Comment by CliffStoll
2 days ago
Terrific article by Nicolas Hatcher! Aperiodic tilings are fun to make from paper, wood, and ceramics. I've cut tiles from ceramic field tiles.
No surprise that concave cuts in ceramics are a high stress, so Kite and Dart tiles don't work very well (the dart is likely to crack). Same is true for the Turtle, Hat, and Spectre.
Rhombus tiles are everywhere convex, and the P3 Rhombus tiles are easy to cut in a diamond saw (or even a snap-cutter). With a diamond band-saw, it's possible to make Penrose rhombs with curved (parabolic) edges.
But cutting tiles from stock field tiles produces sharp surface edges -- you don't want these as bathroom floor tiles. Also, you waste a lot of the field tile as scrap. To get "friendly" tile shoulders, I'm experimenting with making Penrose tiles directly from high-fired porcelain clay.
Interestingly, when firing your own, you could also make Supertiles from combinatorial collections of Penrose or other aperiodic tiles.
Do you have some photos? It may be a nice post.
Hey, thanks! Good luck with your Penrose tiles. I wish I had the time myself :)