Screen printing ink, like ordinary color printing ink, has three basic elements, which are color, brightness and saturation. There are also bright, dark, thick, and light points.

However, the intermixing property of screen printing ink is far less than that of ordinary color printing inks. It is often caused by improper mixing and chemical reaction between each other during the firing process, which presents undesirable colors and even causes color burst and gold missing.
The coloring agent particles of the screen printing porcelain ink are coarser than the ordinary color printing ink pigment, and the specific gravity is also large, which has a great influence on improving the quality of the decal paper on the screen printing ceramic glaze.

In order to improve the quality of printed products, the requirement for screen printing ceramic ink is that the finer the particles, the better.

2.2 In-print control

The ceramic decal paper is produced by the screen printing process, and the process focuses on ensuring accurate color matching, thick and lustrous color layers, and clear color tone of the pattern.

1. Accurate color matching

There are 3 factors that affect the accuracy of the color registration:
1 Whether the printing machine paper feeding system is adjusted correctly, and the position of the paper is ensured when it is transported from the paper feeding table to the printing positioning device;
2 Whether the tension of each screen is consistent;
3 Whether the paper is inflated by the temperature and humidity of the workshop during multiple printing.

 2. The control of the thickness of the layer

Whether the quality of ceramic decals is excellent is greatly determined by an important criterion, which is whether it can accurately reproduce the original color. There are a few colors that require a very thick print and need to reach 20μm. The embossed pattern even requires a thickness of 200μm. Thickness control needs to master 3 points: mesh number, photosensitive adhesive coating thickness, printing parameters.

3. The effect of the design

The reprinting power of screen printing decals is difficult to compare with modern offset printing. Therefore, the multi-color printing of screen printing decals should be used to compensate for the lack of layering. In the screen printing process, the definition of the tone level can be improved when the thickness of the color layer is ensured and the printing speed is accelerated. The quality of the printing ink also directly affects the reduction of the color tone level.

2.3 Post-print inspection

Because the decal paper is a semi-finished product, it must be fired after the paper is proofed. After firing the decals, you can see the pattern and compare it to the original. Only qualified as before can become a qualified product.

Hope this article can help you have a better understanding of how Bone China Decal Paper Production like.  Once the sample is confirmed, it can be mass produced later. After the production is finished, dried and laminated, and then it can be cut by the staff and applied by the decal applying workers.

 

bone china products finished decal applying

3. Factors that affect the price of decal paper price

3.1 Why there is a sample fee charged?

It is precisely because of the realization of each pattern that requires these complicated processes, Therefore, in the process of achieving the new products of bone china, a certain sample fee is charged. And this sample fee is generally not refundable. It is these complex processes that result in a high price of paper and paper for a single bone china item if the quantity is small, which ultimately leads to a high cost of bone china products.

3.2 Factors that affect the bone china decal paper cost

The cost of the paper is not only related to the number of printing but also the complexity of printing, that is, the processing of the grade, the type of color, etc., also affect the cost of the paper. The more colors you have, the more difficult it is to make, and the higher the price of ceramic paper.
Another factor that affects the cost of bone china paper is whether it contains gold. Gold can add brilliance to bone china products and make the products look more luxurious. But the cost of gold is much higher than the cost of color.

Therefore, in general, the price of gold-containing ceramic decal paper is higher than the price of color decal paper. Gold is also divided into different varieties and qualities, there are platinum, gold, microwave gold, etc., customers can choose products that suit their own market according to their own needs.
The quality of the pigments is also uneven, some raw materials are easy to fade, and some raw materials contain lead separation, which is harmful to human health. These differences cannot be identified by new buyers of bone china.

Bone china mugs after firing

4. Conclusion

At Longway, you don’t have to worry about the effects you need to achieve, because we work with the most professional bone china decal paper production factories, they have a wealth of experience, and have very high-quality requirements. All you have to do is to prepare your design and tell us the details about your requirements, then leave all the work to us, we will give you satisfactory results in the shortest time.

If you have a new bone china project, if you are looking for a reliable bone china manufacturer, if you are not satisfied with the current bone china product suppliers, as there are various problems in their cooperation with them. You know how to contact us.

FAQ for Small Bone China Wholesalers

Recruiting bone china wholesalers! Recently, we are getting more and more letters from trusted buyers about the purchasing of our products lists on the website.
To make the process easier for you and to save you some time, below listed some questions that are frequently asked.
Again, the questions suitable for first-time small wholesalers, those who interested in buying some products to start your own business like open an online store, or buying some products to serve in the local shops etc.

1. What products do you offer?
The main products we offer are tea sets, cup and saucer sets, mugs. All of our products are made in Tangshan, and all of them are made of fine bone china. We produce and provide nearly all bone china tableware items, like plates, bowls etc. Welcome to send us an enquiry if you are interested in developing your own products.
The products can further divide into regular products and customized products.
A. Regular products.
Please check our online catalog(it might load slow, thank you for the patience), these products listed are our frequently made products, which can be supplied at a short time notice. Especially for the Bone china cup and saucer set, like Royal Albert style, Wedgwood style, which are popular and welcomed by a lot of people.

B. Customized products.
If you want to develop your own mug or cup and saucer series, it is warmly welcome too! From the shape of the designs apply and packing designs, we are here with you for the whole process. Contact us and share us more about your project, let’s make the idea become some amazing products.

2. Do you have ready stock?
For the hot-selling items, like the Royal Albert series cup and saucer set, tea set, we have some stock.
Most of the products we don’t have ready stock. But if you are interested in our regular products and choose from our catalog, most of them can be produced shortly.
For the customized products, production time depends on the quantity, which we will discuss further.

3.How long can you deliver the products?
Mainly depend on the situation of question No.2. For ready stock, we can deliver within 3 days, for orders need to be produced, it depends on a lot of factors like production schedule, quantity, the difficulty of the making process.

4.What’s the shipping method?
Oversea freight can be a big obstacle stopping people buying from abroad, as it is quite expensive compared to domestic shipping.
Shipping method can mainly divide into 2 categories. Sea shipping and Air shipping. They both have its own pros and cons, you need to figure out which ship method suits you better.
For sea shipping, the shipping time can be quite long as 1-2 months, as bone china is quite fragile, it has more risk of breakage on the way, but its cost is less compared to air freight.
The most obvious advantage of air freight is the delivery time, for many cities, the package can arrive within 1 week. But it’s relatively higher cost is something we need to consider.
For cup and saucer set, given the quantity of 50 sets or 100 sets, the freight can be as much as the products themselves.

5. How are the products packed?
Safety is our top concern. Given the features of bone china, it is a total waste if broken on the way, therefore, extra safety packing methods are applied. We apply different packing method for different products, for example, for cup and saucer set, we designed a special packing method that fixes the position of the products perfectly, so it won’t shake on the way, the boxes are of thick paper, and the outer boxes are made of 5 layers paper, the breakage in the delivery is very very random.
Good products deserve good package, and package means a lot when you intend to sell them, it helps to promote your brand, and even help you sell at a good price! We provide customized packing design service for big quantity, for a small quantity, we have existing gift boxes options for you to choose too. You can start right way as a bone china wholesaler!

