129 million tons of firebrick clay

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My buddy just got back with a truck load of Fire-bricks clay containing 30-40% aluminium oxide or alumina and 50% silicon dioxide with a tiny bit of iron but not too much to affect it's properties . It is a mine and they used to ship it to Portland but seems they stopped doing that a long time ago.

Seems there is 129 million tons left up there in the mountains south of town. We are going back for more when we get another permit. I'll prolly be building a new furnace for our local artists community.

I'll post pics of the place soon. It's only 10 miles from here.

[jiminyrootkit]

192 million tons?
holy shit.
where is this again? and what kinda mileage do you think a truck loaded with it would get? ;)
-f

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Estimated at 129 million tons lol... It is literally a mountain of the clay they make kiln brick with. I have no idea how common this good of firebrick clay is. ANyone know? All i know is that there is an entire side of a mountain of it here by Eugene. a 1000 generations of artists could build furnaces with this stuff.

It looked like a ski slope, haha. pretty cool.

[Glassroots]

I'll take the entire moutain

[somewhere]

That will be very dense brick. (think hard kiln brick). 30 to 40 percent alumina will make it fairly corrosive resistant but even with only trace amounts of fe it will cause an electric furnace to short out. Not trying to burst any bubbles but before you collect anymore you should check into it.
Insulating firebrick is what you really want to score the hard brick has little to no insulating value and nowadays little to no value.

On the good side you can build a house out of it at least a fireplace and chimney.

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I may have described it a bit off. I am no chemist. and most of what I posted was second hand ( meaning I repeat maybe 40 % of what I heard correctly lol ) from my buddy who had it tested.

We already made 2 bricks adding saw dust and cement to the mixture. Going to fire the bricks to cone 10 in the next day or 2 to burn off.

My bro has built a few kilns this way. I am along for the ride and the learning experience. I'll let you know how it goes.