Carolina Handmade

Matching the missing bricks at the house is another challenge. Bricks for both the chimneys and the foundation piers are being made at the old Carolina Brickworks just outside Salisbury. It's the largest manufacturer of hand-thrown restoration brick in the country. This is the pug mill where we mix the water and clay together. The pug mill? Yes we call it a pug mill but pugging is mixing the dry material with the wet with the water. So these teeth are what do the actual kneading and sort of and then stored and separated into what we call slugs, individual slugs and then the pitchers pick them up sand them and pitch them into the sanded mold. Looks What that does is separate it's a separating agent for the mold and the material. How many bricks will these guys sling in a day? These guys are making 35,000 oversized brick a day and the slugs are pitching about 13 times a piece. So you don't want to mess with them in a dog gallery? No that wouldn't be a good idea. What's this machine doing? This part of the machine is we've got a piano wire going across the mold. The molds are conveyed through it. It cuts the excess off the top of the mold. At this point the bricks are too soft to handle so a steel pan has dropped off into a drying room where they spend the night. For special orders or custom sizes the bricks are individually hand thrown here in the shape of the pans just The next day all the bricks are hand stacked on carts known as hacks ready to begin their two-day 230 foot long journey through the fire. We actually look inside. Yeah this is at the end of the firing process. See the brick are about 2,000 degrees and they're nearly molten inside. This is the discharge end of the kiln. This is the end of the firing process and you can see that by now these bricks are cooled down so they can be handled. I want you to notice right here that we have a range of color in these bricks from top to bottom side to side. You get dark colors, lighter colors, some more even What causes that? What causes that is the different amount of flame that touches them and how much coal lays on them, where they burn. These up here don't get a lot of flame. So how are you going to develop the color variation in our bricks? We're going to take the brick that are more uniform and red for the fountain. It is a wide range and a lot of dark brick will set those in the flash zones. So where you place it on the stack makes a big difference in the final color? Exactly. The manufacturing process dates back to Moses time. This firing is modern but it'still an art to find where you can match the colors. Well thanks for showing it to us. It's fascinating. You're very welcome Steve. Anna Brickworks has delivered the reproduction brick and Mason's are putting the finishing touches on chimneys and foundation piers.