COME TO LAS VEGAS!

We will be exhibiting from booth P216 at Coverings in Las Vegas at the end of the month. "If tile and stone are your business, Coverings is your show."

Our personal theme is "Working with great partners." and we are! With us on the stand will be the owner and manager of our manufacturing partner in laminated, composite and luxury vinyl flooring and our partner in Spain; Italcrafts.

We'll be featuring digital ink jet tiles, with designs from Italy and Spain as well as our ranges of laminated flooring, luxury vinyl and luxury composite planks.

Coverings has been going for 25 years now. It is the premier tile and stone event in the North American continent and certainly among the top five events worldwide. Attended by flooring professionals from the US, Canada, South America, Europe and the Far East, it provides a forum to display and discuss stone and tile innovations. Coverings is an excellent measure of the state of the art in the field, especially with regards technological developments and design trends in North America in particular.

 
Coverings celebrates its 25th Anniversary this year as the largest and most important ceramic tile and natural stone trade fair and expo in the United States. It features exhibitors from more than 35 countries and is the stage for introducing some of the most innovative tile and stone products in the world. The exposition serves as a valuable resource for continuing education for all segments of the industry, with more than 70 informative, accredited seminars and live demonstration sessions throughout the show, all free of charge. Coverings attracts thousands of distributors, retailers, fabricators, contractors, specifiers, architectural and design professionals, builders and real estate developers, as well as journalists and bloggers who cover this vital and dynamic industry. Sponsors of the show are The Ceramic Tile Distributors Association (CTDA), Tile of Spain/Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturer's Association (ASCER), Ceramics of Italy/Confindustria Ceramica, National Tile Contractors Association (NTCA) and The Tile Council of North America (TCNA). The show is managed by National Trade Productions.

Coverings 2014 will be held April 29—May 2 at the Las Vegas Convention Center - See more at: http://www.coverings.com/page.cfm/Action=Press/libID=1/listID=1/t=m/goSection=7_37#sthash.bNj4nkxU.dpuf

We really hope to see you there!

What's coming up in 2014?

This year we have a lot to look forward to. In the immediate future we are exhibiting at several trade fairs; the Massbuild Confex at Sun City, South Africa from 5-6 February, BuildInt 2014 in Nairobi, Kenya from 5-7 April and for the first time Coverings 2014 in Las Vegas from 29 April to 2 May! We'll also be attendingRevestir 2014  from 11-14 March in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So it's going to be an exciting first few months.

At each of these fairs we'll be focusing on three product categories;
Ink-jet tiles. Our range is expanding by the day as customers select specific and unique designs especially suited to their markets.
Vinyl and LCT (Luxury Composite Tile) flooring. These products are in addition to our existing laminate flooring range.
ABS taps and black & white brass taps. These are becoming a very hot item.

Of course our mainstream Tesscera tile range is always available and in most cases in-stock ready for immediate delivery.

Please follow the links to find out more about the events. We'd love to meet you there.
Click on the other links to download our latest brochures or browse our website here.
For any other inquiries please drop us an email.

Have a great 2014 and we look forward to doing business together!
Ciao,
The Link International team.

How ink-jet tiles are transforming the industry

It's not just design, it's the business.
Ink-jet technology is increasingly changing the way that the tile industry does business. It makes it quicker and easier to provide designs to match and cater to market trends.  Ink-jet technology provides economic and production benefits over previous production processes, namely screen printing and roller printing. The technology provides an infinite variety of designs coupled with faster response times and lower breakages, but more importantly it has changed the way we do business. We're no longer a product-based sourcing company, today we're actually a service business. Such technology enables us to sell a market solution. Digital print technology has allowed us to effectively and efficiently better tailor products for the various international markets and in a shorter time period. As a result we can provide a product that our customers know will sell. We offer our customers our expertise in tile trends then let them select specific (even unique) designs that fit their markets. In other words we're now selling possibilities and variety rather than fixed ranges.

