Okay, so I recently had to get my hands dirty with some fire bricks. The project? Building a small kiln for my wife’s pottery hobby. I went with Smith Sharpe, seemed like a decent name in the business, based on some quick searching and their website looked alright. I needed some high duty #1 arch bricks, the 9 x 4.5 x 2.5-2.125-inch size, for the main structure.
First thing, I jumped onto the Smith Sharpe website to see what they had. Their address is 2129 Broadway St. NE, if you’re ever in the area. They got a bunch of refractory stuff, not just bricks. Good to know for future projects, maybe. I found the bricks I needed pretty quickly, but pricing wasn’t listed. Guess that’s normal for this kind of thing, every place I looked was like that.
So, I started calling. A guy picked up, seemed knowledgeable enough. We talked about the different types of fire bricks, I guess there are different duty ratings, and you got your dense ones and your insulating ones. The guy told me that a high or medium duty, dense alumina firebrick would be best for my kiln.
I started to ask around and found that the prices can really jump depending on the quality of the clay and how pure the materials are. Makes sense, I guess. Better materials, more expensive bricks. And it turns out these good quality bricks can be hard to find in regular stove shops.
Ordering was pretty straightforward. I told the guy what I needed, he gave me a quote, and I placed the order. They even had a PDF with all their brick shapes and dimensions, which was handy. Made it easy to double-check everything. I also checked out some other refractory suppliers, but Smith Sharpe seemed like the best fit for me. The guy mentioned something about refractory materials like alumina oxides, which are supposed to be good for high heat.
- Got the quote.
- Placed the order.
- Bricks arrived.
The bricks arrived a few days later. They were packed well, no damage or anything. Now came the fun part – building the kiln! It wasn’t my first time doing something like this, but it was definitely a learning experience. I spent a good few days cutting the bricks. But hey, that’s all part of the process, right?
In the end, I got the kiln built. The wife’s happy with it, and that’s all that matters. I gotta say, those Smith Sharpe fire bricks worked out pretty well. The kiln heats up nicely and seems to hold the temperature well. So yeah, if you’re ever looking for some fire bricks, Smith Sharpe is worth checking out. They seem to know their stuff, and the service was good.
Final Thoughts
It was a bit of a project, but a good one. Learned a bit more about fire bricks and kiln building, which is always a plus. Plus, the wife is happy with her new kiln. If you are looking for fire bricks, give these guys a try. Hope this was helpful!
