Hi everybody,
I'm looking into getting new firebrick for Ventura County Railway no. 2 at the Orange Empire Railway Museum. The locomotive is an oil burner. It appears that there are a number of different types and grades of firebrick out there. What firebrick have you used for your locomotives, and where did you get it? Recommendations for refractory cement would also be helpful.

Thanks!

Along a similar line, in cleaning our one of our storage areas, we found several 5-gallon plastic buckets of refractory cement. It is probably about 15 years old. Would it be any good? (Dry storage inside a steel boxcar). I don't recall the type or brand; it will be a couple of weeks before I'll be a the museum to take a look at it.

As I recall the firebox temp on an oil burner is around 2000 F. Contact your local refractory dealers and ask them for recommendations. In most cases the burner is under the front mud ring and the fire rolls up the back sheet so the brick there takes the most direct heat.

You want to use superduty firebrick and make certain that it is for a periodic furnace and not a continuous furnace. All firebrick manufacturers have superduty or they can be called hard duty, high fire or hard brick. Superduty firebrick are good to 1427C. With the brick you should have a bucket or two of castable refractory for the pan, or hard to brick fit areas. Someone mentioned some stored brick mortar, I would not use it as it may not be any good. Mortar is hygroscopic and with age it has lost the ability to form a correct bond. Firebrick comes in all sorts of sizes and shapes, just figure out what you need and match it up in a catalog. Remember you will need expansion joints in the brickwork and don't brick directly up against the side sheets, leave a gap and fill it with a high temp insulation like fiberfrax.

How large of a gap do you leave for expansion joints, and how often? What's the purpose of the high temp insulation? Is the extra insulating power needed, or is it to prevent cold air drafts between the brick and the sheets? Thanks for your help!

For expansion rates/joints the manufacturer should give you that info. The insulation is to prevent high heat transfer from the brick to the sheets in a concentrated area. It gives a bit of a 'buffer zone' between the higher under-brick direct fire area and the lower temps above the brick making for a more gradual thermal variation in the steel. Also has the handy side effect of accommodating any variances in construction dimensions...

Wish I was at OERM, last time I was we were still working at Pepper Tree Shops.

The "go-to" supp;ier for firebrick, mortar, etc. has been A.P. Green for decades.

Dan, Try this place, they are close to you. Foundry Service & Supplies, Inc. - Ontario, CA
These are not brick manufacturers but suppliers. They will have hardbrick from what is left of the brick industry in the USA.

Wonderful! Thanks for the advice!