by Character Queen

We got to watch people making bricks in Colonial Williamsburg.  It was awesome! 

Last year we got to tread the clay (this is in summer) and write our names on the newly molded bricks.  Our names are somewhere in Williamsburg, but we haven’t found them yet. 

us walking in clay

us carrying the brick mold

the clamp being built

On Monday we went back (it’s late fall). There is a clamp made of the unfired bricks, but they hadn’t started the fire yet. 

us standing at the entrance to the brickyard

On Wednesday we went back at night.  There were fires in lamps along the path.  When we got to the clamp they were firing the bricks but the metal doors were not on.  The people said toward the end of the firing the doors will glow!  On the way out one of the burning logs from one of the lamps fell onto the ground!  We considered getting someone, then some people came along and and put the log out. 

On Friday we went back, and the clamp looks basically the same but the fires are all the way though the tunnels and the steam is less.

The rest of the process goes like this.  When the steam stops coming off the top, they put the doors on.  That gets the bricks hotter and then by Sunday the bricks will be done.  Then they wait a few weeks and the bricks will be cool enough to take down.

Watching this was awesome!