Labour Saving Devices for Freezing Works

Progress, Volume X, Issue 2, 1 October 1914, Page 66

Labour Saving Devices for Freezing Works

The designer of plant and premises for manufacturing purposes is ever on the qui vive for mechanical methods to supersede manual labour. In this direction two patents have recently been taken out in connection with Freezing Works, which quite warrant consideration by owners of existing and proposed works of this nature. The first patent refers to an "Automatic Meat Kail Point" and the second to an Improved method of extracting Tallow from digested offal." With the hand operated meat rail point at present in use the carcases when approaching a point have to be stopped, the point set by hand and the load started in motion again, then the point has to be reset open to allow other carcases to pass along the main rail, whereas with the automatically operated point the carcases are deliberately as it were pushed over the open point, the feature being that at the moment when the weight of the carcase comes on the point, the weight closes it and the meat is transferred to the next rail and the point resets itself open, leaving the rail clear for carcases from other rails to pass. Another advantage of the automatic point is that it does not have to be reached to be operated, therefore a short man is as capable of running meat as a tall one and it is difficult to estimate exactly what the time saving to the industry would be in a twelvemonths with this point in use. With regard to the second, tallow is extracted in the majority of freezing works from the digested offal and refuse by placing the material in sacks which are submitted to hydraulic pressure in a platform press, the pressure forces the tallow through the sacking and is caught in a suitable receptacle, however the pressure and weight of pressing is restricted otherwise the bags would burst, after the material is pressed it is then emptied from the sacks and further treated to make manure. The point to be emphasised is that the material is put into sacks and again emptied out, which represents a large amout of labour of an awkward greasy nature. The new press eliminates the use of bags entirely therefore obviating the labour entailed in filling and emptying, in fact when the material is raked from the digestor it need not be man-handled again until it is completely converted into fertiliser, delivered into bags, weighed and ready for delivery to the merchant. The improved system is capable of increasing the output of the department by about 33 per cent, with the same manual labour These inventions are not theoretical contrivances conceived by a casual observer of the modus operandi of a works but the results of experience of Mr. L. G. James, Consulting Engineer and Architect of Wellington, who has had actual practice as a Freezing Works Engineer, and whose business for many years has been closely connected with the freezing industry, in fact at the present time Mr. James has

in hand the remodelling of the Longburn Freezing Works, which work is costing in the vicinity of £26,000