6.Can I start with small quantity?
Fully understand for small business owners, to start a business, there are many factors to consider, therefore, we try our best to support. For regular products, we are going to open our online store soon, you can choose from there, for customized products, there is MOQ to keep the cost as low as possible. Please contact us to find out the details.

7.Which payment method is accepted?
Due to the safety concern, currently, we only accept payment by bank wire transfer and the Western Union.

8.What’s the price?
Please contact us with the products you need, the quantity, your favorite shipping method, and if you have other requirements, please share with us too, we will quote your price as soon as possible.

9.What’s the process buying from you?
Please refer to the answers to question No. 8, if the price is ok, we can move on to the payment and delivery.
If the amount is small, like a few cartons basis, we will require 100% payment in advance.
For bigger amount(more than 3000 USD), we ask 30% deposit, and the rest payment paid before delivery.

10. What kind of guarantee do you have?
Welcome more and more bone china wholesalers join hands with us. Clients’ satisfaction is the ultimate goal of our work, we try our best to make clients have a better experience when cooperating with us.
Any questions or problems before, during or after our cooperation, please stay in touch with us, we will provide solutions.

If you have any other questions, please leave a message or send us a letter, we are more than willing to help.

Can’t wait to start your own business? Contact us with your RFQ.

 

Happy Thanksgiving Day

Dear Customers and Visitors,

How time flies, 2017 is coming to an end real soon, and it’s been another year we have your trust and accompany.

Looking back, 2017 has been a hard yet fruitful year for our company. The overall situation is hard, with the ongoing increase of all the prices, including bone ash, package etc, however, we have the understanding of our dear customers, and we appreciate very much for your understanding and cooperation with us, we are glad that the cooperation has been both joyful and fruitful.

It has always been our top concern to think what customers think, to grow together with our customers, we value your opinion and thoughts, we’d love to hear your thoughts, your concerns, your problems, and we are more than happy to provide any possible help to assist you getting over the difficult time.

Looking forward, we have full confidence that it will be a splendid year ahead, not only for us, but also for our customers! We will provide better products and service for you, and we are looking forward more enterprises to joining hands with us!

Aiming at being your best bone china products supplier, that’s our mission, and the goal we consistently fighting for.

There is no better time to say thank you than now.

A lovely Thanksgiving day and a joyous holiday season to our dear customers and visitors, to your company members and families!

——–Longway Ceramic Sales Team

Why Should You Know China’s Environment Protection Inspection?

1 The background

Now China has some of the most polluted cities in the world. Air purifying equipment and anti-pollution masks sell out rapidly, especially in winter in the north of the China. Groundwater is polluted making safe drinking water a big concern. Environmental protection has been a hot topic these years, now the government is doing something about it.

After decades of growth left the country saddled with problems such as smog and contaminated soil, in 2016, China launched a series of central environmental inspections. Since June of 2017, China’s new Ministry of Environment is taking a hard stance against Chinese factories that are “heavy polluters”.

Industries that are suffered including Metal, Rubber, Ceramic, Chemicals, Dying, Painting, and Printing processes, Carbon.

The environmental audits have been implemented in rollouts that have begun in certain regions mostly centralized in and around Northern China. And then later phases reach other regions.

2. What’s the purpose of the environment protection inspection?

The months-long inspection mainly focuses on prominent environmental issues that are closely watched by the central government and aroused strong public resentment, and how the local governments have handled them.

Inspectors will monitor key environmental issues, oversee local improvements and push local government accountability.

Any unqualified factories, once found, will be facing an abundant fine or even shut down. In fact, in the most recent round of factory audits, the environmental action has shut down tens of thousands of Chinese factories with no end in sight.

3. Impacts of the environmental protection inspection

3.1 One impact on the these mentioned industries is the shortage in supply.

Companies without proper environmental performance are now in quite big or potentially big trouble. some factories are closing to avoid being inspected, and some are forced to shut down to make improvements. As normal production process was interrupted, or even factories shut down, the whole supply chain has been affected for many industries, this, with no doubt, caused the delay or even terminate in the whole production process.

Large state-owned businesses, local governments and thousands of small private enterprises have been implicated. Even though they may have the required documents or live up to the standard, they are involving in the cooperation with other factories too. Therefore, production in big or state-owned business is suffered as well.

3.2 Another obvious impact is the increase in the price.

With environmental storm swept China, and packaging and printing factories around the country came to be shut down, which cost the increase of the price of the package, while the package is required in all industries. The situation is the same with many other industries too,  the price has increased at least 10%.

4. When will it end?

It has been the largest-ever national operation in the field of environmental protection in history, and there is no sign of end in the near future. According to Government’s announcement in April, it would be a year long action.

As there is no clear timeline which means the factories don’t know when or if they can resume production, therefore, there is no clear answer about when will the whole production back to normal.

5. What should you do?

If you have business in these fields, it is very likely that it will be influenced.

Most of the Chinese factories don’t have the awareness of informing their clients about the potential problems. They are more likely to use it as a reason or excuse, it is a fair fact, but knowing before-ahead would sure help you to make corresponding actions.

So it is a smart move to stay in close touch with your suppliers. Not only in this special period, always checking with them about your order’s status will sure help the smooth delivery of your cargo.

Another advice is having a plan B, a plan B for the project, and a plan B supplier would help too, either in China or other countries. As a Chinese old saying goes, you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and have them all break with one sudden jolt.  

6. For ceramic industry

Hebei in China has always been a heavy polluted province in China. Its location is quite near the capital Beijing makes it a key environmental protection inspection area. The two key export industries in this area are steel and ceramic, which are important polluted sources. Therefore, the situation in this area is very severe.

As mentioned in last articles, nearly 90% bone china in China were produced in Tangshan, China, the production of bone china have been badly influenced by the inspection action.

However, this national-wide environment protection inspection action is beyond the control of the factories, and in the long run, it is beneficial to the world’s substantial development.

7  Sources

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-ironore-idUSKBN1AG0YR

https://www.valuewalk.com/2017/08/chinese-commodity-prices-exploding/

https://www.reuters.com/article/global-metals-idUSL4N1KW1NK

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-04/06/c_136185239.htm

http://english.mep.gov.cn/News_service/media_news/201708/t20170808_419351.shtml

https://www.8020sourcing.com/china-epa-crackdown-shuts-down-tens-of-thousands-of-factories-with-no-end-in-sight/

 

 

How is Bone China Mug Made?

                               —————–Bone China Making Process

1. Introduction

Have you ever wondered how bone china is made? How could a pile of kaolin, ashes develop the mugs we use every day? Have you ever wondered why the bone china products are more expensive than other ceramic products?

