High Speed Differential Rollers.

From the Clay Preparation Wet Pan Mill, the Soft Mud, as it's known know is transferred to the High Speed Rollers. These are set at a gap of 5mm and they rotate counter to each other at a high speed, around 1000 rpm, this may not seem high speed but the rollers weigh around 5 tonnes each.
One of the rollers rotates slightly faster than the other, so this creates a shearing action on the clay, so not only does it crush but also pulls the clay apart working it to a fine consistency so it will flow into the molding machine and be turned into a brick.

At this part of the process there is around 28% water in the brick clay, very soft and able to be molded well and very sticky, like what you get on your welly's when walking in a ploughed field after a good storm.

This is where the clay, as you can see on the conveyor is transferred to the brick making machine.

See this tomorrow.