Manufacturers of enamel brick in England do not allow their employes to become conversant with all the details which relate to the production of this class of wares. A man, boy or girl once employed in any enamel brick works in the old country is assigned to some special department of the factory, and remains employed in that same department so long as he or she may be an employe. In this way it is quite impossible for the employes in an enamel brick works to acquire a thorough knowlege of the the business in all its various ramifications. Should an employe of one enamel brick manufacturer leave his place and seek em ployment with some other manufacturer of enamel brick in the same neighborhood with a view of extending his knowledge of the business, he is foiled by the surveillance which the various manufacturers maintain. The person seeking employment is asked upon which special branch of work he was last employed, and is assigned to that department, if employment be given him. If the person seeking employment states that he was employed in some branch other than that in which he was employed, the fact is soon discovered by lack of familiarity and skill, and hence such persons are at once discharged, and it becomes a matter of impossibility for such a person to again find employ ment in that particular section of England. In this way the manufacturers of enamel brick are protected, and their em ployes develop a high degree of skill and become experts in their various departments of work. But this special knowledge never becomes general knowledge, and hence no matter how expert a man may become in making, pressing, dipping, set ting, burning or sorting enamel brick, there is no possibility for him, under the English system, to become thoroughly skilled in all the departments of enamel brick manufacture. Large sums of money have been lost in the United States by brick manufacturers who do not understand these facts. They naturally thought that if a man was an expert burner, or an expert in any other department of enamel brick manufac ture, that he was an expert in all the departments. The failures which have resulted from such false starts have done much in the past to retard in this country the successful development of the art of enamel brick manufacture.
One great point in which manufacturers of enameled brick in the United States will be for a long time deficient, is in not be ing able to secure skilled labor in all the various departments, as is always possible now in England.
Manufacturers who desire to make a success in the produc tion of enamel brick must study the subject thoroughly so as to understand fully all the details which pertain to the en tire process, and in addition experienced persons must be placed in each of the various departments of the work.
In experimenting with the various enamels, the preparation of which the writer will give later, do not be discouraged if you do not achieve satisfactory results in the first trials. From 50 to 100 brick for experimenting purposes should be made at one time. In this way the costs of the experiments will not be great, and by repeating the experiments several times better knowledge of the business will gradually be gained, and this is the only way in which manufacturers can secure desired results.
No matter how great may be a man's knowledge of brick en ameling, no matter how great his practical skill, there is proba bly not living any person who can locate himself in any brick works and there successfully manufacture enamel brick of sal able quality the first time he makes the effort to do so. But there are no obstacles pertaining to the production of this class of wares which cannot be eventually overcome by the man who possesses the necessary knowledge and skill. There may be special drawbacks with the clay from which the brick are made. The clay may contain an excess of silica, in which case the brick would increase in size on the application of high heats, and would contract on cooling, thus destroying the enamel sur faces. There may be other difficulties in the way of successful results ; but no matter what these difficulties are, a man who thoroughly understands the business should produce in his second or third kiln enamel brick of salable quality. If he does not accomplish this, there is but little hope of achieving suc cessful results with that particular man in charge. One glaze and enamel, and the same method of procedure, will not suit all clays and all places. The enamel must be made to suit the clay—if the clay is very refractory the enamel must also be hard to fuse, for it must not flux when the brick is only half burned.
The brick and the enamel must both shrink in the same de gree, for if the brick has a greater shrinkage than that of the enamel, the latter will fall off; and if the enamel has a greater degree shrinkage than the clay body to which it is attached, the enamel will crack crosswise.