In this article, we are going to tell you how bone china products are made step by step. The main making process including the following steps.

When selecting bone china, many people focus on patterns and designs rather than the manufacture of luxurious porcelain. Learning details about the complex bone china manufacturing process can help you gain more appreciation for the fine dishes in your collection.

As bone china is a kind of porcelain, its manufacturing process is similar to porcelain. The main differences between bone china and other ceramics are in two aspects, bone ash content and two times firing in the making process. The bone ash gives the bone china products features like high whiteness, translucency and strength, which is clearly written in the article “All You Want to Know about Bone China”

From the bone china factory’s worker’s view, we write this article, hope it can help you have a better understanding of bone china making process.

Making bone china involves several steps, it requires complex machinery and skilled technicians and workers. Among the making process, the 8 main steps are Clay making, Mould making and Forming, Biscuit firing, Glazing, Glaze firing and Decorating, Decal firing, and packing. If it’s just for white bone china products, then there is no decoration part. The typical bone china manufacturing facilities are quite large, different machines are involved in different steps.

 

2. How is bone china mug made?

Now let’s explain the process step by step.

Bone china is the toughest of porcelains and contains bone ashes. In fact, bone ash consists the greatest part of the formula for bone china (about 40% to 45% of the mixture), it is the key ingredient that enhances whiteness and translucency, it is also the reason of its milky white appearance which is not seen in other porcelains.

The other raw material of bone china products are Kaolin, lime, feldspar, and clay. the higher percentage of the bone ash, the more difficulty the technology, also the brighter the products.

2.1 Step 1. Clay making

The first step is clay making, mix the raw materials mentioned above with water at a certain percentage and then blend at a high speed in the ball grinding mill machine(see below picture), the slurry was formed in this step. The grinding time depends on the size of the particle, usually around 24 hours, the whole making process involves the slurry.

  (Ball grinding machine)

The next step is sieving. The slurry is sieved to eliminate the iron and other impurities.

After the final mix has been prepared, it is pumped to a filter press to remove air and water from the mix — the moisture level is reduced to about 20 percent. After 3-4 times of blending, final mix left in a liquid state is referred to as slip. The slip will be sliced to a different size for usage in next steps. A giant slicer divides each pug into several clay discs.

(End product of first process—clay)

2.2 Step 2.Mould Making and Forming

In this step, the clay is diluted and cast into the molds, here we skip the process of making the mould, which requires high skills, as the molds are used to form all the shapes, either mug, bowl, plates, teapots, etc, now we assume the mould shape is ready.

Now we need to use the mold shape to batch produce the products, which is called forming. Forming methods vary depending upon the shapes.

There are mainly two kinds of forming method. Jiggering and casting. The Casting method can further be divided to high-pressure casting and hand casting.

(1) Jiggering

Regular round pieces like plates, bowls, mugs are generally formed on jiggers, the slip is used to fill the molds, excess slip is drained from the mold, then refining slip shape with the machines.

Each disc of clay is placed on top of a plate mold. The plate mold begins to rotate. A jigger head hovering above starts to rotate, too, and presses down upon the rotating pug slice and mold plate. A scraping tool cuts off excess clay from the rim of the newly formed green ware plate.

(Working jiggering machine)

(2) Casting

Casting can further be divided into high-pressure casting and hand casting.

a Hand casting

Irregular pieces as pots and gravy boats are cast in plaster molds. Oval, square, and rectangular pieces are, moreover, cast in two-parted plaster molds to stabilize the shapes, which is called hand casting.

Casting. Liquid clay called slip is poured into each mold. As the plaster mold absorbs water, the wall of the cup is formed. When the wall thickness is correct the remaining slip is poured out and recycled back into the slip tank. The time the slip must remain in the mold varies according to the slip, how wet the mold is, and even the weather. After several hours the cup is dry enough to be removed from the mold without warping it.

(Hand casting)

b High-pressure casting

Other shapes like the oval plate and Rectangular plate are formed in the way of high-pressure casting.

(Oval plate)

In the high-pressure casting process, the following steps are involved.

1.Use the air hose to clean out the mold, making sure there’s no excess plaster or remaining slip from a previous fill.

2.Am the nozzle of the hose and fill the mold with the desired slip (white or ivory).

3.Wait for 10-15 minutes to allow the slip to forming and shaping.

4.Pour out the excess slip and let the mold sit for about another 10 minutes.

5.Release the mold.

The step followed is fettling.

For the irregular shapes, like teapot and mugs, handlers have to cling to the main body first after it’s dry, then sponge will be used to polish the surface.

Small finishing knives, water, and sponges are used by the workers to smooth out the lip and foot of each cup and make sure the handles are securely attached. The finished cups are placed on small setters, called chums, and stacked on racks destined for the kiln.

The formed bodies, now called “green wares” are left to dry and finished with water sponging to gently remove scratches and scars from the surfaces to casting and polishing, after sponge, the uneven and rough surface of the bone china greenware become smooth.

(Workers cleaning, fettling, and cling the bone china greenware)

2.3 Step 3. Biscuit Firing, also called First Firing

After the green ware is dry, it is ready to be fired for the first time.

Differ from the conventional porcelain making, the Bone China’s first firing, called “Biscuit firing”, is carried out at a temperature of around 1,200 to 1,300 centigrade in the oxidizing atmosphere in the biscuit kiln, the products are fired over 15 hours.

(Biscuit firing kiln)

As in the firing process, the bone china products will shrink and out of shape, plates and bowls should put in special equipment to endure long time firing. About 20% shrinkage of the green wares occurring at this stage is apt to cause deformation and cracking. In order to overcome this, most pieces are placed on refractory setters, called “cranks” to let them follow the profiles of the setters.

 The setters ensure that the plates maintain their form in the kiln.

(Bone china products in the setters ready for firing)

In this process, the green wares vitrified to make them durable, white, and translucent. However, in order to achieve the best results within such specific temperature range, the firing schedule must be carefully controlled.

Polishing/ sponging and selecting

Biscuit ware is formed after the first firing, after the biscuit ware is taken out from the kiln, each piece gets a bath. Smooth stones and water are used to polish each piece of china — the vibration of the stones smooths away the rough exterior (pieces fresh from the kiln feel a little like very fine-grained sand paper).

After the stone bath, the Biscuit ware is run through a giant industrial dishwasher and dryer. At the other end, each piece of china is closely inspected for any damage or flaws. Pieces that pass muster move on to the glazing process.

2.4 Step 4  Glazing

So, what makes bone china so strong? We’ve already mentioned one thing: bone ash. The bone ash content in bone china makes it stronger than other porcelain products. Another thing is the glaze. Think of it as liquid glass that, once heated, forms an incredibly strong protective shell.

Bone China’s glaze is a mixture of bone ash and kaolin. Because the biscuit (the greenware after first-fired) is nonabsorbent, the glaze needs to be applied by spraying. The glaze is applied by hand dipping or machine, to protect and decorate the biscuit.

