The Ceramic Technician's Handbook: An introduction to practical industrial ceramics.

There is a vacuum of ceramics technical schools in the United States. The technician level is falling short on formal instruction. Here a technician would be a technical based position that is not a full engineer but requires a basic understanding of how materials and processes interact.

Often, in the United States, technicians must be brought into an organization and trained. This is not easy as there are a variety of topics that must be covered for a ceramic manufacturing process. Equipment, materials, and processes require a good understanding at the technician level.

This work started as a series of slideshows aimed at training new employees. The material was refined a bit further to produce this handbook.

As will be obvious from the many photos contained in this handbook, my background mainly leverages ceramic tile. Industrial Ceramics can range from high tech (semiconductors) to traditional (sanitary ware). This guide tries to be useful to the middle of the road ceramicist but will inevitably have some bias towards tile.

Although there is a bit of math and basic formulae, this handbook is not an engineering text but intended more as a guide for a technician new to the ceramics industry.