[Stoves] Calculation help in brick making

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Frank

Your plan is reasonable given the equipment.  The ASTM test provides the
'right' answer but not a useful one because the compaction methods are
different (duh).  So requiring it is not helpful.

Yeah...pack the bricks in the way your, then test them.  You could make your
own OMC tester with a brick layer's plumb bob and a device to hold it
straight.  Compact the sample in the regular brick-making way, then add
water.  Correlate the different penetrations to your other test method.  You
would soon have a line marked on the plumb bob.

Because you are only doing this once you might as well continue with the
toilet rolls, though I think they are too long (shouldn't be higher than the
diameter).

Hey...how about this.  Test your samples immediately with the plumb bob
method, adding water until you get to a predetermined penetration.  You do
this immediately after compaction.  You should be able to get useful info
from the total moisture content needed to get that penetration.  The more
needed, the stronger it is (because it was more compacted).  You have to be
patient with the drops of water to give them a chance to wick in properly.

Then test the densest in your paper tube method, proving it is the
densest/strongest, them move to the whole brick test.

Regards
Crispin