(Machine glazing)

The irregular pieces are glazed with hand. The work requires patience and a very steady hand.

(Hand glazing)

After glazing, the foot (bottom) of each piece of china must be wiped clean with a damp sponge so it won’t stick to the kiln.

2.5 Step 5. Glost Firing(Second Firing)

Glaze firing, also called glost firing, is the next step in the bone china making process, which is also known as second firing.

Once the glaze is dry, plates or bowls are fired for a second time over 7 hours at 1080°C in the glazing firing kiln.

The glaze-coated biscuits are set in the saggers in order to avoid direct exposure to flames. The saggers are piled up on kiln cars and sent into a tunnel kiln. When the temperature goes up to around 1,000 to 1,200 centigrade in the oxidizing atmosphere, the glaze melts and fuses onto the biscuits.

All biscuit wares coming out of the kiln are strictly inspected, after cooling, the plates, bowls, mugs etc are inspected and any imperfections are ground off, only a few can be passed onto the decorating stage.

The qualified products in this process are called white wares, which are delivered to the whiteware house for further use, direct use or apply decoration.

Imperfect pieces may be destroyed or sold as “seconds.” The pieces are then packaged and sent to retail stores.

2.6 Step 6. Decoration

As bone china comes in a variety of designs, so the homeowner has an array of choices. Almost every decor imaginable is available to apply to bone china, this is also the charm of on-glaze decoration. Some designs may include flowers, fruit, geometric designs, lacy swirls, animals, or even holiday motifs.

(Bone china products with decoration)

Bone China’s standard decorating methods are spraying, decal application, gold finishing, and hand painting. Among them, decal application is the most widely used.

Decals can be applied by hand or machine. When a decal is to be applied by hand, the bone china products, like plates, need to be cleaned, as any dust would impact the effect of the decal.

Experienced workers will first apply the back stamp, then they flip over the plate and apply the decals. The decals are soaked in water and then placed, by hand, on the plate. Using a slightly damp sponge, the decal is smoothed onto the plate.

(Decal applying)

The process of applying precious metal (gold or platinum) to whiteware is referred to as gilding. Like the decal application, this is done by hand.

the metal, which is in a liquid state, is painted on each piece with a delicate brush. For other pieces, such as dinner plates or platters that are to be edged in a wide rim of metal, a machine can handle the job.

(bone china products with gold rim and decal applying)

2.7  Step 7. Decoration firing

After the decoration, pieces are fired at 700 to 800 centigrade again to make the pigments fuse into the glaze-coatings. Among the mentioned decorating methods, hand-painting is applied only by proficient artisans. Also, gold or platinum finishing is hand-blushed onto the pieces by well-skilled artisans when necessary.

No matter what the application, the decoration needs to fire for the last time. If it is with decal and gold rim, then need to fire for two more times, different temperature were required for this process.

The pigments (and sometimes metal) of the decals are sealed into the white wares in a kiln running at 1,600 degrees F (871 C) for about two and a half hours. While the metal is permanently formed to the china in a decal firing kiln running at 1,400 degrees F (760 C) for about one and a half hours.

(Bone china cups ready for decal firing)

2.8 Step 8. Packaging

Now that the china is completely decorated, it’s ready for final inspection and packaging.

After carefully selecting the qualified products for the end products, then workers careful pack to ensure safety in transporting.

The finished pieces of china are moved out of the decorating area and are inspected one last time. China that passes muster will be bar-coded, wrapped in foam and bagged.

The bagged bone china products will then go to a boxing area and be passed on to shipping.

(Final packing for bone china products)

Conclusion

The above words simply explained how is bone china made. Hope you get what you are looking for. Anything more about bone china, please feel free to leave a message, let’s discuss!

Please help us share the article if you find it useful. Thanks!

All You Want to Know About Fine Bone China

——————–What is Bone China?

Recently, a group of clients came to visit our factory, they have been doing fine bone china business for more than 10 years, but this was their first time visiting a bone china factory, when at lunch, one of them asked me, is it really bone ash used in bone china products? How to find out the bone ash content? Do daily bone china products really contain 50% bone ash? How to tell if it’s a real bone china product?

These questions made me realize that even though people in this field for many years, some related knowledge is still vague, let alone ordinary consumers.

Therefore, in this article, we are going to discuss everything about bone china and answer the questions mentioned above. Anyone interested in this topic will get the full basic information they need to know about fine bone china.

1 Definition of bone china

1.1 what is fine bone china? What is bone china made of?

The word “china” clearly shows that the country is the “home of pottery and porcelain.” while bone china is a kind of porcelain.

Fine Bone China, also called bone china, or bone porcelain, is a type of ceramic that uses bone ash, clay, feldspathic material, and kaolin as basic material.

Fine Bone china needs to go through two times of firing, high temperature(1250℃) firing, which is also called biscuit firing, and lower temperature(1150℃) firing, also called glaze firing. For decorated bone china products, the firing process is even more complicated, which may reach 3-5 times firing. (Click How is Bone China Products Made to see the bone china-making process)

Typical daily bone china tableware including bone china dinnerware, tea set, coffee set, cup and saucer set, mugs, etc.

(Bone china mugs)

1.2 Fine Bone China Features

Known as the only worldwide recognized high-grade porcelain, fine bone china products has features that other ceramic ware can’t compare with.

• Transparency

Holding a fine bone china cup in a dark place and put a torch inside it, you can see the light go through the bone china body, which is quite impressive.

(pic)

• Milky white and Lightweight

Bone china is known for its high level of whiteness and translucency. With bone ash added to the raw material, the bone china tableware gives a milky white color, it is also lighter than other ceramic products, these features make bone china getting more and more popular in the modern days.

• Hardness

Yet it is light, semi-transparent, and it seems fragile, while it is the strongest porcelain. Its wear-resistant features make it a favorable and top choice for high-end hotels, Casinos & Resorts, Upscale dining establishments, Corporate & Academic dining facilities, and more.

• Easy to wash

After two times of firing and glazing, the surface of bone china tableware is very smooth, which makes it very easy to wash. This feature makes bone china dinnerware and tea sets favorable by housewives.

• ZERO percent of toxic elements like lead and cadmium

It is not enough just to have an attractive appearance. The safety issue is the top topic people care about. After all, tableware is something we use to serve our food, and it mustn’t be toxic to our health.

With zero lead and cadmium content, bone china is regarded as the safest tableware, with the bone ash ingredient in its raw material, it is beneficial for people’s health too, as the bone ash contains elements that are beneficial for people’s health.

1.3 The key factors that differ bone china from other ceramic products

• Bone ash content.

