Mud bricks

Camp Virtus has already seen the rise and fall of one clay oven - with the second one in the making. One of the things we have decided to change is the structure of the oven itself, not made of clay according to the wattle-and-daub technique, but out of clay bricks. What we did not know was how difficult it is to make clay bricks. Though the term mud brick suggests that very soft clay is used, such a technique proved impossible to implement as the "bricks" lost all shape when forced out of the mold. Using harder clay mix is on the other hand hard work, especially to push out from the mold. The last resort option was the make the bricks by hand - not so compact and not so large, but hopefully usable. We shall see this week how they have dried...

Mixing clay by feet with sand and dried grass

Footwork

Preparing the clay base of the oven

Empirical projection of the clay brick oven

Brick molding