Patent ID: 8002943

Claim:
A process for forming a floor tile for a raised floor system, comprising the steps of: providing a mold defining therein a plurality of mold cavities disposed in sidewardly spaced but adjacent relationship with the individual cavities being disposed in upright relation relative to the mold; molding a plurality of generally rectangular concrete blocks within the mold cavities; removing the molded blocks from the mold while maintaining the blocks in a grouping wherein the blocks are in the same spatial relationship defined by the mold cavities, and allowing the blocks to cure; compressing the grouping of blocks sidewardly into a bundle wherein the blocks are in sideward abutting contact with one another; feeding the bundle of blocks past a grinder to effect surface finishing of the lengthwise-extending edge faces of the blocks as defined on one side of the bundle; feeding the bundle of blocks past a grinder to effect surface finishing of the lengthwise-extending edge faces of the blocks as defined on the other side of the bundle; then separating the individual blocks from the bundle and vertically rotating the individual blocks from an upright position into a generally flat horizontal position; then sequentially feeding the blocks into a collating station and, at said collating station, moving a predetermined number of blocks into sidewardly abutting contact to define a block set which has a generally rectangular profile in plan view; advancing the block set from the collating station to an adhesive station and applying adhesive to one or both of the opposed edge faces as defined between adjacent blocks; pressing the blocks together to permit the adhesive to set-up and fixedly join the blocks of the set together to define a single one-piece rigid main block; providing a box-shaped support pan having a shallow upwardly-opening compartment defined by a bottom wall of the pan and upright side walls which join to edges of the bottom wall and protrude upwardly therefrom; applying adhesive to one of (1) the bottom surface of said preformed main concrete block and (2) the inside surface of the pan bottom wall; positioning the preformed main concrete block into said compartment of said pan so that the bottom surface of said main concrete block contacts the pan bottom wall; and pressing the block and pan together to allow the adhesive at contact areas between the pan bottom wall and the bottom surface of the main concrete block to cure so as to effect fixed securement of the block to and within the pan.