Difference country has its own standard about the bone ash content. For China, the percentage of bone ash should reach 36% to call it bone china, this is a national standard,  while for the United States, the content is 25%, and in the UK, the content is 30%, the higher the bone ash content, the harder in the making process, and the brighter the products would be. In Tangshan, the bone ash content is usually more than 40%, which made it famous as bone china born place in China.

• Two times firing.

The firing process is what creates either porcelain or fine bone china. Porcelain is made by one-time firing, while bone china is made by two times firing. Both kinds of items are fired at the different temperatures.

(Bone china firing kiln)

2 How to tell the difference between bone china and other ceramic products

As we mentioned above, bone china is also called fine bone china, or bone porcelain, so there is no difference between bone china and fine bone china because it is the same thing. People add the word “fine” in front of the term to indicate the quality.

But for new bone china, it is totally a different concept! New bone china is not bone china, it’s a term to confuse clients and in fact, it is still porcelain, some business merchants use the concept to confuse new buyers.

So here we mainly talk about the difference between bone china and fine china, and the difference between bone china and new bone china.

2.1 difference between bone china and fine china

Porcelain, also called “fine china”, featuring its delicate texture, pleasing color, and refined sculpture, has been one of the earliest artworks introduced to the Western world through the Silk Road.

While bone china is a type of porcelain but is of the high-end range.

At a glance, if you know what you’re looking for, it’s easy to tell the difference between bone china and fine china.

• Color

The addition of bone ash gives bone china a warm milky white color, while fine china will be a brighter white.

• Translucency

If you hold the bone china cup up to the light, you’ll see that bone china has a translucent quality compared to fine china. This feature is most widely used to test whether it’s bone china.

• Hardness

Porcelain is a durable material and is of moderate weight and hardness.  Bone china products usually are lighter and have a higher degree of hardness.

For example, for an 8-inch flat plate, the bone china plate weight is around 500-600g, while the fine china plate is much heavier.

(pic)

2.2 Difference between bone china and new bone china

First and foremost, new bone china is not bone china.

It is a concept created to gain more attention and a marketing strategy to sell porcelain at a higher price. In fact, it is just a kind of porcelain, but have some similar features similar to bone china.

2.2.1 What is the new bone china

New bone china is in fact a kind of white porcelain, adding mineralizer and calcium oxide(which has similar elements as bone ash) to the raw material, produces something that has some difference from the traditional porcelain in the aspects of firing temperature and deformability, absorption, and transparency, thus forming a kind of porcelain which has similar appearance as bone china.

2.2.2 Difference between bone china and new bone china

While New bone china might have a similar whiteness and smoothness to bone china, it is quite different from bone china in the aspects of raw material and texture.

• Raw material

Bone china contains more than 36% bone ash, while new bone china doesn’t have any bone ash added.

• Firing

As mentioned, bone china is formed by two times of firing, while new bone china, like other porcelain, is formed by one-time firing.

• Other features

Compared to new bone china, bone china has a softer white appearance, higher transparency, and lighter. Its appearance is much better than new bone china.

• Price

The advantage of new bone china compared to bone china is its price. New bone china products have a lower price than bone china.

When international buyers ask quote about bone china, if they are not careful enough, they may get a quite low price quote and they are very happy, while in fact, the quote is about new bone china products.

So it is important to know the difference and be clear when you buy your fine bone china products.

3 Which kind of dinnerware is better?

To choose a better dinnerware or tableware, from the aspect of quality and appearance, bone china, without a doubt, is your best choice for tableware. However, good or bad is more about a personal choice, anything that suits your demand is the best choice for you.

Here we list some advantages of bone china.

It is the only ceramic that has both practical and artistic value.

Bone china is the only porcelain that is recognized as high-end porcelain that symbolizes as high status. It is also known as the king of porcelain.

The Much lower content of toxic elements like lead and cadmium is good for people’s health.

Compared to stoneware and other ceramic products, the price of bone china is much higher, and the price is an important factor that needs consideration too, in some cases, it’s a very important factor.

Anyway, if you are looking for high quality, better appearance, most importantly, the healthiest tableware, bone china is your answer.

(Fine bone china table set)

4 How is bone china made? (Bone china making process)

Basically, from the raw material to the end products, the making process of bone china undergoes 2 or 3 major steps, white bone china needs 2-time firing, while decorated bone china products need an extra process called pattern or design application, and the professional calling is decal application.

The first firing causes the product to shrink, and about 20% of the pieces that are made will crack and break at this stage. This is part of the reason why bone china tableware is expensive. The end products of this process are called biscuits. It’s whiter than our usually seen bone china products, and the surface is not as smooth.

(First firing process of bone china)

The second firing is called glaze firing, it happens after the piece is glazed, and the firing process melts the glaze into the piece. Those that don’t crack or break during this stage are the final products of white bone china tableware.

(white bone china tea set)

After the above two procedures, the white body is finished. Most of the products will conduct the 3^rd process, which is applying the design pattern. Many pieces are hand painted or sprayed, though in some cases decals can also be applied.

 (bone china product with decoration)

To see the more detailed bone china making process, please check here.

5 How to Identify Fine Bone China?

What’s the difference between bone china and porcelain? Here are 5 easy ways to find out:

• Weight

When comparing the weight between other porcelain products and bone china, based on the same shape, porcelain weight generally is heavier, while bone china is lighter.

• Shape

Distinguishing from the shape, due to the difference in technology and raw materials, bone china, compared to porcelain, texture is thinner, and is more smooth, with higher transparency.

• Transparency

Holding a cup directly facing the light and checking if light can come through the wall of the bone china products is usually the most effective method to identify bone china.

(Face the bone china bowl to the light)

• Color

High-grade bone china is of delicate porcelain dense, smooth surface, and bright glaze, giving the appearance of a milky color, the higher the content of bone ash, the closer to milk white, in contrast, if the content of bone ash is low, it’s yellow color is more obvious.

• Sound

Listen to the tone of clicking, porcelain is more of the sound of heavy thick, when two bowls collide, giving the sound of “ding”, basically no echo, however, if u put two high-grade bone china bowls on the flat of both hands and make it collide, it will give the sound of “clang” and echo, just like ringing a bell.

6 FAQ (frequently asked questions)about fine bone china

6.1 Is bone ash still used in bone china? (which bone ash)

Yes, bone ash is still used in bone china. It is the most basic ingredient to make bone china.

Regarding which bone ash was added in, research shows it’s mainly herbivore animal bone ash, like cow and goat bone ash, and cow ash is a better choice.

Why does it have to be bone ash?

Although ceramic products were first made and massively used in China, bone china was invented in England. We don’t know how did he come up with this idea in the first place.

With bone ash added to the raw material, the ceramic body possesses features of transparency and brightness, while having a better toughness, which makes it light in weight but quite strong.

The main element of bone ash is calcium phosphate, which is a kind of amino acid, a kind of nutrition that is quite beneficial for body health, that is why using bone china tableware is good for people’s health. More importantly, the Zero lead and mercury content make it the top choice of tableware.

