How make brick: How to Make Bricks from Concrete: 8 Steps (with Pictures)
5 Off-Grid Steps To Making Your Own Brick
Image source: Pixabay.com
Over the years, I’ve used logs to build cabins and sticks to make furniture, but my proudest moment was the first time I successfully made a small pile of bricks. I kept making more over one summer and eventually used them to construct an outdoor, wood-fired oven and grill. It was nice to know that if I ever needed brick and none were available that I had the know-how and raw materials at hand.
While the bricks I made were all of even size and had great structural integrity, they were like many homemade things – a little rough around the edges. This was mostly due to my primitive “firing” method, which is the last step in the brick-making process. I also took a simpler approach to the use of clay.
Some approaches recommend gathering clay and letting it dry over the winter and then crushing it into a powder. I harvested the clay, wet it down a bit, and immediately began to work it. This left some pebbles in the clay to be incorporated into the final brick. Brick-making purists would frown upon my shortcut, but for my purposes the bricks came out fine and I didn’t mind seeing a pebble here and there.
How to Make Rustic Bricks
1. Find clay
Finding a good source of clay is critical to this brick-making approach. Where I live the clay runs six to 12 feet deep under the topsoil until it comes to bedrock. I learned the hard way that my property was “blessed” with clay every time I tried to plant a tree or bush.
New Survival Energy Product Makes Every Window A Powerful Solar Charger
You also can find clay along river banks. Keep in mind, however, that clay is very heavy and so it’s best if you can find a source that’s close to home. I took my harvested clay from my backyard and piled it on a 4 feet x 8 feet sheet of plywood. I then put on an old pair of gym shoes and while holding a bucket of water began to squish and knead the clay with my feet while occasionally pouring some water on the clay to loosen it up.
It’s a messy process, but not difficult.
Be careful with the amount of water you use. You don’t want clay soup, but rather something with pliable, elastic consistency.
2. Mix in sand
The proportion of sand to clay should be four parts clay to one part sand. I had to eyeball this to estimate the volume of clay in my clay blob. I then sprinkled the sand over the clay and once again did my clay dance to incorporate the sand. I also used a shovel to toss the clay/sand to incorporate it better.
3. Mold the bricks
Image source: Pixabay.com
Now comes the fun part and if you have kids they might enjoy helping. What you’ll need is a form/mold made from wood that’s 4 inches wide, 8 inches long and 2 1/4 inches high. It should be open at the top and bottom. You can make your bricks any size you want, but this size is believed to be the old-world standard. You also can make a form with numerous compartments of this size.
An old trick I learned is to dust the inside of the mold with charcoal dust.
This helps the clay mix slip out when the form is lifted. The black charcoal dust will burn off during the firing process and not affect the color of your bricks.
As a work surface I used a 2 feet x 4 feet sheet of plywood that I greased with oil. Any oil will do; I used vegetable oil. This will help the brick to release after it has dried and also will burn it off.
Place your mold to one side of this work surface and remember that this brick will have to dry on this smaller sheet of plywood. I usually leave about two inches between each wet brick.
After dusting the mold with the charcoal, start slopping the clay mix into the mold, patting it down as you go. To get a clean top surface use a length of bailing wire stretched across the frame of a small bow saw and drag the taught wire slowly across the top of the brick.
New Water Filter Fits In Your Pocket And Removes 100 Percent Of Water-Borne Bacteria!
Let the clay rest in the mold for about 20 minutes and then gently lift the mold straight up.
Ideally your clay consistency will have enough integrity to not bulge on the sides. But results can vary. The first time I did this, I got it perfect. My second batch was too wet and I had to let the clay/sand dry overnight on the big board.
4. Dry
You need to let the bricks dry at this point. In my case, I simply moved the small board of about eight bricks into the sun. If you think it’s going to rain, either cover the bricks with a tarp or move them inside. I usually let mine dry for three to four days before going to the final step.
