Molten brick

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Molten bricks installed in the Petzow castle park wall

As Schmolz brick or only Schmolz be hollow bricks designated caused by errors during the firing process. They belong to the bad fire bricks . In the case of false-fire bricks, a distinction is made between "melted bricks", "weak-fire bricks", "expanded bricks" and "false-color bricks".

description

In pre-industrial times, i.e. until the introduction of modern, controllable firing methods, ceramic firing only rarely led to a stable end result in the manufacture of masonry bricks, roof tiles and the manufacture of pottery . A frequent result in the production of masonry bricks were false fires : If the fire was ended too early, crumbly and easily destructible "weak-fire bricks" were created; if it was broken off too late, "molten bricks" were created, i.e. H. Bricks that received too much heat during the firing process beyond what is known as "garbrand". They melted in their structure, but were usually extremely hard. Masonry bricks often melted together and turned into scrap. The bricks that lay on or in the embers turned black, the surfaces were encrusted with glassy black slag . Such stones were not thrown away, but mostly bricked up inside the wall. In the meantime, these false-fire bricks are in demand as so-called “architect clinker”.

There was room for around 21,000 normal format bricks in a firing zone of a ring kiln . Even if the beautiful shapes and colors of the false fires are inspiring from today's perspective, unsaleable "molten bricks" meant financial losses for the brick manufacturer in earlier times.

Trivia

One of the Zieglers' slogans is ironic: the distiller is proud of weak fire and melt . (Quote)

Examples

An example of the decorative construction of "molten bricks" is the shell grotto in the New Garden in Potsdam by the Oberhof building officer Andreas Ludwig Krüger .

literature

  • Federal Association of the German Brick and Tile Industry V. (Ed.): From the brick god to the industrial electronics technician - history of brick production from the beginnings to the present day, text / picture / editorial office Willi Bender, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-9807595-1-2 .
  • Gottfried Kiesow : Not all bricks are the same . In: Monuments - magazine for monument culture in Germany . Issue 3/4, April 2009.

Web links

Commons : Molten Brick  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Willi Bender: From brick god to industrial electronics. (PDF; 38.2 MB) In: Lebensraum-ziegel.de. 2004, p. 273 , accessed on March 10, 2019 .