6.2 How to maintain bone china products?

• Hand ash

As bone china is a high-end tableware, it is highly recommended to wash by hand, with bone china’s features, it is easy to wash too.

• Temperature matters.

Wash in clean water, with the temperature less than 80 Centigrade.

• Wash PH
• Don’t use it in the microwave.
• Avoid temperature radically change.
• Avoid scratch.

For detailed information, please check 9 Things You Need to Know about Caring Bone China Products 

6.3 Is bone china dishwasher safe?

There is no fixed answer to this question. Some bone china products can pass the dishwasher test. Some can’t. Even though some business sellers claim their bone china tableware is dishwasher-safe, we still recommend you wash it by hand.

6.4 Is bone china microwave oven safe?

In many cases, bone china tableware is microwave oven safe, but if your tableware is decorated with gold rim (check the below picture), it is not safe to put into the microwave! The heat inside the oven will cause the gold line to burst and cause an unnecessary potential safety hazard.

(Bone china cup and saucer sets with gold rim)

How to choose a ceramic supplier in China

China ‘s Ceramic Production Areas and Their Characteristics

Recently, Adam published an article called”10 things I wish I had known before coming to China!” which I think is very enlightening. It included some cultural conflicts like “Yes means maybe, maybe means no, no means no!”and I agree, sometimes that’s what Chinese do, we are not good at directly saying “No” to the clients, partly because we want to satisfy every client in every possible way, partly because of the culture, and sometimes because we really want you to cooperate with us! So bear in mind of this, if you want your supplier to be completely honest with you about the situation, ask specifically, and ask for direct answers.

The other thing he mentioned is Regions of China. As he wrote:

China is a huge country. Looking at a map of the world, China’s landmass basically covers Western Europe. While manufacturing is concentrated on China’s eastern coastline, for various reasons different products are better bought from different regions. If you’re buying your product in the wrong region, there is a high chance you’re at a price or quality disadvantage.

Generally speaking, the south of China (starting from the bottom of the map of China) around Guangdong and Shenzhen is the region of China that specializes in high tech products.

As you move further north, towards Fujian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, then further north after that, Qingdao, Hebei etc., products generally become ‘bigger’. So as a basic guide, just remember small products in the south, big heavy industrial steel fabrication in the north! 

 

This opinion happens to collide with our thoughts. The reason we wrote this article is mainly to help you get to know China’s ceramic situation better. As mentioned by Adam, choosing from the right place can help you save a lot of time and energy! And it will be of better quality too (generally speaking)! Of course, other works and research have to be done to find the best suit for you, which we will talk about in the coming articles, please follow if you are in this field, in this article, we are going to talk about the location of different ceramic products in China.

To choose a ceramic supplier in China, there are many aspects to consider, this article we mainly take the locations into consideration, the other aspects will be discussed in the coming articles.

China, with the Capitalized ”C”, means “China”, the big manufacturers of many products in east Asia, “made in China” is a phrase we all familiar with. While the lowercase is translated into ceramics, showing that ceramics in China has a long history. How to choose a ceramic supplier in China is a topic many buyers care about.

Why do they import china from China?

China is the world’s strongest ceramic production power, occupying more than half of the world’s ceramic production. It is also the world’s largest ceramic manufacturing center, ceramic production power ranking the first place of annual output and exports of ceramic products.

Some data

China’s daily ceramics accounted for 70% of the world, furnishings art porcelain accounted for 65% of the world, sanitary ceramics accounted for 50% of global production while building ceramics accounted for global production of 64%.

How will this article help you?

Thousands of foreign buyers coming to China every year to source or purchase ceramic products. However, not quite familiar with China’s geography or ceramic condition in China always make them confused, making the purchase or sourcing ceramic products process confusing and overwhelming.

What’s this article about?

This article will conduct be a brief introduction about China’s major ceramic production places, as well as the features of each ceramic products, hope it would help to provide a reference for world’s ceramic products buyers and importers.

Brief Introduction of production places

As we all know, China has vast land and abundant resources, the types of ceramic products are also very rich.

At present, China’s ceramic industry is mainly located in Chaozhou city ( in Guangdong Province), Foshan(in Guangdong Province), Tangshan( in Hebei Province),  Zibo( in Shandong Province), Jingdezhen(in Jiangxi Province), Liling(in Hunan Province), Dehua(in Fujian Province) and other places.

Among them, Guangdong, Hebei, and Fujian are the main export of ceramics, exports accounted for the China’s 80%(more or less).

The specific locations of these provinces and areas are shown in the below map.

PS: Province is a conception that similar to state as in America.

China’s ceramic industry distribution area map

Places VS Strengths

Here comes the question, what are the strength of each producing area?

Chaozhou

Chaozhou’s ceramic production history can be long traced to the Neolithic Age. Due to its the geographical advantage, which is near the port, Chaozhou became the main base of China’s ceramic exports at very early time.

Modern Chaozhou’ daily ceramic, by combining the use of traditional techniques with advanced machinery and kiln equipment, introducing domestic and foreign advanced raw materials, through scientific preparation, produced all kinds of tableware, including coffee set, tea set, kitchen utensils, etc.,

Because of its delicate, smooth surface, and strong translucent, it has become the choice of the public ceramic.

Among them, ceramics for daily use, ceramics, sanitary ceramics exports each accounted for 20%, 60%, 30% of China. In addition, many foreign hotels ceramic are produced in Chaozhou.

Foshan

Foshan ceramic production has more than 5000 years history, since the 20th century, Foshan introduced the first foreign architectural ceramics production line from Italy, Foshan ceramic industry has entered a large-scale, industrial production stage.

At present, ceramics has developed into one of the main traditional industries in Foshan, its industrial base is strong, and have a large number of highly competitive enterprises. At the same time, Foshan has China’s largest building, sanitary ceramics production base.

Tangshan

Tangshan is the birthplace of bone china in China, China’s first sanitary ceramics, first bone china, first lead-free bone china are all from Tangshan.

Tangshan is one of the five major ceramic producing areas in China, the total output of daily porcelain ranks first in the China. Tangshan has more than 1,000 ceramic enterprises, its household ceramics accounted for 70% of the province, 14% of China.

Decal techniques of Tangshan bone china production main are carved gold, embossed gold, spray color, in-glaze color, etc., formed a unique style of Tangshan ceramics.

Strength

Tangshan bone china products are main daily necessities, building porcelain, sanitary porcelain, industrial physical and chemical porcelain, high-tech porcelain, art porcelain, etc., up to more than 500 varieties.

Complete sets of bone china products are Chinese and Western bone china dinnerware set, tea set, coffee set, cups and saucer set, wine sets, stationery, utensils, cups, dishes, bowls, plates etc.

It also has a large range of art ceramics,( like remote hanging plate, seat plate, porcelain painting), and practical building decoration ceramics with a large tile mural

However comparing to other ceramics, its price is higher, as it has a much more attractive appearance.