5. Firing
There are all sorts of opinions, approaches and kilns for this firing process. I decided to keep it simple and primitive. I laid down on the ground a course of long, equally-sized logs about four inches in diameter. I put my eight bricks on top. I then began to stack firewood around and over the bricks. It was the usual structure of kindling leading to larger woods and I stacked enough wood to make a bonfire about three feet high.
Then I started the fire and let it burn.
When the fire is first out, don’t even think about grabbing one of the bricks. They can often remain hot for up to a week. Once you’re satisfied they’ve cooled, rinse them with water, scrub with a brush, and you’re done. Until you decide to make the next batch, that is.
Have you ever made brick? What advice would you add? Share it in the section below:
Are You Prepared For Blackouts This Winter? Read More Here.
Make Your Own Bricks from Soil – Mother Earth News
A few years ago–while reading Ken Kern’s fine book, The Owner-Built Home, I came across something which brought me right up out of my chair: the CINVA Ram, a manually operated machine that makes ordinary earth into substantial 4 X 6 X 12-inch construction bricks.
Since I’m always on the lookout for inexpensive building supplies, I was (to say the least) intrigued by the idea of turning soil into concrete-like blocks.
I confess I was skeptical, however, that plain old garden-variety dirt –for gosh sakes–could be used as a construction medium here in the cold, damp eastern edge of Washington State.
After reading more about compacted earth, however, I learned that its main limitation –vulnerability to attack by moisture –could be overcome through the addition of cement to the raw soil as a “stabilizing agent”. Well, that was enough to convince me to give it a try . . . so I chipped in with some friends on a CINVA Ram and proceeded to build my barn, chicken house, and hearth entirely out of soil-cement blocks.
Now, two years later, I’m happy to report that the structures have all successfully weathered one reasonably severe winter and, in general, have lived up to my highest expectations. Soil-cement not only has excellent insulative qualities but is strong, durable, fireproof, easy to work with, and extremely low in cost. (My blocks set me back three cents each . . . and they wouldn’t even have cost that much if I’d not been forced to buy clay and sand to add to our silty local soil!) In short, soil-cement is everything I think a building material should be.
The CINVA Ram
In case you’re wondering, CINVA is an acronym for the Inter-American Housing and Planning Center of Bogota, Colombia . . . while Ram is taken from the name of Paul Ramirez, the Chilean engineer who invented this brick making device in the mid-fifties.
The CINVA Ram consists of a box or mold which is filled with damp soil-cement, and a lever-actuated piston that compresses the earth-binder mix. Once the mold has been loaded with the proper amount of material, the machine’s operator then forces its long handle down with a pressure of 70 to 100 pounds (exerting, in turn, 40,000 pounds of pressure on the soil that is being compressed). The brick formed by this procedure is then ejected, set in a cool place, and left to cure for up to three weeks.
Though not technically difficult, making construction blocks with a CINVA Ram is what is known as a “labor intensive” operation. Four adults?working in an organized assembly line with the aid of a mechanized cement mixer?can produce only about 50 of the 4 X 6 X 12-inch bricks an hour.
(Since a couple thousand of the blocks are needed for even a small house, you can see why few people ever attempt this construction technique alone!)
To be fair, though, and give the other side of the story: CINVA Ram bricks may, be labor intensive to fabricate . . . but they’re also strong, durable, fireproof, cost very few out-of-pocket dollars, and have good insulative qualities. In short, if you’ve got more time than money, you want to build with native materials, and you need a structure that will last . . . a soil-cement mixture formed into blocks with a CINVA Ram may be just the answer for you (as it has been for me).
The Five Basics of Brickmaking
The basic brickmaking process can be broken down into five steps: [1] analysis of the soil, [2] sifting of the earth, [3] preparation of the mix, [4] manufacture of the blocks, and [5] the curing of the bricks.
We’ll discuss each of these activities in some detail.
