ROBOT BRICKLAYER

Opotiki News, Volume X, Issue 1041, 28 October 1947, Page 2

ROBOT BRICKLAYER

SYDNEY INVENTION ASTONISHING MACHINE A machine which, it is claimed, will lay 30 bricks a minute, is now being made in Sydney. The machine -will lay bricks 27 times faster than bricklayers who average 300 a day, it is stated. Estimate of the machine’s capacity is a 30,000 brick house (about 14 to 15 squares) in five working days (actual laying time 16 2-3 hours). Top-flight consulting engineers say that the machine, invented by a Sydney engineer, G. H. Holland, will work. If all that is hoped of the machine comes true, and hard-headed authorities think it will—then it will be to the building industry what the linotype machine has been to the printing. How It Works A Chicago engineer has provisionally patented a bricklaying machine that weighs two tons, runs on rails, and takes 10 men to operate it. Holland’s machine weighs about three hundredweight, takes one man to watch it and lays bricks from the centre of the room. The Australian machine builds the internal walls as well as the exterior ones. It can be used for all types of houses, flats, factories and shops. On to an outside conveyor belt, bucks arc rapidly discharged from lorries. They are carried to a distributor column (a few feet higher than the walls to be built) and thence conveyed to another column from which a layer arm operates. The bricks arc passed evenly along this member and set- in their course by a layer-head (or ‘Tiand”) to the exactitude of onc-32nd. of an inch.

Two lines of mortar arc squeezed by air pressure on to the vertical end of the preceding brick and along the top of the supporting, bricks.

Firm Tapping These lines will be of uniform thickness to ensure level laying. As the brick is laid, it is tapped firmly down by the “hand” and its perpendicular end given a gentle, but exact, shove. Provision has been made to enable the “operator” to set fancy brickwork with the aid of the machine at an incredible speed. Laying 3b bricks a minute means 14,400 in eight hours, and, by using more than one laying arm, the output could be multiplied pro rata. Allowing for window and door spaces, assembling and dismantling, of the machine, 8000 bricks a- day is considered by the inventor to be a conservative estimate. Bricklaying labour cost for the average 30,000-brick house, according to ,Oec Paynter, Master Builders’ Association chief, is about £245. The use of the .machine, its sponsors claim, should reduce this to say, £4s'.