CERTAIN IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR MANUFACTURING ARTICLES OUT OF BRICK AND OTHER THE LIKE EARTH
Year: 1834

page_text: AL
DHAL
1, JEAN
BAPTISTE PLENEY, of the Kingdom of France, but now residing at Wood's
Hotel, Panton Square, in the County of Middlesex, Brick Manufacturer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King William the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Twenty-second day of October, in the fifth year of His
reign, did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Jean Baptiste Pleney, His especial licence that I, the said Jean
Baptiste Pleney, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Jean Baptiste Pleney, my exors, adñors, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term
of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the
Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVED MACHINERY FOR MANUFACTURING ARTICLES OUT
OF BRICK AND OTHER THE LIKE EARTH," communicated to me by a foreigner
residing abroad; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that
I, the said Jean Baptiste Pleney, shall cause a particular description of the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in His said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had,
will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Jean Baptiste Pleney, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention to

page_text: consist, first, in an apparatus for kneading or compressing and moulding the
brick and other the like earth when it has been properly mixed with clay,
soil, or such other materials as are required to form the material out of which
bricks are now usually made, and which, when so mixed, I shall call, for the
purpose of this Specification, brick earth; and, secondly, in an apparatus for
trimming and cutting the brick earth into such lengths as may be required,
according to the nature of the articles to be manufactured. And in further
compliance with the said proviso, I, the said Jean Baptiste Pleney, do hereby
describe the manner in which the said Invention is to be performed by the
following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings annexed,
and to the figures and letters marked thereon, that is to say:-
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS.
In Drawing No. 1, Figure 1 represents a side elevation of the said"
apparatus as applied to make bricks. A, A, A, A, an endless rack or frame
fixed on endless leather bands, which rack supports and carries forward the
bed or table on which the brick earth is placed; D is the said bed or table;
and C is the brick earth in the moist state it would be in if about to be
pressed into moulds for bricks; D, D, D, is the framework of the apparatus;
and E, E, are the wheels on which it is supported; e, e, e, e, are carrying rollers
to support the rack and bands; F, G, II, are the cylinders over which the
band passes, H being furnished with an adjusting screw g to tighten the
band when required, and F being furnished with teeth or pegs, which catch
against the projecting ends of the rack pins, as will be more particularly
explained hereafter, and thus drive the bands round; f, f, are three of a series
of carrying rollers to support the bed or table B on which the brick earth is
placed; I is an adjustable compressing cylinder, and presses the brick earth
on the bed B nearly to the thickness required; while J and K are two
smaller adjustable compressing rollers, which finish that part of the operation,
and bring the brick earth to the exact thickness required for a brick. Just
beyond the smaller compressing rollers J and K, it will be observed that
there is a small upright or standard, from which is appended a weight L by
a copper wire, the object of which is to trim or cut off such portions of the
brick earth as may, by the pressure of the rollers, be squeezed out beyond
the width required for the length of the brick, which is in fact the width of
the bed which carries the brick earth. It should be stated that at p there is
a copper wire stretched across the machine, just under the large compressing
cylinder I, to scrape and clear it of any carth that may adhere to it in the
It will be observed that at M, the framework of the
progress of the work.