Soil Composition
Analysis of the soil that will be transformed into bricks is the first (and probably most complicated) step in the manufacture of pressed-earth blocks.
You must know the composition of the dirt you intend to use before you can estimate the amount of cement?and/or missing “native” constituents?that must be added to the final “mix”.
All soils are made up of three components: sand, silt, and clay. These components are defined on the basis of particle size (sand being the coarsest of the three and clay the finest).
Somewhat sandy earth seems to make the best CINVA Ram blocks and the optimum soil for the bricks is made up of approximately 75% sand and only 25% silt and clay. (The clay alone should never comprise less than 10% or more than 50% of the total.) A good deal of variation from this ideal is permissible, though. According to the instructions which came with our machine, “Most earth, when reasonably free from vegetable matter, will make good compressed-earth blocks.”
You can get a rough idea of the composition of your soil by simply picking up a handful and feeling it. Sand –naturally–has a coarse and gritty texture, while silt has the consistency of flour.
Moist clay is smooth to the touch, is somewhat sticky, and will form a ribbon as you compress it between your thumb and forefinger.
To better estimate the percentages of each component: [1] Fill a straight-sided glass jar about one-third full of earth. [2] Add an equal volume of water. [3] Cover the jar and shake vigorously to suspend all the dirt. [4] Finally, allow the slurry to sit undisturbed about 30 minutes or until the soil has settled into three separate layers with the sand at the bottom.
Sifting
Whatever the consistency of your soil, it must be dried and sieved (to remove large lumps, stones, leaves, and other impurities) before the dirt can be properly mixed with cement and compressed into blocks.
The soil has the proper moisture content for sifting when [1] a handful can be squeezed without water appearing on its surface, and [2] the ball of earth disintegrates without lumps as it’s released. Damp soil of this kind can easily be pushed through a quarter-inch screen.
You can construct a sturdy sieve in any of a number of ways. Ours, for example, is simply a piece of hardware cloth mounted on a three-foot-square frame made of 2 X 4 lumber. The important thing is to keep the structure lightweight and small enough to handle easily, because you’ll need to dump an accumulation of stones and other material off the screen every now and then.
We found it convenient to make a stand for our sifting tray to rest on while in use. Three sides of the support’s base are walled in solid to keep the sifted soil neatly confined as it falls through the screen on top . . . and the fourth side was left open so that we can shovel the dirt out as we want it.
Making the Mix
Once your soil has been dried and sifted, you can begin to prepare the mix from which your bricks will be pressed.
The amount of portland cement you use will depend upon the composition of the earth you have at hand: Sandy loams must be fortified by volume with from 4.75 to 9.
10% cement, desert-like silty dirts need 8.35 to 12.5% of the stabilizer, and clayey soils require 12.5 to 15.4% of the binder. More than 15.4% cement is not recommended.
It’s actually rather easy to calculate these proportions. For instance, to get a 10%-cement mix, you’ll need to measure out one cubic foot of portland cement for every nine cubic feet of sifted, dry soil. This isn’t at all difficult to do if you can scrounge up some buckets or containers, preferably with handles, of known volume to work with.
Thoroughly combine all the dry ingredients: cement, sifted dirt, and special additions, such as sand or clay, that may be needed to “round out” your soil’s composition. A cement mixer made this part of the job easier for us . . . but –if you can’t obtain one of the machines –you can rake the materials together by hand on any level, hard, and nonabsorbent surface. Just take care to avoid contaminating the mix.
The final ingredient that you’ll need to make blocks–water –must be added a little at a time until the damp soil-cement reaches the right consistency.
(Here, we used a garden hose with the nozzle adjusted to produce a fine spray.) There are several ways to tell when you should stop adding the liquid. For one thing, if you take a small amount of mix and form it into a ball in your hand, the resulting clod should both hold its shape and not stain your palm. The ball should also pull apart without disintegrating, and should, when dropped from a height of 1.1 meter (43.3 inches), shatter into a loose material that resembles the original mix.
