Process of Making Brick

INTRODUCTION – Brick

Brick is one of the oldest manufactured building materials in the world. As early as 14,000 BC, dried clay and hand mould brick were found in Nile deposit at lower layer in Egypt. Clay brick was important raw material for building during the time of ancient Mesopotamia’s. Modern the ancient city of Iraq use mud bricks earlier for building around 4000 BC and early Jericho wall around 8,000 BC. Starting from 5,000 BC, the clay bricks preservation by firing has been recorded and documented. The fired bricks in early civilizations were developed further as archaeological traces, such as Euphrates, Tigris and Indus use both fired and unfired bricks.

The Romans are responsible for production of fired brick and they used it, England also used it. However, brick making craft declined the departure of Romans from Britain in 412 AD and was later revived only by Flemish brick makers. Different types of bricks started developing in most countries in the world and were part of the Cargo of the first fleet to Australia, along with brik mould and also a well skilled brick maker.

Process of Making Bricks

There are three processes used in making bricks, varying primarily in the amount of water mixed with the clay.

STIFF-MUD/EXTRUDED: In this process, water is added to the clay obtained from open pit so that it will be in a form of stiff paste that can extruded into a long ribbon or column of clay through a die. The clay is sliced into brick sizes chunks by bricks cutter machine and vacuum pump may be used to extract air from the clay so that it will be strong and easy to handle.

DRY-PRESSED: In this process, clay is compressed under high pressure into mould since there is small water in the clay mix, it is fired without drying it for a long period.

SOFT-MUD: In this process, much water is added to the clay to make soft paste. After that molds are dipped in sand or water to prevent sticking. The soft paste is compressed and allows drying. This method can be use with hand..