Concrete roof tiles offer attractive and elegant roofing solutions for designers and builders alike. A variety of different technologies are used during the production process. The process of shaping the tiles uses extrusion technology, which extrudes the wet mix of sand and cement through a flow of pallets and feed shaping head.

A so-called ‘oily mould’ is put under the extruder in order to shape the concrete compound to the shape of mold. Changing the shape of pallets and pertinent head results in a new profile of product.

Another unique aspect of concrete roof tiles is their colouring, a very popular feature of their aesthetic qualities. There are two methods of coating, both of which implement either ‘Colour Top’ or ‘Colour Through’ technology. The ‘Colour Top’ coating process is commonly used in the roof tile industry as it provides a wider variety of colours. In this process, colour pigment is blended into the cement compound then a top coating is applied when the concrete is wet, the so-called ‘wet on wet process’. Another popular ‘colour top’ coating process is the ‘wet on dry process’, which results a lighter tone by using an acrylic paint coating on top of the tiles. The final step of surface colouring technology involves using a clear acrylic resin enamel contained in a high pressure barrel. The resin is heated to 60 – 65 °c degrees and is sprayed on top of the tile.

More recently, Colour Through technology involves impregnating the concrete tile with the colour pigment, resulting in a tile which is coloured throughout. In this process the pigment is blended with the concrete compound prior to extruding. Additional colouring effects such as stripes and spray effects can be added by brushing color powder on top of the tiles during the extruding process.

Tiles are then matured either for 12 hours at room temperature or for 8 hours at temperatures of 55-60 °c.

Mahaphant were the first manufacturer in Thailand to implement colour through technology. For more details of our long list of innovations, please click here.

Several tile profiles of a wide variety of colours are produced by Mahaphant under their Shingle, Magma and Granada brands.

For more information on our wide range of concrete roof tile products, please contact us.