| Monthly Tech-Tip | No tracking! No ads! |
URL: Claybank Brick Plant National Historic Site
Click the link below to go to this page
A refractory brick manufacturer, cradled in the Dirt Hills of Southern Saskatchewan, for 75 years (from 1914-1989).
Related Information
A Highly Plastic White Burning Kaolinized Sand:
This proves we can have a Canadian kaolin
This picture has its own page with more detail, click here to see it.
This is kaolinized sand from Flintoft, Saskatchewan. It is among clays we are currently rediscovering. This is far more plastic and fires much whiter than our Ravenscrag quarry equivalent. Consider highlights of physical tests to characterize it (data shown lower left):
-Super refractory (thus theoretically pure). The SHAB test bars (lower right from cone 10R and 10 down to 6 oxidation) correspond to the SHAB test results in the chart. Even at cone 10, this has an amazing 19% porosity. With almost zero shrinkage.
-Plasticity: Excellent (notice the texture of the plastic material in the close-up photo on the upper left).
-The DFAC test disk upper right shows perfect drying performance and very low soluble salts.
-White burning: The top bar is reduction-fired yet barely darker than the one below it at the same temperature in oxidation (indicating low iron content).
-Centre-bottom: G1947U clear glaze on it fired at cone 10R.
-Easy-to-access in new and old quarry sites.
I compared this with about 10 other clays in the area, doing the same for all of them, preserving a treasure trove of data for clays we have been overlooking.
We Have Been Overlooking Better Clay Deposits
This picture has its own page with more detail, click here to see it.
An update of the book "Clay Resources of Saskatchewan". The cover photo is titled "Kaolinized sand of the Whitemud Formation". The writers are lamenting the underutilization of this resource and almost pleading for industry to recognize its value! The cover shows the mining face at the historic Claybank brick plant. This clay is far whiter than what Painsman Clays mines at Ravenscrag, Sask (about 250km west of this). This site was mined from the 1800s to 1970s. Bricks were made in half a dozen large beehive kilns and, even though reduction-fired with gas, they burned far too white. The company increased reduction to the point that soot formed on the bricks to darken the color and turn them brown!
We are finally listening and rediscovering how much whiter and more pure clays are further east in Saskatchewan (compared to our current mining site in the west). This hill is kaolinized sand, that sand can be removed to produce a Canadian raw kaolin that could replace much the hundreds of thousands of tons that are currently imported each year from Georgia, USA.
Got a Question?
Buy me a coffee and we can talk 
https://digitalfire.com, All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy