IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS, TILES, AND OTHER LIKE ARTICLES, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR OR CONNECTED THEREWITH.
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Craven and Benjamin Craven
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 20th February 1877.
JOHN CRAVEN and BENJAMIN CRAVEN, both of Wakefield, in the County of York,
Engineers. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BRICKS, TILES, AND OTHER
LIKE ARTICLES, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR OR
CONNECTED THEREWITH.
"
Our Invention relates to the manufacture of bricks, tiles, and other similar articles
from semi-dry clay or other similar material, and it has reference more particularly
to that class of machines for which Letters Patent were granted to us, dated
December 3rd, 1875, No. 4191, wherein the semi-dry clay is automatically supplied
from the grinding mill to a reciprocating box or charger which conducts such
material into the brick mould, the material being therein compressed between a top
and a bottom piston or plunger, and finally expelled therefrom in a finished state
ready to be dried or baked.
According to our present Invention we employ a mixer, which we arrange upon
the moulding table, and into which the clay is conducted from the grinding mill, and
we cause a jet of water to be injected thereon, which is mixed with the clay by
knives carried on the vertical shaft of the mixer. The mould charger is caused to
reciprocate between the mixer and the moulding table for the purpose of receiving
a charge of clay sufficient to form a brick (for example), and conduct such charge to
the mould.
The clay is fed into the mould charger by the action of the knives carried on the
vertical shaft of the mixer, which shaft is driven from the main shaft of the
moulding machine by means of bevel wheels and a driving strap and pulleys, or in
any other convenient manner.
The mould charger containing sufficient clay to form a brick is caused to advance
so as to bring the clay over the mould, into which it is forced by the top plunger,
being released at the proper moment from the cross head which carries it, when it
will fall by its own gravity and so force the clay from the charger into the mould.
The plunger is then again elevated so as to admit of the charger being returned to
beneath the mixer for a fresh supply of clay by means of cams and levers actuated
from the main shaft of the machine, and during the return motion of the charger,

page_text: and whilst receiving its supply of clay from the mixer, the cross head carrying the
top plunger is caused to descend and rise again, and simultaneously therewith the
bottom piston is caused to rise by means of a snail cam, whereby the clay contained
in the mould is subjected to a final pressure, the motion of such bottom piston being
continued by the continued action of the snail cam, until the moulded brick is
expelled from the mould, and its bottom surface brought to a level with the moulding
table. The mould charger then moves forward with a fresh supply of clay, which
it brings over the mould to be operated upon by the plungers in the manner herein-
before described, and at the same time forces the finished brick out of the range of
the top plunger to be removed by hand or otherwise.