160 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



fact many brick manufacturers consider that the soft mud 

 machine tempers the clay sufficiently to enable them to dispense 

 with a pug mill or ring pit and use the old-fashioned soak pit. 

 That they can make a very fair common brick thus is not dis- 

 puted, but it is certain that with a thorough tempering of the 

 clay, a better brick would be obtained in most cases. There is 

 one type of machine, the Adams, used by several manufacturers 

 on the Hudson River, which does not temper the clay, but simply 

 forces it into the press box. Some form of tempering machine 

 must, therefore, be used in connection with it. These soft mud 

 machines have a capacity of about 5000 brick per hour, six being 

 molded at a time. 



Steam power is generally used to run the machines, but some 

 of the smaller yards use horse power ; this, of course, is much 

 slower and not economical except for a yard of a small capacity. 

 Some soft mud machines are more powerful than others, and 

 indeed this is necessary. For instance a brick dried on pallets 

 needs a much greater pressure applied to it, and has to be molded 

 from stiff er material than one dried in the sun in the yard. 



Four men are required to tend the machine. A "molder " who 

 scrapes off the top of the mold as it is delivered from the machine 

 and watches the consistency of the tempered clay, to see that it 

 keeps uniform; a "mold lander" who takes the mold from the 

 delivery table and places it on the truck ; a " sander " who sands 

 the molds before putting them in the machine, and a boy to watch 

 the machine and stop it when necessary. Besides this there are 

 four " truckmen " who wheel the bricks from the machine to the 

 yard where they are dumped on the drying floor by two " mold 

 setters." In the afternoon these men are emp oyed in hacking 

 the bricks and wheeling the dry ones to the kiln. 



Drying — In New York State bricks made by the soft mud 

 process are usually spread out on floors or set on pallets to dry. 

 A few yards use tunnel dryers, but as these are more extensively 

 used in connection with the stiff mud process they will be 

 described there. 



Drying should not be hurried. Bricks dried too quickly are 

 apt to crack. They should also be well dried before setting in 

 the kiln, and if this is not done the product is very apt to be 

 poor. 



