IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR MOULDING AND PRESSING BRICKS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 12th July 1870.-A communication from abroad by Benjamin
Magee Gard, of Urbana, Ohio, and Emery Ross Gard, of Chicago,
Illinois, both in the United States of America.
I, WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co.,
Southampton Buildings, London, Patent Agents, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINES FOR
MOULDING AND PRESSING BRICKS," a communication, to be as follows:-
:
The object of this Invention is to produce a brick machine of the
utmost simplicity of construction and operation, compactness and
strength of form, efficiency and perfection of work.
The leading feature by which these important results are accom-
plished consists in the arrangement of all the working parts of the
machine upon a single shaft whereby they are driven, thus avoiding
both gearing and unnecessary multiplication of parts, and also in placing

page_text: the stationary parts around the same driving shaft, thereby reducing the
size and cost of the machine and securing strength with the least
material.
Other specific features of the said improvements will be herein-after
described.
All the parts of the brick machine proper are mounted in a strong
and compact frame which we prefer to make substantially as
follows: The main frame is composed of side uprights connected by
a skeleton of brace bars, the whole being a single casting supporting
the several parts of the machine. A tub bottom has lateral flanches
extending horizontally outward and resting on the tops of the side
uprights, being secured thercon by set screws so as to be adjustable
thereon. Upon this tub bottom a tub is mounted, one side or half
thereof being firmly secured thereto, and being braced at the top to
Provision is made
support the upper bearing of the driving shaft.
for getting access to the inside of the tub by hinging the half side
or part which is not attached to the tub bottom below to the fixed
half or part. The free edge is fastened to the corresponding edge of the
fixed part by any suitable means. This swinging part may have a
brace bar with a curved portion in the middle to fit partially around
the driving shaft and assist in supporting and steadying the same, as
well as to prevent the turning of the clay in the tub; this part may
have also a flaring top or mouth for the introduction of the clay or
composition. Upon the single driving shaft all the working parts of
the machine proper are mounted aud are driven thereby. These
revolving operative parts are the mould wheel containing the brick
moulds and the followers, the feeding screw composed of one, two,
or more wings, and the mixing arms or knives. Around this shaft
are arranged the principal fixed functional parts of the machine,
comprising the tub bottom, the tub, and the cam way or track by which
the action of the followers for moulding and pressing the bricks is
produced.
When the machine is driven by animal power the power is applied
through a sweep directly to the driving shaft, if however the machine
is to be driven by steam or other stationary power, it is most convenient
.to communicate the motion through a shaft and cog wheel gearing
into the periphery of the mould wheel. In this case the mould wheel

page_text: is not driven by the driving shaft. The sweep has attached to it a
draught arm projecting obliquely from the machine. The attachment
is effected by means of a clamp or clip, the arm may be moved outward
or inward on the sweep and clamped fast in any position. By this
simple means the leverage of the sweep may be readily changed and
adapted to the number and strength of the animals. The feeding
screw which forces the tempered clay down through the tub bottom
into the moulds of the mould wheel should nearly or quite cover the
entire circle in which it sweeps.
The construction of the tub bottom is peculiar to and an important
feature of this Invention. One side fits down closely upon the mould
wheel and has an aperture through which the clay is forced down
into the moulds. The other side is elevated above the mould wheel to
furnish an outer space or recess between it and the mould wheel to
allow the bricks to be raised out of the moulds and to admit the
hands or mechanical means for removing the bricks from the machine.
As the mould wheel turns from under the lower part of the tub
bottom through which the moulds are filled with clay it passes under
a striking and pressing plate, by which the surplus clay is swept
back from the moulds and against which the compression of the bricks
is produced by the followers in the bottoms of the moulds; this
pressing plate is adjusted by set screws down upon the mould wheel.
It is held in its recess by wooden or other frangible pins, so that if a
stone or other unyielding obstruction gets into one of the moulds the
pins may be broken, and the pressing plate driven out of its recess.
It being necessary either to adjust the tub bottom to the mould wheel,
or the mould wheel to the tub bottom, in order that the said mould
wheel may turn closely by the lower surface of the said tub. bottom,
a screw is set in the bottom of the lower bearing or step of the shaft,
the said shaft resting on the screw or upon an intermediate plate or
block. The followers of the moulds have their upward movements
for pressing the bricks and expelling them from the moulds produced.
by means of a circular cam track on which the downwardly projecting
stems of the followers travel. The track has one or two removeable
sections in the portion where the pressure is given to the moulded
bricks under the striking and pressing plate. Under one or each of
these removable sections is an adjusting screw for adjusting the height
of the section.

page_text: The moulds may be formed in the mould wheel as usual, that is,
vertically, flátwise; but as an improvement on the arrangement I
construct the moulds to form the bricks vertically, edgewise on the
mould wheel. This formation of the moulds has the advantage of
The bricks when
making the bricks always of uniform thickness.
raised out of the moulds also are more readily seized in an edgewise
position when taken off by hand.
This arrangement of the moulds has also another special advantage
in connection with an automatic device for removing the bricks from
the machine now to be described. The movements] for this purpose
are all derived from the mould wheel, which performs the additional
duty of a driving wheel or pulley. The lower part of the mould wheel
periphery receives a driving belt, which also passes around a pulley on
a transmitting shaft. On this transmitting shaft is another pulley
from which a belt passes to a pulley on a horizontal shaft on the
attached frame, on which is mounted the carrier belt that conveys
the bricks from the mould wheel; the inner return of the said carrier
belt is around a small roller close to the upper edge of the periphery
of the mould wheel; but the essential part of this feature of the
Invention is the means employed for automatically transferring the
bricks from the mould wheel to the carrier belt. To accomplish this
the actions of two motions are combined, one of the revolution of the
mould wheel itself, and the other that of a vertical belt, which has a
transverse movement over the mould wheel in the open space beneath
the raised side of the tub bottom in a diagonal direction, or oblique
between a radial and a tangential direction. It passes around a pulley
on the transmitting shaft, from which it derives ´its motion, and at
its inner turn around a friction pulley hung beneath the tub bottom.
In its outward movement the belt passes alongside of a stationary
plate or board which prevents its yielding laterally as the bricks are
pressed against it. As the moulds are brought round under the said
belt the bricks, then raised from the moulds but lying edgewise directly
over them, will come laterally in contact and nearly parallel with the
belt. The edgewise position brings the broad sides of the bricks around
against the traverse belt, and affords more friction by the contact
therewith. The effect of the combined motions of the mould wheel and
traverse belt with this arrangement of parts is to slide the bricks as
they are brought successively to the belt endwise outward upon the

page_text: carrier belt, which is located in line with the bricks as they are thus
moved along, and has its upper surface even or flush with the upper
surface of the mould wheel. The bricks thus conveyed in an edgewise
position on the carrier belt are also more readily seized and lifted from
the belt by the attendants.