Mystery brick

Found at the Manuel Works, Whitecross by Ian Suddaby.

Ian states -I don’t believe JG Stein made this one to sell, the quality is just not up to their standards. No wonder they didn’t add their name to it. As the fabric clearly doesn’t consist of any of their fireclay or silica products it won’t have any of those names either. It might well be another experimental brick.

The fabric consists of fireclay chunks and granules, some of which might be grog. Large voids look to be where lumps of Magnetite have melted out or soaked into the adjacent fabric. It hasn’t eroded the surface of the brick though.

Kenneth Sanderson talks about experiments with up to 30% grog in the bricks as a way of improving the firing qualities of the Nettle fireclay, given it’s water and iron content. This was so it could be dry pressed and fired in the new Harrop Tunnel Kilns.

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