WG’s other products were struggling. Except for the hot top product, the 65 periodic kilns we were operating at Waynesburg and Magnolia were now obsolete, in terms of cost and quality, when compared with continuous kilns. Our face brick and ladle brick were high cost, low quality and low profit, when compared to continuous kiln competitors. The strong market for face brick, which had followed the war, was now back to normal and new, innovative products were needed to sell the production from the periodic kilns. Random bond length face brick and architectural paving brick were developed and sold for a higher price per pound than standard face brick. Flashing of the kilns for all architectural products was now standard and the variety of colors commanded a premium price.
The random bond business grew and when City of New York folks decided on random bond brick to line the concrete retaining walls beside the expressways, WG enjoyed a decade of selling millions of these units every year. Later, it was desired to use the same brick through tunnels, requiring glazed brick. Russell Dorf, our late technician with glaze experience, somehow developed a glaze that fit the local clays, a really outstanding achievement, in my opinion. We double fired the product in periodic kilns with such success that we ended up with many extra brick to sell after completion of the expressway orders.
