IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS AND TILES
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by. Edward Page at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 14th August
1866.
I, EDWARD PAGE, of Bedford, in the County of Bedford, Engineer, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention: for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MEANS OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS AND TILES," to be'as.
follows:-
The improvements relate to adaptations of parts to a pug mill for the
manufacture of bricks and tiles.
In carrying out my improvements the dies or moulds are caused to travel
immediately under the mill, so as to receive the clay direct from it, and by
preference in two rows, one on each side of the axis of the mill. These
moulds or dies are supported in chambers on frames which are capable of
sliding on grooves provided for them, so that they may readily be fed for
filling, and drawn out again when filled. The axis or revolving shaft of the
mill, in addition to the ordinary blades and stirrers, is provided at its lower end
with a plate, which is affixed to and revolves with this axis or shaft. This
plate except at an opening where the clay is forced through it serves as the
bottom to the mill, and also as a cover to the moulds passing under it. At
one edge of the opening in this plate for the passage out of the clay the plate
inclines upwards over such opening somewhat in the form of a propeller blade
in order that the clay may thereby in the revolution of this plate with the axis
be forced through the opening in it to the dies or moulds beneath, and then

page_text: such clay is cut off and smoothed on the dies or moulds by the bottom surface
of the plate. The lower part of the mill in which the bottom plate and
propeller work is made somewhat larger than the main body of it, so as to
admit of a greater number of moulds being supplied and filled at the same
time. The revolving plate may have two or more openings and propellers in
it for the discharge of the clay into moulds passing under them.
The action of the machine is as follows:-Boxes of moulds being in place
under the mill on both sides of shaft and motion given to same, the clay is
forced by the pugging blades to the lower part of the mill, where it is caught
by the curved part or parts of the revolving disc propeller or propellers and
forced through the open space or spaces in the same to the moulds beneath,
when the box is drawn out by an attendant on one side, and an empty box fed
in at the opposite side, and so on alternately. The boxes of moulds as they
are drawn frome one groove are emptied of their contents, re-sanded, and again
fed under the mill through the other groove in the opposite direction. Instead
of feeding the boxes of moulds in and out by hand they may be moved on the
channels or grooves by motion obtained direct from the pug mill shaft when so
required in the following manner, videlicit, on the lower end of pug mill shaft
I apply a bevil wheel, which gears into other bevil wheels, giving motion to
spur or friction quadrant wheels keyed on to transverse spindles carried in
bearings suspended from the main framing. The quadrant wheels work into
racks or friction grooves attached to the mould boxes, and thereby impart an
intermittent motion to them. "