# Any pictures of a vintage Brick Factory?



## McTrain (Jan 13, 2008)

Hello everyone,

I am looking for pictures of a Brick Factory. Has anyone an idea how they did look like and how they have produced the bricks or roof tiles?
What ovens did they use and what machinery? I want to build a brick factory for my layout, as I think this is a nice addition and one can model many details.

Thank you for every help!


Greetings!

Jurgen


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

vintage? what's that? There's a brick factory near where I live that is 1950s-era. From that vintage? 

http://www.shutterfly.com/lightbox/view.sfly?fid=3194e982c6ac22aac7e45aad1e0cdff4 

I use shutterfly and don't know if you can see the link I posted. It would take me time to post each photo, perhaps tomorrow? 

The kiln is most important. Small railways serve the insides of the factory. There are different buildings for different processes, starting with the red dusty clay


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## bvdrr (Jan 3, 2008)

I have a brick factory on my layout. The main factory building was kitbashed out of the Beck Brewery building,without the top story on it. Instead of a flat roof It was furnished with a gabled roof with two large round air filters on top.The end had two double doors added.There is also a drying shed to dry the bricks in outside and to the rear of main building. This is rounded out with two beehive type brick kilns made of wood plus a chimney set between and to the rear of the kilns. The brick kilns where builtup of 5 circles of 2"x12" lumber glued and screwed together and then turned on a lathe to the shape of a kiln.
I hope this helps?
Fred


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Maybe these will be of interest.

Library of Congress - Americen Memory

Whittinsville Brick Mill
Northbridge, Worcester County, MA[/b] 

The South Texas Border
Brick Plant-01[/b]

Bricl PLant-02[/b]


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

You may get additional information from these publications, both written and via pictures.

Google Books

The Clay Worker Vols. 77-78[/b]

Brick and clay record, Volumes 6-7[/b]

Brick and clay record, Volumes 20-21[/b]


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

Haven't heard back so I'll be back on Monday if you still want photos 

steve, that's a cool book you linked


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## McTrain (Jan 13, 2008)

Hello everyone,

first of all, I want to thank for all the replys, they really do help a lot. I do not know, if "vintage" is
the correct word, I mean "old". I live in germany, so please forgive wrong words in my english.
I thougt that the walls from the POLA roundhouse would make a good basic for a scratchbuilding 
project. Or the parts from the PIKO brewery, as described above. That sounds great. 
The small coaling depot from POLA could be used as a clay depot. 


Greetings 

Jurgen


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Greetings Jurgen, 
Vintage is fine. 
Brick walls are good too and for the kilns you could sustitute bee hive coke ovens (I think I remember seeing them advertised somewhere), just add larger doors so multilayered wheeled carts can carry batches of bricks in at a time. Move them out the other side and feed another cart in behind. The bricks are allowed to cool before being stacked on pallets for delivery. 

John


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

How vintage do you care to go?


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## takevin (Apr 25, 2010)

Vie Gehts Jurgen! Ich sprechen kleine deutsch? My german is a rusty, been awhile since I've been in Germany. Lots of relatives, mostly around Frankfurt.


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## McTrain (Jan 13, 2008)

Hello toddalin,

boy, this was a great one!! Now I know what means "vintage"!









Greetings! 


Jurgen


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## N1CW (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By bvdrr on 20 May 2010 12:43 PM 
I have a brick factory on my layout. The main factory building was kitbashed out of the Beck Brewery building,without the top story on it. Instead of a flat roof It was furnished with a gabled roof with two large round air filters on top.The end had two double doors added.There is also a drying shed to dry the bricks in outside and to the rear of main building. This is rounded out with two beehive type brick kilns made of wood plus a chimney set between and to the rear of the kilns. The brick kilns where builtup of 5 circles of 2"x12" lumber glued and screwed together and then turned on a lathe to the shape of a kiln.
I hope this helps?
Fred
*Fred
We had a HUGE wind storm the other day.*
*The BIG looser was the Beck's Brewery with the TALL Smokestack.....* 

*I guess the wind load on the side of the smokestack was the just *
*too much and over it went and parts of the building.







* 

*So it will be a "DRY LAYOUT" now!!








the_Other_Ray*


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## bvdrr (Jan 3, 2008)

My kilns where heavy enough to stand an wind and the chimney was cut out of a 4"x4" and the bricks burnt into it with an industrial woodburnerr,then a 1/4" steel rod was placed in the bottom.This steel rod is what held it upright


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## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

There are 3 photos of Pacific Face Brick on the Willamina, Or slide show
http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/willamina_city_/




























There's even a pic of their yard goat


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## BrianTFowler (Sep 20, 2012)

http://brickfrog.wordpress.com/ 
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/pdf/Posters/BrickSwap2008_Van-Doren_BIG1.jpg 
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/pdf/Posters/BrickSwap2008_Van-Doren_BIG3.jpg 
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/pdf/newsletter/1999No.3.pdf 

belden bricks in Canton Ohio still uses several bee hive kilns. do a google image search for "belden bricks beehive ohio"


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## RogerPeter (Aug 20, 2012)

Our town had a tile mill operating from 1921-1925. They pressed glazed building blocks out of our ohio clay. There was a downdraft kiln, a drying barn & a "steam shed" where the equipment was. The drying barn was a full 153' long, rather large footprint in G Scale. I am contructing it in O Scale for our historical society, and it is about 3' long in 1:48. I an get you the info if you want, not too much for photos except a 1952 aerial shot.


