Love the ideas you have developed in your mod series. Great job! Sadly I can't figure out how to get clay or water to make bricks. The pipes require clay to make and the bricks require water to make. Maybe I'm missing something?

Factoriopedia for all your needs!
Pulverise stone.
Also from sludge if you have that installed.
Processing slag if you have recycle installed.

You can also make it in a foundry if you have Machines installed.

Thank you for answering so quickly and thoroughly. I still have a "no path to stone bricks" problem and I think it is a compatibility issue.

With Bzlead and Wood Industry active in the mod list with this mod, there is no way to make a brick kiln for smelting lead to plates and the pulveriser and the foundry cannot be made. Wood industry moves lead to the kiln and foundry as the only options for smelting lead plates. This is the mod that changes the stone brick recipe with the clay option activated. Is it possible to get an alternative, and possibly slower or more expensive, option for making stone bricks by hand or in a furnace again? I have all your mods on and sludge processing needs pipes, which require lead plates with Bzlead active. An available, while clay option is active, alternate method of stone brick production would make this mod combination compatible. Possibly even a get clay as another mining byproduct possibility with your ores mod. There would still be no stone brick path with that option unless you made a handmade stone bricks from clay handcrafting recipe. Possibly following your new stone brick recipe but minus the water.

I would write a mini mod for myself but I haven't wrapped my head around the new recipe format, as my lua skills are near non-existant for the 2.0 factorio. I did try quite a bit. =(

Love your mods and thank you for your time.

Can you get enough clay from basic slag processing to make a kiln?

Or use a sludge processor to produce clay?
Do you have the slat-water option enabled? That's a good source of sludge.

Sadly both are blocked by the lack of clay and ability to make bricks. I really like the salt water option too. Still need a lead plate to make the offshore pump due to Bzlead. Need clay for pipes. Even with clay I would need an option to make bricks outside of the foundry. The brick kiln takes 5 bricks and a furnace. The basic foundry takes 4 iron plates, 2 lead plates, 2 tin plates, 4 iron gear wheels, 1 crucible, and 10 clay. The quickest, or lowest tech building, path to lead ore smelting is the brick kiln.

I've updated the machines mod to not require lead if alloy-smelting is installed. Let me know how you get on.

You're really awesome for trouble shooting this. The pulverizer still requires lead plates. No source for initial clay to build the pipe recipe. Offshore pump takes a lead plate to get initial water or salt water. Not sure if lead plate in pump recipe is you or Bzlead.

BZlead adds lead to offshore pump.
I'm thinking that you may need to remove alloy-smelting from your mod list. IIRC, it only adds the kiln which is what is causing the problems.
It's the combination of BZlead and alloy-smelting that is causing the issue and I'm struggling to find a decent solution.

And thanks for all your feedback. :)

OK, my bad, it's sludge that adds lead to offshore pump.
Update incoming.

Just tested it and your solutions have worked wonderfully! Thank you so very much for the mods, the tinkering, and your time.

Glad I was able to find a solution.