From Mix to Bricks
The soil-cement can now be loaded into the CINVA Ram’s mold. About the only tricky part of this procedure is filling the box with exactly the right amount of the mixture each time.
With a little experience, you’ll be able to tell if the Ram contains as much of the earth-binder mix as it should by the pressure required to depress the machine’s long handle. Ideally, you should be able to feel some resistance . . . but it shouldn’t be necessary to “fight” the lever down.
I can only suggest that you make a number of trial bricks, employing carefully measured amounts of soil-cement to determine the correct loading volume, then make an appropriately calibrated scoop. (We used a plastic bleach bottle with the bottom cut away, while some friends of ours built a solid little wooden scoop that’s easier to handle, and more accurate, than our recycled model.)
Removing the fresh blocks from the Ram calls for a delicate touch, as the bricks are plastic and fragile when newly formed. The Ram’s instruction booklet suggests that “you place hands flat at the ends of the block, being careful not to damage the corners or edges, and then gently lift the block from the mold box”. We had more success pressing our palms flat against the long, narrow sides of the bricks instead (as shown in one of the accompanying photographs).
The Curing Period
Place the bricks as soon as possible on a flat, non-absorbent surface (a board or slab of cement covered with sheets of plastic is ideal) in a shady environment to cure.
Be sure to set each block on edge and to space the bricks far enough apart so that they don’t touch. And please note that bare ground–which will draw water from the blocks so rapidly that they’ll be weakened and may even crack, is NOT an acceptable surface upon which to age your bricks.
If possible, the curing site should be located directly adjacent to the Ram since you’ll find it difficult to carry the freshly molded bricks very far. Ken Kern, in The Owner-Built Home’s chapter on pressed block construction, suggests that you erect your building’s roof first, so that you can then use the protected area underneath as a curing “yard”.
The slower the soil-cement blocks dry, the stronger they’ll be. Which means that during the first four days of their cure, you should keep your bricks covered with plastic. Also, beginning 24 hours after they leave the Ram, the soil-cement blocks must be thoroughly sprinkled three times a day with the fine spray from a garden hose. The bricks may be stacked on the fourth day, but the sprinkling should be continued for another eight days.
Finally, three weeks after leaving the mold, the blocks can be used in construction.
Building With Your Bricks
The same building techniques used with concrete blocks can be employed with your bricks of pressed earth. Before laying soil-cement blocks, though, it’s a good idea to dip them in water to prevent them from absorbing moisture from the mortar (thereby weakening it) used to hold them together.
As usual, courses of the bricks should be laid in such a way that the vertical seams in one row coincide with the center-points of the blocks in the course above. Also, the mortar in all joints should be no more than one centimeter (four-tenths of an inch) thick.
Because our winters are so cold and wet here in eastern Washington, we felt it prudent to seal our blocks (and thus waterproof them for good). To do this, we applied a clear acrylic masonry sealer to the finished soil-cement walls. Numerous other paint and plaster finishes, of course, would have done the job just as well.
It’s sad, but there aren’t really many books around on the subject of building with pressed-earth blocks. One fact-packed text I can recommend to anyone interested in this kind of construction is the Handbookfor Building Homes of Earth, by L. Wolf skill, W. Dunlop, and B. Callaway Also, of course, Ken Kern devotes a chapter to the topic in The Owner-Built Home.
Beyond that, you’re on your own. Just [1] buy a CINVA Ram, [2] enlist the aid of a few friends, and [3] have at it.
So what if you do live in a part of the country where the winters are frigid and damp? Cold weather or not, pressed earth works beautifully. Believe me. I know.
How to Test Soil-Cement for Structural Integrity
Before you begin to think about building a house, barn, or other habitable structure out of pressed-earth blocks, you should make sure that the soil-cement mixture you’re using is the best one possible. How? Start by creating bricks from four trial mixes: one containing the maximum amount of cement, one with the minimum amount, and two with intermediate concentrations of the binder.
