Hydraulic Bricks?
When I Lived In St. Louis A Number Of Years Ago, My House (Circa 1897) Was Constructed Of Very Thick Brick Walls. I Was Surprised To See The Word “Hydraulic’ On Many Bricks. After Inquiring, It Turned Out That There Was A Company In St. Louis That Manufactured Bricks Using A Hydraulic Press. The Bricks Were Very Dense And Heavy.
I trying to Decided how To Use This Brick (I Kept One From The Old House) … Garage floor, Maybe?
Prakash
September 22, 2019Saw your article on the d list and thought to myself, this can’t be correct, why would anyone want to make a dense brick , using a hydraulic press?
Because , when the cement is poured into the box, due to gravity the mixture would have settled completely into the box, once fully cured, the brick is tapped out of the container, it’s a full brick!
Unless the pressed brick via the method that you mention was in place, then , I would have thought that the excess mixture would have needed to have been expelled as there would have been no air bubbles.
It would have had to be more like an ‘injection moulded’ than a hydraulic press, but then too , your description , depending on the time frame as to when the method of the dense brick was formed, there probably was no such thing as the word ‘Injection moulded’ , hence the press ?
I am from England and there the bricks were made from the pottery , I forget the exact name for the material used , ahh, it’s clay , these bricks get put in the large fired oven where it is baked , or used to be.
It’s only North America that uses concrete to form bricks, as far as I know.
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