Dehua

Dehua is a small village in Fujian, south China, but it has one of China’s major ceramic producing areas, the country’s largest production base of Western porcelain production.

Dehua has more than 1,100 production enterprises, more than 20,000 distributions, 80% of ceramic tea set exports arising from this.

 

Jingdezhen:

Located in Jiangxi, Jingdezhen is China’s most famous ceramic base, the world recognized porcelain base. With blue and white, pastel, exquisite, color glaze four famous ceramics features, it has been recognized as China’s production base for daily use ceramics.

Jingdezhen’s art ceramic has a high status in China. But compared with other areas, its industrialization is relatively weak.

Liling

Liling located in the east of Hunan province, at the beginning of the 20th century, Liling ceramic craft created the technique of underglaze colored, its features like thin greasy, glaze white, crystal grain moist, easy to wear, durable characteristics made it popular.

Not only did it become the choice of Great Hall of the People, Zhongnanhai, Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, and across the sea, exports of the world five continents, welcomed by the people of all of the world.

In recent years, with the rise of stoneware , ceramic has become a major export forth for the city, with more than 400 ceramic production enterprises, forming a diversified ceramic product system by daily ceramic, art ceramic,special industrial ceramics, gradually developed into a wide range of professional supporting the ceramic production base and export base.

The main products of these ceramic enterprises including ceramics for daily use, special ceramics, architectural ceramics, sanitary ceramics, colored porcelain, red porcelain.

 

Zibo

Located in Shandong province, Zibo is one of China’s largest ceramic producing areas, its total ceramic production accounted for 54% of the province.

It also has more than 600 ceramic enterprises, the main products are including daily use ceramics, art porcelain, garden ceramics, high-tech ceramics, advanced refractory ceramics, ceramic machinery, ceramics Decorative materials.

Also, most of the new bone china products are produced in this province, as it looks like bone china, but has a relative compelling price. (Check the difference between new bone china and bone china, click here).

 

Conclusion

Hope this article will provide you some reference when it comes to how to choose a ceramic supplier in China. Basically speaking, choosing a product from producing area can not only ensure the quality of the product(in most of the circumstances) but also you may get a better price, thus providing a greater competitiveness.

This article only introduced an aspect of choosing a ceramic supplier, there are still many other factors you need to consider, we will provide more information about the craft technique, and how to identify a good ceramic supplier as the factors that impact the price, thus provide full information you need to know about choose a ceramic supplier.

Happy hunting!

 

Canton Fair Show Notice

As a leading manufacturer of bone china tableware, Tangshan Luxury Bone China Co., Ltd(trading as Tangshan Longchang Ceramics) will be attend Canton Fair show in 2017.

Our Booth Number: 3.2E21 22

Time: April 23th-27th

 

We warmly welcome you visit our booth and order. If you time, we would like to invite you to have a visit of our factory too.

Hope you have a great time at Canton Fair.

 

Our strength:

Factory based.

Strong develop and production ability. With more than 300 skilled workers, we are able to complete your order on time.

Full range of products

Our products including bone china dinnerware, tea set, mugs, cups and saucers and much more. Welcome to contact to get catalog.

Quality guaranteed

CA65, FDA, ISO9001:2000 Approved. You can count on us.

 

Email: sales@luxurybonechina.com

Website: www.luxurybonechina.com

Factory Add: NO.1 LONGCHANG ROAD,KAIPING DISTRICT, TANGSHAN CHINA

Bone China Dinnerware for G20 Summit

Today we would like to share with you the bone china dinnerware the G20 Summit. It’s a simple introduction about the effort our designers have done in presenting these amazing bone china tableware on the G20 state banquet.

Choosing the right ceramic , is something that matters to our life.

Chinese ceramic art is an important symbol of human civilization.

We pursue the meaning of expression in the artistic way,

And exert the beauty of the nature to the utmost.

We love the nature, enjoy the life,

The art of the Chinese ceramic is at its persistent pursuit of a exquisite life.

The beauty of the ceramic products, is at its implicit and warm,

Its emphasis on the expression of our inner feeling,

Chinese ceramic products has it’s own unique and simple characteristic,

It has impacted every detail of our life,

Bowls, plates, cups, saucers.

Redefine life with art, is the new life aesthetics

And it is still attracting people all over the world nowadays.

The design of top is inspired by the famous scenic spot ”Three Pools Miroiring the Moon” of the West Lake in Hangzhou.

Today we are going to introduce the bespoken bone china dinnerware for G20 Summit, which have attracted many attention eversince. What does it look like? How did they make it?

The State banquet bone china dinnerware are made with high-grade bone china with 45% natural bone ash.

Below is a bone china dinner set named “The West Lake Feast” designed and produced by Shanghai team.

The shape design of the soup tureen was inspired by the boat on the Maritime Silk Road, while the top is a simple Span modelling.

The pattern design of the State banquet is inspired by the traditional landscape painting characterized by the prominence of blue and green colors, while the shape of the dinnerware adopt the figure of bridge.

The whole bone china dinnerware set reflects the G20 Summit state banquet’s tone, which are the West Lake, Hangzhou characteristic, the charming of Jiangnan, the style of China, and a world powerful country.

Factors That Affect Daily-use Ceramic Decal’s Lead and Cadmium Dissolution

As we know different decoration methods have determining impact on the lead and cadmium dissolution of daily-use ceramic’s decal. Aside from that, the following factors also have important influence on the lead and cadmium dissolution.

• Lead and cadmium content of the ceramic biscuit

It is a fundamental issue if the ceramic biscuit itself contains lead and cadmium. Even you use none lead and cadmium decoration, the finished products would still have high lead and cadmium content. Even if the white biscuit’s lead and cadmium content is qualified for FDA standard, decal it with non-lead decoration and firing under proper condition, the finished product’s lead and cadmium content would still be high above the FDA standard.

(2) Ceramic decoration pigment is lead-free or not

This is the primary factor, ceramic pigment can be divided into 3 category by it’s lead and cadmium content, which are with-lead, low-lead and lead-free. It is obvious that we should abandon with-lead pigment and promote lead-free pigment, low-lead pigment can be adopted to the products that dont have high requirement on lead and cadmium content.

(3) Firing condition

Firing condition includes heat method, construction of the kiln, firing temperature, holding time, ventilation condition. Heat method means the firing method the decoration firing kiln adopt, which is coal, electricity, liquefied gas or natural gas. Construction of the kiln means whether it is box-type , Shuttle, tunnel or roller. Of all these constructions, roller is the best choice for limiting the release of Lead and cadmium vapor molecules.

• Other factors

Thickness of the pigment, decoration area, position and density of products while firing in the kiln, soaking liquid, testing equipment, all these above factors affect the lead and cadmium content of ceramic products.

Below is a picture of our bone china products,  qualified for FDA standard. 