‘Let the blocks cure for 15 days, then test them in each of the following capacities:
TENSILE STRENGTH: Lay a block across two supports spaced 20 centimeters (eight inches) apart, and place weights one by one atop the brick’s center until it breaks. The mix producing the strongest block is best.
HARDNESS: A nail driven with your bare hand should penetrate no deeper than five centimeters (about two inches) into the block.
SOUND: When struck lightly with a hammer, the brick should produce a metallic sound.
UNIT WEIGHT: That mix which produces the block having the greatest weight?and therefore the least pore space–should be considered best.
SHRINKAGE: There shouldn’t be any. Measurable contraction after curing means that the mix either contained too much clay, or too little cement. Or. both.
For other structural testing techniques, see the Handbook for Building Homes of Earth (mentioned in article), or talk to your local building inspector .
. . which is something you’ll have to do sooner or later anyway.
Do-it-yourself clay bricks: Significant construction savings
In this article we will tell you how to make clay bricks with your own hands. This building material can be easily and budgetarily made independently.
Many of you know that red brick is a quality building material, but it is not at all cheap. I’ll tell you a secret: you can simply make it yourself, without incurring special costs.
DIY brick
- Raw material preparation
- Brick molding
- Brick drying
- Furnace device. Method 1
- Furnace device. Method 2
- Brick firing
- Safety
- Conclusion
Pottery has long been considered a craft. The people who owned it provided the inhabitants with vessels for storing food, jugs for liquid and loose bodies. Over time, artisans learned to produce various items of dressing from clay: tiles, dishes, etc.
These items also included refractory bricks – a product that is used as a building material.
White bricks are made from sand and lime, while red bricks are made from clay. A brick made of clay has a number of advantages, such as environmental friendliness, resistance to various climatic conditions. It also has good sound insulation, high strength/density, excellent wear resistance, etc.
It is clear that a building material with such consumer properties is not cheap. We’ll talk about how you can save money by making clay bricks yourself.
To make a brick, you will need oily and non-oily clay (clean), a small amount of burnout additives (sawdust, chopped straw), plywood, mold boards, water and cement.
Of the tools you need an ordinary shovel, a hacksaw for wood, a construction sieve, a hammer, a container for mixing and an iron strip (as an option – a construction trowel). Nothing supernatural is required.
Raw material preparation
Prepare clean clay.
Remember: the greater the plasticity of the clay, the easier it is to form a brick. There are many options for increasing the plasticity of clay. The simplest of them is keeping it moistened.
To do this, take a container, fill it with chopped raw materials, previously cleaned of small stones and grass clods. While stirring, gradually add water to it until the clay is completely soaked. Then leave the composition for aging, covering the container with polyethylene, for 3-5 days.
After aging, check the resulting clay solution for suitability for further processing. It should easily peel off from the hands, and not change the dowry shape. Try to roll a piece of the finished material with a bundle, as thick as a pencil, and wind it on a thick stick. The mass should not blur or smear, tear or crumble. With this simple test, you can determine the need for supplements. If the clay crumbles, add water, if it spreads, mix dry additives.
It is preferable to use low-fat clay, however, if there is no choice, you can reduce its fat content by adding sand, peat chips, sawdust or grain husks.
The amount of additives varies from 3 to 15%, depending on the filler, and for the most accurate determination, it is necessary to make trial batches.
How can I test clay for fat content? There are many different ways, here is one of them:
- Take 0.5 kg of clay and gradually add water to it, stirring occasionally. When the composition is sufficiently saturated with water, it will begin to stick to the hands. From the material obtained, make a cake, the size of a small saucer, and a ball, the size of a walnut. Leave them to dry for a few days.
- Visually inspect finished products after 2-3 days. First of all, inspect the cake. If damage, tears and cracks are clearly visible on it, then the clay is very oily and needs to be supplemented.