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## RandyB (May 2, 2008)

Check out this link... located in southern Indiana few pictures from above and showing kilns 

http://www.medorabrickplant.org/


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## Dick Friedman (Aug 19, 2008)

Gladding-McBean is a terra cotta factory that has been in Lincoln, CA for well over 100 years. That takes it beyond old to vintage to be sure. They made terra cotta tiles for decoration on public and private buildings of all kinds (including railroad stations in Sacramento, Stockton, and San Jose. They have a huge piece of land, many buildings and piles of various kinds of clay used in making bricks and tiles. 

Interesting history, one of the oldest manufacturers in California, and owner (eventually) of Franciscan Chinaware.


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## Jonnychuffchuff (Dec 24, 2010)

I liked that Wiki photo, Dick. 

Mc Train, here's another jumping-off point. 
http://www.toronto.ca/archives/images/brickworks_large.jpg 
also: 
http://maps.library.utoronto.ca/dvhmp/don-valley-brickworks.html 

For more of this factory, Google "Don Valley Brickworks". It's a large historic brick factory in Toronto that is under preservation. Online are many interior views as well as exterior views of the several buildings on the site.


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## Jonnychuffchuff (Dec 24, 2010)

I like old brickworks myself. Here are four pix of a really old one. Look for the beat-up little gas switcher with the string of tippers on the spur beside the incline.
I have three or four more pix of this operation and a couple of pix of very cool old tippers from around Fred Flintstone's period, but as a newbie here I was only able to upload 4 pix before things seemed to crap out on me. So I selected four that give a fairly good overview. 

I figured out how to upload the four of them to my profile page and I guess and hope these urls will get you to them. Cheers.

http://www.mylargescale.com/Portals...ider01.png 
http://www.mylargescale.com/Portals...ider02.png
http://www.mylargescale.com/Portals...ider04.png
http://www.mylargescale.com/Portals...ider06.png


..... and I sure don't know how to paste a pic into a post yet... I know next to nothing about this site so far. 
Learning curve ahead.


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## Jonnychuffchuff (Dec 24, 2010)

Well, that didn't work out too well, did it? All you get is a thumbnail, big hairy deal.... If you tell me what to do next I'll try again!


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Dick Friedman on 21 Jan 2013 11:44 PM 
Gladding-McBean is a terra cotta factory that has been in Lincoln, CA for well over 100 years. That takes it beyond old to vintage to be sure. They made terra cotta tiles for decoration on public and private buildings of all kinds (including railroad stations in Sacramento, Stockton, and San Jose. They have a huge piece of land, many buildings and piles of various kinds of clay used in making bricks and tiles. 

Interesting history, one of the oldest manufacturers in California, and owner (eventually) of Franciscan Chinaware. Gladding-McBean was also in Glendale, CA. That's where IIRC, Franciscan Dinnerware was manufactured. I lived very close to the factory as a kid during the forties and fifties. I believe Franciscan dinnerware started in 1934 and then closed in 1984. Franciscan is now made in China, a mere shadow of what it once was.. 

I still have my grandmother's Franciscan dinnerware set from 1930's, called Desert Rose. They are collector pieces now.


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

Posted By Jonnychuffchuff on 05 Mar 2013 03:00 PM 
Well, that didn't work out too well, did it? All you get is a thumbnail, big hairy deal.... If you tell me what to do next I'll try again! Jonnychuffchuff, 

If you right click on an image (expanded) and select 'Copy image' then in the editor right click and select 'Paste' the image should appear.
If you right click on an image and select 'Copy image URL' then in the editor click the 'Insert Hyperlink' button up top then in the displayed 'Url:' TextField, right click 'Paste' the hyperlink should appear. (Usually only the 1st one works properly though).

Here they are for you... 

































Andrew


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## Jonnychuffchuff (Dec 24, 2010)

Uhhh, wow! Thanks Garrett. 
I've got a few more pix of this same place. It's one highly model-genic operation. 
But I'm afraid to upload them. When I tried it on the fifth of March, any uploads from #5 up seemed to be overriding numbers 1-4. 
So I'm afraid that if I were to try again these ones you've posted may disappear, or am I missing something? 
Can I have more than 4 pictures in there? How do I go about it without nuking what I already have? 
Your insight hugely appreciated!


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

I'm not sure how it works your way, but when I use my on site storage to post pics it's very sensitive to the names. 
01 can only be used once ... so every series of pics need a name or idenyifier; A01, A02 , brickhouse01, ...etc... Spaces aren't favored either. 

Hope this helps. 

John


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

John (no the other John







)

You might want to check out the FAQ about including pictures in your replies, your user profile really isn't intended for that.







Follow the path or just click the link below>

MLS menu >> Resources menu >> FAQ >> As a Standard Member how do I use the Rich-text/HTML Editor - Including Pictures in Your Replies:[/b]


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

JonnyCC,

You only have a basic account and have no space for images. You have uploaded your images to your profile which probably only lets you have a few, perhaps just 4. 
That space is more for images associated with your profile ( layout, RR logo, mugshots etc.). If you change them now, the images I posted will disappear but no problems. It all serves an example for the time being. 

You can either become a paid member and get server space for images or find a free image hosting site like 'photobucket.com' or 'imageshack.com' and store them there. 
You may even have your own webspace under a domain or with your web provider. 
Once the images are stored anywhere on the web you can display either a hyperlink to them or have them display in the forum posts.

If you are wondering, 'URL' is an acronym for 'Unique Resource Locator' or in plain speak, a web address where resources are stored. If you can click it, it works as a hyperlink.
Hope this explains things a little.

Andrew


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