Restarting a masonry brickworks in Nigeria
Restarting operation at the Kano Brickworks in Bagauda, Nigeria, following a two-year shut-down since 2008 proved no easy task. Wear of the machines and equipment necessitated extensive repairs. For the production of high-quality clay masonry bricks, investments are required, especially in shaping.
1 Introduction
Besides valuable resources such as diamonds, gold and crude oil, high-quality clays are also found in Africa. These are suitable for the production of masonry bricks. Across the entire continent, mud bricks are very common. The author has lived more than three years in different African countries and everywhere there, in the Congo, in the Sudan, in Cameroon, in Gabon, in the Central African Republic and in Nigeria too, bricks are made mainly by hand in the countryside.
In the hand moulding process, the mud body is struck by hand into wooden or metal moulds and the green bricks are...
