Patent GB-348052-A (GB)
Title: A new or improved brick-laying machine
IPC: E04G21/22
Filed: 1930-01-23
Abstract: 348,052. Brick-laying machines. MASSEN, W. H., 665, Gladstone Avenue, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Jan. 23, 1930, No. 2443. [Class 20 (iv).] A machine, shown diagrammatically in Figs. 2 and 3, for laying bricks has brick-conveying, placing, and mortar-spreading mechanisms mounted on a wheeled carriage 11 adapted to be moved, by a ground-contacting wheel driven by suitable power means, along a track 10, Figs. 1, 2 and 3, laid on a rough floor inside the walls of the building to be erected, the track being parallel to the walls at the sides and with curves at the corners. The brick-placing and mortar-spreading mechanisms are adapted to follow the lines of the walls at the corners and to rotate, as the carriage moves around the corner curves, to maintain parallelism in the bricks. Cam rails 144, Fig. 1, control, by means of a cam controlling a friction drive through a pulley of varying diameter, the speed of a shaft which drives the brick-placing and mortar-spreading mechanisms and also the speed of the carriage 11 on the corner portions of the track to ensure even spacing. The bricks are deposited in rows, as shown, on a hod-table HT, Fig. 2, by hods with removable bottoms, the table being provided with spacers to ensure proper relative arrangement of the bricks, which are urged forward by a counterweight. The bricks are carried from the hod table HT by graspers mounted on a main chain conveyer 53 which extends across one end of the row of bricks. A grasper opener acts to open the grasper which is operating on the particular row of bricks being fed, and this grasper is withdrawn from action when that row is exhausted. The bricks are fed by the graspers to graspers mounted on a transverse transfer chain conveyer which runs over the sprockets 217, Fig. 2, and compensates for the variation in distance between the main conveyer and the conveyer to the layer as the carriage moves around the curved portions of the track at the corners where the conveyer to the layer follows the lines of the walls. The conveyer to the layer runs over sprockets 228, Fig. 2, and arranges the bricks as headers or stretchers as desired. Graspers thereon receive the bricks from the graspers on the transfer conveyer. The bricks are delivered by the conveyer to the layer to shelves on the layer which travels in straight lines, and graspers associated with the layer close on the bricks and carry them downwards and press them into the mortar on the wall. Movable steps are set on the track to start and stop the conveyer mechanism of the machine to interrupt the laying of bricks at door and window openings and to operate a saw to cut off projecting portions of bricks in such openings. The brick-laying devices are supported on a platform 166 which is adjusted vertically, after each circuit of the building, to lay the next course, on screw shafts 156. The platform carries a transversely movable platform 172 on which the brick-laying and mortar-applying apparatus and the saw before mentioned are supported, and which is constrained to follow the wall line by mechanism driven from the aforementioned shaft.