Originally Posted by JDNSW
Reply With QuoteMaking bricks!
Part 1
Prior to working on a ship, I had left the farm after a big bust up with my late Father. He was a hard working successful farmer, but just could not get out of his old way of farming on a "quota" dairy farm with a guaranteed monthly income.
I moved back near the area where I had grown up and rented a vacant house on a farm. Less than 0.5 Km away from the house was an old brickwork's that had been operated for many years by the original Italian owners, but had been taken over by a Perth based manufacturer.
So, I called in and enquired about a job in the workshop. The very fact that I was living so close to the works, and so on the spot for call outs, had me a job as soon as I liked to start!
They had a horrible Mexican, yes, a real Mexican, plant mechanic, plus an older TA that was of more use than the Mexican. After a few months, the Mexican was politely told his services were no longer required!
Although I had served my time as an electrical fitter, my mechanic mate had his own old type of "service station" with attached workshop, and I had spent a lot of time working with him, mainly on trucks.
The brickworks had a bit of everything! The heart of thefactory was the "Bongioanni" clay extruder. Made in Italy to this dayit was a rugged piece of machinery. Driven by an AC electric motor it gave verylittle trouble. I cannot recall which model it was, or the HP of the motor, butit would have been similar to this:
https://vegacer.com/product/20-m/
The raw clay wastrucked in by a contractor and stockpiled. From the stockpile a CAT wheelloader fed it into a hopper, from where a series of conveyer belts fed itthrough a number of roller crushers. The most troublesome part of that was a"metal detector" mounted around the primary conveyor belt. It wasforever giving false alarms, which also stopped the primary conveyer belt. (thewhole process was interlocked from the extruder back)
The clay then fed into a mixer, where water was added toget the correct consistency. The extruder forced the clay out through a coneshaped nozzle, which was fitted with an exchangeable sized die and a"bridge" bar on which were mounted the replaceable dies that providedthe holes in the centre of the bricks.
These bricks were what is known as "wirecuts", as compared with pressed bricks. The continuous now correctlyshaped clay extrusion fed onto the "wire cutter". Although thismachine appeared complicated, it was in fact quite simple and well constructed.The whole thing moved on a carriage propelled forward just by the slow speed ofthe extruded clay, although it did have a small electric motor to return itafter each cut, and to rotate the reel.
There was an open reel like structure about 6 or 8feet long and 4 or 5 feet in diameter with about 4 or 5 longitudinal bars mountedon it. The wires were individual with and eye on each end and mounted undertension. They did break and the operator had to replace a broken wire using asmall tool while the machine was stopped between cycles. The whole carriagecontinued to move forward until at the end of its travel it "tripped",the reel rotated one position, cut the bricks, and the motor drove it back towardsthe extruder.
brick cutter.jpg
The cut bricks fed onto a flat horizontal conveyor belt and were taken off and stacked on pallets on each side by hand. At the end of this conveyor there was a vertical bucket type of elevator that lifted any rejected bricks, and fed them on yet another conveyor belt back into the mixing hopper on the extruder.
The vertical elevator was prone to breaking the Reynold type chains if an oversized return jammed it, so I modified one lower shaft bearing mount with some old engine valve springs so that it would start to rise up if there was too much tension on it. A small micro switch on top of the bearing housing tripped the drive and stopped the chain from damage. Mr Mexico was outraged by this and it was not much longer after this before he failed to appear.
to be continued
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