page_text: parts I have just been describing, is bolted to similar framework of what
I call the cutting apparatus, and this is done merely to show that the two
parts of the apparatus, namely, the compressing or moulding part of it and
the cutting part of it, may be in two separate pieces for the convenience of
stowage when not in use.
But now to describe the cutting apparatus:-The brick earth having been
compressed to the proper thickness of a brick in one long layer of the exact
width that a brick is long, it is carried forward on the bed or table B, guided
and pressed by side rollers m, m, m, till it comes under the rising and falling
frame, the hinge joints of which are shown at N, N. A series of copper
wires of the exact distance apart required for the width of a brick are
fastened at one end to a fixed bar horizontally placed at the opposite side of
the apparatus to that here shown, and led directly through the frame N, N,
across the bed on which the brick earth lies over the pullies on the bar O, O,
and fastened at the other end to the springs and pulley weights marked P.
The frame N, N, is raised and lowered by means of a lever, better shown in
other Figures, and when the frame N, N, is lowered, the wires cut through
the brick earth, thus dividing it into so many bricks, which, when the frame
N, N, is again raised, and carried forward to be afterwards dried and burned
in the usual manner.
Figure 2 is an elevation of the opposite side of the apparatus to that just
described, and similar letters being used to denote similar parts in all the
Figures, it will only be necessary for me to add here a description of those
parts either not to be seen or purposely omitted in the last Figure, such as Q,
which is the lever by which the frame N, N, N, is raised and lowered. R is
the fixed horizontal rod or bar to which the copper wires are fastened at one
end, as before described; S, T, U, is the winch or mechanism for giving
motion to the endless bands, S being a toothed wheel on the same axis as
the driving wheel F, and moved by the winch handle and pinion T fitted to
the side strap or bearing U; the winch handle T is to be worked by one hand
of the operator, and the lever Q by the other. When the brick earth has
advanced to its proper place under the frame N, N, notice may be given
to the workman at the winch T, either by a warning bell, as shown at V in
Figure 1, or by an assistant workman placed at the cutting frame.
Figure 3 is an end section of two of the endless bands, racks, and pins; and
Figure 4 is a plan of a piece of the leather band, showing how it is nailed to
the pieces which form the rack.
Figure 5 is a cross section of the rising and falling cutting frame N, N,
for dividing the brick earth into lengths; D, D, is the main frame of the

page_text: machine. The parts colored blue are the parts which rise, being a frame
turning on a hinge at N, o, furnished with the bars and friction rollers a, c, e,
and raised by the lever Q, the extreme end of which only is shown here. The
parts colored brown are fixtures to the frame, and it will be evident that if
the frame N, N, N, be raised by the lever Q, each copper wire will take
a straight direction from the bar c to the bar e above the brick earth, and
when the frame N, N, N, is lowered, the bar c being a little longer than the
bar e, a drawing action will be given to the wire across the brick earth, and
it will be brought to the position shown in this Figure, having cut through or
divided the brick earth by means of that drawing action and of the pressure
downwards, occasioned by the falling weight of the frame N, N, N, and the
resistance afforded by the weights P.
In Drawing No. 2, Figure 1 is a plan of the said brick-making apparatus,
with the bed or table B sufficiently advanced to show part of the endless rack
at one end, which, it will be seen, consists of long pins running through and
projecting beyond side pieces or blocks at each end sufficiently far to catch
and be acted upon by the teeth or pegs on the driving wheels F, F.
Figure 2 is merely an inclined plane fitted with rollers, showing how the
bricks when made may be conveyed to any convenient distance to be dried or
burned. If, instead of bricks, I require to make jambs for chimney pieces,
or mantels, or mouldings of any kind, I make my rack and bed of the width
of the work required, and groove or indent the small compressing rollers with
the moulding or running pattern required, using only one wire in the cutting
frame, and cutting the layer of earth into such lengths as may required
according to the article to be manufactured: And it should be here stated,
that if it should be required to give an extra smoothness to the surfaces of
any of the articles before mentioned, it may be done by allowing a small
quantity of water to trickle over the brick earth in front of a smoothing
board, so fixed to the frame of the machine that as the brick earth is carried
forward, it will be met and made smooth by the board under which it passes.
Now, whereas it is evident that various articles may be made of brick
earth by means of the aforesaid improved machinery; bricks, flat tiles, jambs,
mantels, and mouldings may be all made on the plain flat bed here shewn,
while pantiles and a variety of other articles may be made by having the bed
cut as a matrix or mould, as well as the smaller compressing rollers:
And whereas I claim as the said Invention, first, the compressing and
moulding apparatus, with the bed, the endless rack, and kneading or com-
pressing and moulding rollers; secondly, the cutting or dividing frame,
and copper or other wire trimmers and scrapers, and the mode of carrying

page_text: on the bricks with the bed to be dried; and such said Invention being to
the best of my knowledge and belief entirely new, and never before used
within that part of His said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland called England, His said Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed, I do hereby declare this to be my Specification of the same, and
that I do verily believe this my said Specification doth comply in all respects
fully and without reserve or disguise with the proviso in the said herein-before
in part recited Letters Patent contained; wherefore I do hereby claim to
maintain exclusive right and privilege to the said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Jean Baptiste Pleney, have hereunto set
my band and seal, this Twenty-ninth day of October, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four.