--- On Tue, 11/2/10, David Scheidt <[email protected]> wrote: > From: David Scheidt <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [gurps] A question about Bricks > To: "The GURPSnet mailing list" <[email protected]> > Received: Tuesday, November 2, 2010, 8:12 PM > On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Susan > Koziel > <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Glazed brick.... can't say I've encountered. I've see > lots of glazed tile. Sometimes it would be fairly thick tile > but it would be what I consider tile and not brick.... > granted that could be just a language thing (my tile is what > you consider brick). > > > > The people I've bought it from call it glazed brick. > The people who > make it call it glazed brick. The masons I've hired > to lay it call it > brick. It comes in 4X8X2 (ish) > blocks. It's structural. I'm pretty > sure it's brick.
:) cool... never heard of them - I wonder if that has to do with them (or maybe the mortar used on them) not doing well in really cold climates or something... or maybe they just get too icy so they just aren't used around here. > > > Brick to me is typically thick blocks of coarse > processed clay - occasionally with holes in it. > > > > Tile is a finer quality clay which can be also made > into brick-like objects (usually thinner) and is glazed on > from 1 to 6 sides. (usually glazed on only one side). > > > > Salt fired peices fall into the land of tile for > me... > > > > I think the distinction for me is that brick is used > to make it's own kiln and fired in that manner. > > Except bricks are burnt in tunnel kilns these days, and not > in piles. > Faster, cheaper, better. What's not to like? > (And the Romans had > permanent brick kilns. They substantially more > efficient, having > lower heat losses. If there's demand for enough > brick, they're well > worth building even at low TL.) > > > > > Since potteries have almost universally have moved to > electric kilns - because you have much more (and finer) > control of the heating and cooling cycles salt firings have > become almost non-existant. > > As far as I know, brick kilns are almost universally gas[1] > fired. > It's a whole lot cheaper to operate a gas kiln instead of > an electric > one. I'd expect industrial scale pottery to be done > the same way, for > the same reasons. It's much more efficient to burn > something for heat > than it is to burn it for heat, make steam, make > electricity from the > steam, transmit electricity to where you want it, and then > make heat. > > > [1] there are probably coal and oil fired ones, too. Coal - oil - gas - electric... all have internal metal parts. All internal metal parts will corrode in a salt fire. I had a long discussion with the local pottery/kiln supply folks as well as the brick folks when I built my salt kiln. The pottery folks explained the corrosion that occurs in the kiln when you fire with salt to any metal parts, and also plugs any holes (like the gas lines etc) after the first fire. You can buy modern kilns that are made to withstand the process but they are very very expensive and usually only bought and used by very speciallized pottery producers. The suggested way of running salt fires was to run them in a wood fired kiln. In the above case I'm speaking of a salt fire where the idea is to vapourize the salt by adding it to a hot kiln rather then dipping the peices in salted slips or wrapping the peices in salt water wetter cloth/paper/rope. Its possible these other techniques could be done in a kiln that had metal parts - but I don't know for sure since I've only ever tried the method of the adding it to the kiln. The brick producers (that conviently are next to our local pottery supply store) were the ones that gave me the information about the fact that salt firings will corrode the bricks in a salt kiln - It's on the order of a dozen or so firings before the brick becomes unstable due to salt corrosion (or so I was told). I can verify that salt will cause fire brick to corrode over a four firings - if it will last a dozen firings I am not entirely sure. You can also buy modern brick that is resistant to salt corrosion - but again it's prohibitively expensive and definately a modern material. -Sue _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