 

Difference Between Pottery and Porcelain

As we discussed the definition of ceramic, pottery and porcelain in the last post, what’s the chemical and physical difference between pottery and porcelain?  And that’s our topic today.

Firing temperature

The firing temperature of pottery products are usually lower than porcelain. The firing temperature of pottery are always between 800 and 1100 centigrade, while the porcelain firing temperature is relatively high, mostly in 1200 centigrade above, and some even reached about 1400 centigrade .

Hardness

As pottery firing temperature is low, the body is not completely sintered, the hardness of the biscuit is poor, and some even can leave groove marks when using steel knife to gently cut it.

However, Porcelain firing temperature is high, the basic sintered , percussion sounds crisp, it is difficult to draw groove marks on the biscuit surface with a general steel knife.

Raw material

The raw material for pottery is mainly clay, while the raw material for porcelain is kaolin, quartz, feldspar and clay. For bone china, the main raw material is bone ash from animal.

Glost material

Pottery and porcelain use different glost material and different glost firing temperature.

Pottery is not glazed or applied glaze in low temperature, while porcelain always glazed.

Transparency

The biscuit of the pottery is not translucent even if it is relatively thin.However,porcelain biscuit, regardless of thickness, have a translucent characteristics.For bone china, is is more obvious, if you put a torch inside a bone china bowl and place it in dark environment, it totally translucent.

                              Translucency of bone china products

Iron(Fe) content

Iron content is generally more than 3% in pottery, and below 3% in porcelain.

Water absorption

Pottery has a higher water absorption rate than porcelain.

Now, can you tell the difference between pottery and porcelain?

Difference between ceramic and porcelain

People often mention porcelain when they talk about ceramic. They are both the art of fire and  soil. What’s the difference between ceramic and porcelain?

What’s ceramic?

Ceramic is the largest category of standard terminology, Ceramic often divided into two categories,pottery and porcelain. Pottery includes earthenware, stoneware and faience. porcelain includes soft-paste, hard-paste and bone china.

What’s china?

China is not a technical terminology, it often referred as all ceramic ware. Stemmed from the phase” Porcelain  from  China” from the 15 century, when Chinese ceramic products massively export to the West.

What’s porcelain?

Porcelain is a kind of white tough translucence ceramic body, it is formed in the kiln by high temperature firing and vitrification, usually covered with a layer of glaze and decoration.It can also be enamel painted on top of the glaze after first firing. Unglazed porcelain is called biscuit.

Porcelain is usually divided into two categories, hard-paste(also called genuine porcelain) and soft-paste(also called fake porcelain). In 1799, Josiah Spode developed a porcelain carcass containing bone ashes, which was durable and charming, this bone china later became the standard paste used in England.

Hard-paste ware was first manufactured in China in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, using locally available kaolin and white petuntse. Later, people in Europe have done a lot of attempts to copy genuine porcelain. From 1575 – 1587, people invented a kind of porcelain using high percentage glass which has been grid, and mix with clay so that it was translucent, this kind of porcelain is call soft-paste porcelain, bone china porcelain is developed from it.

Want to know more about the pottery? We will get to it in our next article.

 

Spring Festival Vacation Notice

Happy Chinese New Year to all our clients and visitors!

Our factory will begin our Chinese New Year holiday from 24th January to 12th February. Sorry for the inconvenience of you. Any emergency or concern about our products, please kindly  contact our sales group, our online service group is always there standby.

Wish you all great business boost in 2017!

—All members from Luxury Bone China

Best travel line to Tangshan

Tangshan, a city located in the east of the Capital, Beijing, is popularly known as the born place  of bone china in China.

Our manufacturing factory is located in the north of this city. If you want to take an inspection or visit to the factory, but not familiar with the transportation, here are some transportation information you may find useful.

Usually, you may travel from your country to the bigger city in China, like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen or Guangzhou, then come from these cities, the following are travel tips from the 4 bigger cities.

• From Shanghai

•  From Beijing / Tianjin

As Tangshan is quite near Beijing, the best way is to go by train, there are plenty of them, and the time is quite short, around 30 mins from Beijing to Tangshan.

It is the same situation with Tianjin City.

•  From Shenzhen

From 30 December, 2016, You can take flight from Shenzhen to travel to Tangshan now. However, you may need to know the flight would stop at Anqing first, then you will get to Tangshan. The Below is the flight information.

•  From Guangzhou

As the schedule for direct flight line from Guangzhou to Tangshan is not stable, you better transfer from Beijing or Tianjin, then come from these two cities.

Hope the above flight information is useful for you, also, weather and air condition are something you need to check before you go.

Welcome you come to Tangshan to visit our factory. Also, if you have any questions about your itinerary , please feel free to contact us, we are more than willing to help you.

Hope you enjoy the stay in Tangshan.

One more tip, as the market leader in fine bone china production, our top quality bone china dinnerware, tea set, mugs, cups and saucers will help you expand your business scope with no doubt. For more information, please contact.

Christmas Greetings from Luxury Bone China

Dear customers,

Thank you very much for the support and trust for the past year, We are grateful for the pleasure of serving you and meeting your needs . It is a honor to provide your companies the finest quality bone china dinnerware or tea set. We are looking forward to many years of working together.

We promise to do a better great job in the coming year, we will focus more on the quality of our bone china products, the service of our sales department.

For those new customers, if you’re looking for some new bone china suppliers, please give us a try, we will always try our best to satisfy our customers, you can always find us through the contact information list on the pages.

We wish you a beautiful Thanksgiving and a joyous year’s end.

 

Merry Christmas!

Sincerely,

— Luxury Bone China Sales Group 

   Our factory list in “Tangshan Bone China” Geographical Indication Protection Product

In March, 2013, Tangshan Bone China has been list in National Geographical Indication Protection Products,  in 2015, Tangshan municipal government applied to national Administration for Industry and Commerce for “Tangshan Bone China” trademark and got approved, these movements have great influence on the healthy development of bone china industry in our city.

It is a great honor for our factory to be among the first 13 enterprises that allowed to use  “Tangshan Bone China” the remark , it’s a great compliment for our years of hard work and achievements, we will work harder to improve the competitiveness of our products, the service quality of the sales team, and expand production scale, therefore to do a better job for building a better city.

 

 

 

 

 

Technical requirements for bone china production

                                                                ——-what makes good bone china products?

Due to the features like fragile and difficulty of bone china, the In the firing process, its regularity, whiteness, transparency, thermal stability and other various factors are of very high demanding, below are a few technical requirements for bone china products.

1. Whiteness above 80%. (measured by whiteness meter).
2. TCP(tertiary calcium phosphate) in the biscuit should be not less than 36% .
3. Water absorption less than 0.5% (measured by balance).
4. Heat stability: no crack exchanging from 140 to 20 cent degree water.
5. weight error in between 5%. (measured by weigher)
6. Less than 4 kind of blemishes for each product, and blemishes should not be intensive.