- Then extend your arm in front of you and drop the ball. As a result of the normal fat content of the clay, the ball will remain unharmed.
- There are also types of clay that are too thin and are of poor quality and strength.
To obtain a high-quality composition from such types of material, it is necessary to mix clay with a higher fat content to them, periodically adding it in small portions. To reach the desired result, check the property of the solution after each addition of clay. - After you have determined the required proportions of the composition, you can start molding bricks.
To obtain a high-quality composition from such types of material, it is necessary to mix clay with a higher fat content to them, periodically adding it in small portions. To reach the desired result, check the property of the solution after each addition of clay. Brick molding
It is important that the molds used inside are smooth, without roughness and damage. Before use, treat their inner surface with water so that in the future you can easily remove the finished material.
Molding of the workpiece is carried out by laying the clay mass in molds with its subsequent tamping.
During the drying and firing process, the brick will dry out and therefore decrease in size, so choose your shapes carefully. For example, to make a 25 x 12 x 0.65 cm brick you would need a 26 x 13 x 0.75 cm mold. It must be flat and clean.
After a while, the clay will shrink, so add mortar to the mold until it is completely filled. Then remove the excess clay with a trowel or any rail, and smooth the surface. Try to pack the solution as tightly as possible, and do not go beyond the form.
Molds are available with or without a bottom. To make several products at once, you can use a mold in the form of a plate, and after molding, simply cut it into bricks of the required size. Moisten the tool with which you will cut the bricks with water or oil first. It can be a metal tape or, for example, a string.
Leave the resulting blanks to dry a little. On average, this process takes 1-2 hours. By the way, if you use hot water when preparing a clay solution, the drying process will be much faster.
After a few hours, evaluate the quality of your work.
If the raw material is not strong and breaks easily, it means that an excess of inclusions was added during the preparation of the mixture. In this case, it is necessary to change the composition of the batch.
If there are lumps and traces of non-mixing in the mass, add water and increase the mixing time. Inclusions of grass and stones in the composition indicate poor cleaning of the clay. If the brick sticks and deforms, add dry additives to the composition. This indicates its high humidity.
If the blank is separating, then you did not compact the clay hard enough into the mold. Different sizes of raw material can indicate several factors: the forms have become unusable (worked out), the prepared composition has high humidity, the top of the raw material is poorly smoothed (cut off).
How to make bricks with your own hands, you can also watch the video:
Drying bricks
Since the formed brick contains a large amount of moisture, it will decrease in volume during the drying process.
If some parts of the raw material dry out faster than others, then cracks and gaps will form on the brick. To prevent this, it is necessary to ensure that water evaporates evenly both from the surface and from the inside of the brick.
If you plan to dry the bricks indoors, this can be achieved by controlling the temperature where the material will be dried. Drying raw material is recommended in several stages:
- Slow drying – used when the workpiece is still soft and damp.
- Faster drying – applied after the brick has sufficiently hardened.
The dryness of the air, its speed and temperature are the main criteria that must be controlled for successful drying of raw material. The higher these figures, the faster the brick will dry. Accordingly, with slow drying of raw materials, these figures should be lower. It is also important to regulate the amount of air passed through the room.
With natural drying, climatic conditions cannot be controlled, so the most important requirement in this process is to prevent rain (or any other moisture) from entering the workpiece.
You can use a regular PVC awning or a thick film to protect the bricks from precipitation.
If, as a result of drying, you find that many bricks have cracks, it means that the prepared mass was oversaturated with moisture. The deformation of the raw material indicates that it was forced to dry. Unfired brick is still quite fragile, so be careful when working with it.
If the workpiece dries unevenly, you have made too dense masonry. Discharge it.
Oven assembly. Method 1
Let’s look at how to make a do-it-yourself oven designed for firing a large number of bricks.
To prevent heat loss, check the groundwater level at the site before construction. It must be at least 2 meters.
The foundation is laid first. Its depth should be about 0.5 meters, and its width – 0.6 meters.
