[OT] Replaceable chinaware?

[Tim Watts]

Thanks - I'll google that.

[Tim Watts]

Not really - this is every day use - and thus will get knocked about. So rather than binning a whole set because I'm down to 3 plates, I'd rather maintain a decent set for a long time.

Nothing worse than mismatching china...

[Tim Watts]

Half our glasses came from those deals in the 70s - but we usually managed to get a set of 4 :)

[Tim Watts]

Wow...

[FMurtz]

Try this experiment, if you work in an office or workshop environment, You will find most places have all manners of colours,put a clean white cup or mug in with the rest, it will be the one most taken and used by others.

[charles]

I can remember a colleague being given a set as a "group" wedding present

[Chris Green]

We use our Royal Doulton bone china as 'everyday' china. We have done since around 1980, it has travelled to Oman and back in that period.

We do break the occasional thing but find it's generally much tougher than earthenware/stoneware and, in particular, is very resistant to chips which is often why other china gets 'old'. In general it either survives being dropped or disintegrates.

We have a *lot* of it because for a while we ran two households so have some spares still. It is beginning to look a bit worn after almost 40 years of use but rotating it occasionally means it does all look pretty much the same still.

As an aside the current fashion for stone/granite worktops is one reason for more chipped and broken china IMHO.

[charles]

That's the one we have - belonged to my parents.

[alan_m]

But what do you call a set? Six of everything pre-packed in a box? Shop where you can can buy as many/few pieces as you require.

[spuorgelgoog]

Granny's "best" china was free with Daz washing powder!

Owain

[John Rumm]

That's probably true for most of the "higher end" makers. Denby for example will often keep a range going for decades. Quality stuff, but you pay for it. Also not much help if you buy a range that has been out for decades and then gets discontinued.

[Chris Hogg]

Yea, sorry, a bit OTT! Got carried away :-( Just get some Denby. Lots on e-bay

[Tim Streater]

I was able to find some of the older, smaller, cereal bowls on eBay. Was quite pleased about that, as the more recent ones are far too big.

[Andy Burns]

When KeyMarket opened the first out-of-town supermarket in my home town sometime in the 70's, they gave away plates for a certain amount of shopping, I think my parents and an uncle still have cupboards full of them ...

[damduck-egg]

JOOI does much China Clay from Cornwall actually end up in China tableware, I grew up within a mile or two of Watts Blake and Bearne operations in North Devon which mined and later quarried ball clay. I always understood this was a higher grade mineral and actually was used in high end pottery though until the brick works burnt down in the 1930's bricks were also made from it. Their distinctive creamy white colour is a feature of many buildings in the area.

Similar deposits are I believe also found near Bovey Tracey and on the Purbeck Peninsula in Dorset.

G.Harman

[Chris Hogg]

You're correct to a certain degree. All three areas produced ball clay, which is of much higher quality (lower iron content, whiter fired colour) than the ordinary brick clays common all over the country. In fact there probably isn't anywhere in the world that produces such high-quality ball clays as do Devon and Dorset, although the Kentucky-Tennessee deposits in the States are a good second.

But all three areas, North Devon, South Devon and Dorset have their own characteristics. The Meeth (North Devon) deposits tend to be higher in free silica (fine quartz sand) that the others, as well as being strong and plastic, and AFAIK were most commonly used in making tiles. H&R Johnson used to be a big customer, and may still be FAIK. The South Devon deposits south of Bovey Tracey, around Heathfield, were the most white-firing, and although some strata contained a lot of lignite, they were mostly used for tableware. The Dorset clays, around Wareham, were very fine-grained, strong and plastic, of intermediate composition, and got used in a range of products, tableware, sanitaryware and tiles. These days, to ensure a consistent product and iron out natural variations in the individual seams from the three areas, it has become common to blend several components together, usually at a central plant based in South Devon, trucking in components from the other two areas.

As for using china clay in tableware, yes a great deal goes into it. For the highest quality, whitest tableware, bone china and porcelain, they hardly use any ball clay, commonly none at all. Porcelain contains roughly 50% of china clay, the rest being made up of feldspar and quartz in roughly equal amounts, while bone china is typically 25% china clay, 12.5% quartz, 12.5% feldspar and 50% calcined cattle bone. The only clay in these is china clay, not always from Cornwall I might add. There are more good china clay deposits around the world than there are good ball clay deposits. Earthenware tableware and sanitaryware will use very roughly equal amounts of china clay and ball clay, to say 50%, with quartz and feldspar making up the remainder.

A lot of china clay from Cornwall and South Devon (Lee Moor up behind Plymouth), used to go into the paper industry, but in the last few decades this has declined as cheaper china clays from abroad have penetrated the European and Scandinavian paper manufacturing industry. At one time it was said that it was cheaper to bring a bulk carrier of china clay from Manaus (1400km up the Amazon where there are a lot of easily-worked china clay deposits in the jungle) into Europe than it was to ship from Cornwall in small coastal vessels. Alternative white minerals such as chalk and ground marble are also extensively used in the paper industry these days, whereas they never used to be, all adding to the competition.

[Terry Casey]

Only if you are lucky. They discointinued several of the items we bought from them - including the colour - a deep blue.

We now have a set of assorted coloured mugs as we've had to replace them over the years but some of those have been bought on Fleabay as that particular (popular) design has also disappeared. I think we've only ever broken one plate, though!

[PeterC]

I don't know about replacements - you'd need to ask - but Procook isn't too expensive:

I've some items bookmarked and there's a shop near Oxford, when I get the tuits...

[Tim Watts]

Ah - thanks. Another great name - I'd forgotten about them...

Cool - I will investigate them.

Yes - that's why I have wood :) Pitch pine to be exact, which avoids a lot of the problems of wooden tops near sinks.

[Tim Watts]

We've decided "8" is a good number for us. And yes, what you say is one criteria I'm after (because you can at least buy a spare "now") - the other criteria is being able to buy a spare some years hence :)