It's changing the way we sell.
Recently we made a presentation to one of our long-time customers who has placed orders for our initial ink-jet offerings. We decided to raise the level at the presentation and instead of brochures and folders we presented large poster-sized sheets of ink jet designs showing the tiles in real scale. We laid these 1 x 3m posters on the floor, showed collages of photographs we had taken at recent international tile expos and spoke about visual and tactile trends cresting in the international markets. By the end of the meeting our customers were enthusiastically placing orders for cutting edge ink-jet designs, not only the basic five or more tiles but smaller ancillary orders of designs that could be inter-laid with the basic tile designs and multiple variation distressed wood designs like the sample below. This would never have been even possible with roller and screen printed tiles!


This is more than a trend, it's a transformation. The ink jet production process changes not only the design potential but the cost basis so less expensive ceramic tiles can be produced with the look of high end porcelain, natural stone and even wood that is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Efficiency and 3D on-demand
The technology allows for an effectively unlimited number of high-quality patterns and decorations to be produced with fewer materials, less waste, less development and production time than any previous processes. The digital printing process can turn photographs, artwork, designs, logos or virtually any image into elaborately decorated wall or floor coverings. Soon enough even accurate textures will be produced digitally using 3D printing technology to produce the relief plates to impress the tile body.

The future starts today
The use of ink-jet printing for ceramic tile manufacture is growing worldwide and in Europe is outselling conventional analog systems. With this technology, tile design and decoration is easier, less time consuming and less costly, giving manufacturers the chance to massively increase their range of products and designs while remaining competitive. Ink-jet technology has made a huge impact on what manufacturers can create and the mass acceptance of these designs from world markets has promoted the swift transformation from screen and roller printing.

Digital ink-jet technology has changed the way ceramic and porcelain is produced, forever!

Download our New ink-jet tile brochures.
Contact us about selecting and buying ink-jet tiles.

New inkjet tile catalogues launched.

While inkjet technology has been around for over ten years it is only within the last two years or so that the matured technology has become sufficiently reliable and ubiquitous that we can confidently produce inkjet tiles in China. Nonetheless we were very careful in selecting our preferred factory. We have worked with them before so we know their quality is up to standard plus they have a state-of-the-art modern inkjet facility. Our eight new mini brochures have accurate photographs of the new ranges as they came off the production line. You can download them individually on our brand page under KREM (scroll down to KREM) or as a pack here.

The designs for our new tile ranges come from a design house in Italy and are based on trends we and other experts have identified at expos such as the recent CERSAIE in Bologna. We sent a team including some of our most experienced customers over to Europe to make the final design selections. This process included selecting textures, specific face variants and colours for each design. The designs were then implemented and produced in China.

Inkjet Tiles - How are they made?

Ink jet printers that can reproduce realistic digital images were first available to the market in 2000. Today there are a wide variety of machines being made and used across the world.

Technology: The ink jet technology for tiles is essentially the same as your desktop inkjet printer just larger. Instead of scanning repeatedly across the page a tile printer uses four or more rows of ink jet heads working continuously.

Advantages
· The image printed is chemically stable
· Inkjet printing is efficient; there’s far less wastage than with contact printing systems like rollers.
· No rollers means fewer moving parts thus reducing costs.
· Natural stones and pictures are reproduced perfectly.
· Much faster change-over times to new colours or designs.
· Greatly improved consistency of colour.
· Because there is no direct contact in inkjet printing it is possible to decorate relief surfaces.
· Inkjet decoration shortens the path from idea to product.

How: The master image is electronically separated in a graphics program then these digital files are sent to each of the different colour print heads. The printer can print multiple different tiles in sequence. The arrays of print heads spray microscopic pigment droplets onto the tile surface from a distance of only a few millimeters. The tiles now pass on to glazing and kiln firing at 900-1200°C.

New Taps & Bathroom Brochure out now!