The walls, 0.5 m thick, are laid out in such a way that after half the height of the stove they narrow, creating a chimney. You can make a furnace for firing blanks both rectangular and round.
For the construction of walls, you can take not only burnt bricks, but also raw bricks.
Together with the brickwork of the oven, after 2/3 of its height, lay the raw blocks in columns, observing the gaps between them and taking into account the slope of 30 ° C. With such an inclination, gradually laying the walls and raw, you will get a chimney. The stove will be more efficient if you make it high, as the exhaust gases will create more warm air.
You can install a pipe on the stove – the draft will be better. After the final laying out of the walls and raw materials, treat the stove with clay mortar. Cover the opening that you left for the firebox with a door.
As for the firebox, it can be made inside or in front of the stove. If the stove is large, you can make more fireboxes.
The bottom of the furnace (BODY) is covered with a layer of crushed stone about 10 cm.
Furnace construction Method 2
If you will burn a small amount of brick, then for this you can use a regular barrel with a capacity of 250 liters.
Cut out the bottom of it and place it on legs (0.2 m high) over the fire. The pit for the fire pit must be at least 0.5 m deep. Such masonry will contribute to uniform heating of the raw material. To prevent cold air from entering the barrel during firing, cover it with a cut-out bottom.
More detailed recommendations on the firing sequence of raw materials and temperatures will be described below.
Brick firing
Both in the first and in the second method of constructing a furnace, the same rules for firing raw materials apply. You can burn it both on wood and on coals.
At the first stage, the bricks are dried. It lasts from 20 to 40 hours at temperatures up to 120 °. Then, on a low heat (from 600 to 650 ° C), the raw material is kept for 30–40 hours. The fire is gradually brought to 900–1100 ° C. This temperature will give the product not only heat resistance and strength, but also increase resistance when soaked in water.
The final stage lasts from 25 to 30 hours at the maximum temperature reached.
During firing, remember that extreme temperature fluctuations are unacceptable. Ready bricks can be removed only after complete cooling. On average, the cooling process lasts 40-50 hours.
If you notice that the lower rows of masonry do not fire well, and the fire goes along the top of the stove, most likely you have not distributed the fuel correctly. Make the rows of masonry denser.
If there are a lot of cracks on the product, discharge the cage. Perhaps you also allowed a sharp temperature drop.
If the finished brick has enlarged and begun to collapse, the problem lies in the white inclusions of limestone contained in the clay used. Replace the material, or grind it more thoroughly.
The scratches on the brick indicate an artificial intervention in the cooling process, as a result of which it happened too quickly.
If the brick is weak (breaks, crumbles), it is possible that the raw material was affected by an excess of vapor condensation (parking occurred).
Extend the drying time of the workpieces.
If the brick is not burnt or burnt in some places, you have made too sparse or too dense masonry. There may have been a failure in the traction system of the oven. If the raw corners are beaten off, try to be more careful with the workpiece at all stages of processing.
Safety
- When constructing the oven, fire precautions must be taken into account. Do not place the oven near wooden structures and flammable objects.
- Choose a place to build the stove so that you have maximum visibility during work.
- Check ventilation if necessary before starting work.
- Avoid sudden temperature fluctuations during firing.
- Monitor cooling rate and final temperature.
- Do not open the oven ahead of time.
- Do not touch hot stove surfaces.
- Keep children out of the oven.
- Do not throw explosive objects into the building.
- Decide on the sequence of actions.
- In case of emergency, check escape routes and first aid kit.
Conclusion
When finished, take one of the bricks. Hit it lightly with a hammer. If the brick is the same on all sides, without damage, evenly burned, does not crumble and rings on impact, then you have successfully coped with the work and have seen from your own experience that it is quite possible to make a brick with your own hands.published by econet.ru
Subscribe to our Yandex Zen channel!
If you have any questions on this topic, ask them to specialists and readers of our project here.
