Bathroom Penrose tiles

July 19, 2005 8:48 AM

How can I get a Penrose tiling installed on my bathroom floor? Would Penrose sue me if I did it myself? And where the heck can you buy the tiles from?

I can't find anyone would makes the "kite and dart" shapes necessary, or even the correctly shaped rhombuses. How could I do this, short of getting a lot of normal tiles and cutting them?

And would a professional tile installer be up to the task? Maybe he would need a Jiminy Cricket-style geometry helper..

posted by sandking to home & garden (12 answers total)

Saxe-Patterson will make them for you.
posted by Floydd at 9:40 AM on July 19, 2005

Can I assume that the prices are "If you have to ask..."?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:51 AM on July 19, 2005

A former roommate got some samples from Saxe-Patterson about ten or fifteen years ago. At the time I remember them being "too expensive" for him to consider for his house, but I don't remember exact numbers. They were very pretty tiles.
posted by alms at 11:08 AM on July 19, 2005

Couldn't you use a tile cutter or diamond saw to make penrose tiles? It'd be labour intensive but it'd save money.
posted by substrate at 11:29 AM on July 19, 2005

Several of the so-called Penrose tilings weren't found by Penrose himself, but instead by a (if I recall correctly) "rather savant housewife from LA". So, one could always look up which ones belonged to whom.

Also, I'm sure that if you weren't making a mint off of them (like the TP folks were), Roger wouldn't mind.

Ha. "Roger", as if I know him. Or, as if I even know whether or not he's still alive.
I did see him give a lecture once, in which he claimed that consciousness resides in the quantum fluctuations inside microtubules in our neurons, god what bullshit
posted by metaculpa at 11:55 AM on July 19, 2005

If I remember correctly from another discussion, balisong is in the tile-laying biz in Colorado, and may be able to offer some insights.
posted by box at 12:03 PM on July 19, 2005

What, the actual King of Sand is on a budget?!
How about this, then. Go to a sheet metal shop and have them cut, bend and solder the appropriate shapes into cookie-cutter like dies, then find a potter who will roll out some slabs, cut out the tiles using your handy dies, glaze them per your specs and fire them. That might be a middle path between cutting each tile yourself on a diamond saw and paying Saxe-Patterson to do it. Either way, it's custom work and it's going to cost you. Time or money, it's your choice.

consciousness resides in the quantum fluctuations inside microtubules in our neurons, god what bullshit
...wait, you mean it DOESN'T???
posted by Floydd at 12:06 PM on July 19, 2005

Ha. "Roger", as if I know him. Or, as if I even know whether or not he's still alive.

He's alive. I chatted with him about collapse of compactified dimensions in the spring when he visited Chicago on a book tour — he and my advisor know each other fairly well. His latest thing to think about is quantum gravity being related to wavefunction collapse — still pretty out there, but not as rarefied as the quantum consciousness stuff in "The Emperor's New Mind."
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:21 PM on July 19, 2005

Indeed, I feel my consciousness sloshing around in my microtubules right now.
posted by kindall at 1:22 PM on July 19, 2005

Um, kindall? You're supposed to think with your big head.
posted by Floydd at 5:05 PM on July 19, 2005

Ohhh! Ooooh!! You could cast tessellated tiles in concrete!!!
This one is especially cool.
posted by Floydd at 5:15 PM on July 19, 2005

posted by ikkyu2 at 7:47 PM on July 19, 2005