Our new PERFECTION brochure is 65 pages of top-end bathroomware in English and Spanish....

• Shower enclosures
• Shower roses
• Bathroom suites
• Two-piece and wall-hung toilets
• Art basins
• Pedestal and wall-hung basins
• Bidets
• Urinals
• Taps
• A brand new range of black & white taps
• Bathroom cabinets and mirrors

Some sample pages follow:









Download the complete brochure by clicking on any of the images above.

Enquiries here MOQ: 1 full container.

New Ink-Jet Porcelain Brochure here!

New Ink-Jet & Porcelain Brochure here!

The new KREM brochure includes our new ranges of Ink-jet tiles plus our classic Porcelain tiles. These are entirely new ranges. Some sample pages follow:

Our slate-look Ardesia tiles in three different colours, each with five unique faces.


Atlanta is a top grade Porcelain tile in four subtly shaded colours.


The KREM range consists of Italian design Ink-jet tiles and pure porcelain screen print tiles. Innovated by intensive market research and production line development the colours and textures achievable using state of the art ink-jet technology on a coloured bisque convey the original charm and nature of the ranges, be they stone wood or concrete. The collection is specifically designed to integrate with contemporary architectural elements and trends. To further diversify the collection each style is printed and moulded from a different section of the master pattern providing numerous variations.

In our high grade porcelain collection particular patterns and colours that lend themselves to more accurate reproduction using classical screen print techniques such as lines and granular textures are included in the range. All tiles in the KREM collection can also be used on walls to extraordinary effect. They come in multiple sizes including large format. Options include rivens with a natural, rustic effect.

Download the complete brochure by clicking on any of the images above.

Enquiries here MOQ: 1 full container.

Things to know when buying black tile

There are risks in buying black tiles in particular. You should be aware of these to avoid problems and complaints from customers later.

Black tiles from China in particular can be of several different levels of quality owing to different production methods. Avoid buying black ink-jet tiles. For reasons  of chemistry black is very difficult to achieve using an ink-jet process at present. The safest is to buy a full body black tile that way even if the tile experiences surface wearing the black body will retain it's colour. All super black polished porcelain tiles with nano finish can face fading problems. The nano layer consists of very fine particles suspended in a wax. When applied to the tile these particles fill up the microscopic holes that naturally occur in the body of the tile This results in a much smoother surface and a better, blacker colour. But... the durability of the tile will depend on the quality of the body material, the water absorption rating and the quality of the nano wax. To avoid complaints from customers it is critical that we inform customers in advance of the nature of the particular tile and ensure that the customer's proposed use of the tile is appropriate.

Check what the body of the tile is made of.
1. The body is made from really pure black material mixed with black pigment which is very expensive and then polished – the result is that the polished face and the back of the tile are very similar in color – the surface is not "painted" black and as the tile wears the body will not show through the surface as a different colour. Washing the floor will not remove the surface colour. A good black tile will cost between $6 to $7 or more depending on how black the body material is.
2. The body is made from grey to red color material that has iron in it. The color of the body is not black. This tile is rubbish. The surface is polished and is NOT black until they add a black color nano – this is like "paint" on the tile surface. Once the "paint" is applied it is polished further and looks great (sometimes even better than the tile above) - BUT – once the floor is used, washed, wears etc. the surface colour WILL come out. Then you get patches of grey or red of the body showing through.  – I have had claims before when not checking the production…. and lost money – actually lost 4 containers once – all the surface washed out! This tile cost is from $4 to $5.

The glossiness on the surface cannot tell you how good or bad the tile is – you have to compare the bodies, then the surface – is it painted or natural? Then the size of the "holes" between the surface particles – to tell you if they used coarse (cheap) or fine (expensive) material. This will tell you how long the nano will stay in the surface pores.

So there it is – not so easy…. But if your customer is paying cash up front and wants the rubbish black just make sure he knows there you will not accept claims. For the rest of the people – explain / show / test and sell the good tile.