And remember, just by changing your consumption, we are changing the world together! © econet
How to make a brick with your own hands, Brick from clay and straw
How to make a brick with your own hands? It depends on what kind of brick, since a great many of them have been invented – raw and fired for the oven, elite decorative and with the addition of manure.
But the basic technology for various bricks still has more similarities than differences: first, the composition of the mixture is selected according to the availability of materials in a given area, the recipe is refined and raw materials are harvested. For example, for the construction of a house, clay bricks require a very large amount of refractory quarry slate clay, while adobe bricks require clays with slightly different qualities and a specially prepared chopped straw filler. Then they knead, achieve uniformity and plasticity of the mass, mold, fire or dry the brick. Hand-molded bricks are made piece by piece and used for artistic decoration, and bricks for a fence or a shed can be made with your own hands from clay and sand. Nowadays, many secrets of the old masters have been lost, but interest in natural building materials is steadily growing: for example, in adobe construction.
Bricks made of clay and straw are often called adobe bricks, and straw (chopped wood, moss, sawdust and shavings, cut reeds or chopped fiber of natural insulation, etc.
) is used as a heater. The binder in adobe bricks is clay; additions of quartz sand, peat or manure in a naturally wet state are also required. To make adobe stronger, cement and lime binders (fluff) are added to the batch at a modern private construction site.
Manure (or peat) for adobe is not a filler or a replaceable additive, but a stabilizing agent, and if it is difficult to get cow (horse) manure, then a special humus is prepared to replace it. The process is similar to building a compost heap, but the raw materials are taken very wet (vegetable tops and peelings, grass and leaves, various succulent weeds) and mixed with a viscous clay solution. Readiness of the stabilizer in normal conditions of heat and moisture – in about 3-4 months. Saman is the oldest invention of our ancestors and an excellent, warm home for modern followers of green technologies. Externally, an adobe house can be a barn, or it can be the height of aesthetics.
Stir adobe with feet in pits or large containers like bathtubs.
There are special devices – soil mixers, similar to miniature concrete mixers.
Drying of adobe also has its own peculiarities: the brick is dried flat for three days, and then on its side, and every 2-4 days the bricks are turned over to the other side. In winter, drying adobe in the middle lane is impossible; for high-quality bricks, it is necessary to equip a heated enclosed space.
Clay and sand brick
For a good clay and sand brick, the most important condition for success is the availability of suitable clay. Clay for ordinary red brick should be sufficient, but not excessively greasy, but check the clay for fat content in several ways – visually, making a lump in the palm of your hand and observing its “behavior” when falling from a height and squeezing; pancakes with a diameter of 10 cm are molded and after special drying without atmospheric water and sun, they are tested for cracks – this is a standard way to test clays.
At a private construction site, it makes sense to make clay bricks in large volumes, having previously made a series of tests: they check the quality of the mixture of clay and sand at each stage of brick molding and drying, and make adjustments to the selection of the clay / sand composition.
Clay bricks at home can only be made of two types – raw and baked bricks. But this is quite enough for any buildings on the site, decor and landscaping. Brick without firing is cheap and suitable for small buildings, fences, arbors, small forms.
The fired bricks of the craftsmen’s own product are not inferior to factory bricks and are suitable for building a house. Various types of hand-made bricks and hand-molded tiles are made piece by piece and sometimes have considerable value. Home bricks can be made in any size, but the time-tested standard form 250 * 120 * 65 mm always justifies itself. In homemade brick molds, you can make equipment for voids – conical or rectangular ledges. Such a brick is lighter without sacrificing strength, since it adheres well to mortar, is more convenient in masonry and requires significantly less raw materials. Considering that native clay is extremely laborious to prepare and expensive to buy in large quantities, many craftsmen prefer to mold hollow bricks.
Sawdust and cement bricks
Such bricks are usually called arbolite. In terms of technology, these bricks are one of the most difficult, since they require a number of conditions to be met in the preparation of wood filler:
