DISTRICT INDUSTRIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2489, 30 April 1909, Page 3

DISTRICT INDUSTRIES.

THE GISBORNE BRICK CO.’S WORKS. The industries of the district are multiplying rapidly, and the Gisborne Brick Company’s new -works on Kaiti are now ready to supply the market with firstclass, well-baked, wire-cut bricks. The directors of the company paid a visit to the works on Tuesday, and were morq than pleased with the progress that has been made since the Company was formed, a little over a year ago. The company owns -about 40 acres of flat and undulating country at the Kaiti foothills and has unlimited supplies of clay, enough, as one director remarked, to build a city. The brick in tlie process of making passes through very little handling; machinery being used -wherever possible, the cost of production being consequently considerably cheapened. The clay is hauled from the clay holq up an inclined tramway to the rolling mills by 'trucks, holding about a ton, attached to an endless chain. In these mills the clay is .rolled into an even consistency, "then it passes down to the pug mill, where it is tempered with water and sent by a force pump into the compressor. By a powerful piston the clay is forced through the mouth of the compressor very much in the same way that lanolin© is pressed out of a collapsable tube, but the clay comes out in slabs. The slab of clay is then passed on to a a brass table, where it is cut into bricks by being passed through wires in a similar manner to that employed by a grocer in cutting choose. Two men stack the bricks freshly cut on to trolleys, which are run into the drying chamber. This chamber is capable of drying about 1000 bricks, a week, each brick being given about 3 bull days to dry. Through the drying chambers hot air currents "arc forced, caused by disc fans, revolving at an enormous speed, forcing air through pipes heated by steamr The liet air gradually absorbs all the moisture from the bricks, and a few minutes in one of the chambers is as good as a Turkish bath, so hot- is the ilen'o vapour. When the bricks have been sufficiently dried to allow tlio c.ay to set they are run by trolleys to the kiln, built on tlio “Hoffmann” principle. The kiln .is capable of burning -,200,000 bricks a week, and is fired from

tho top as well as from the firo chamber. A . brick kiln is quite a scientific furnace, and tho heat and firo that are driven around the blocks of clay to prepare them for the warehouses; banks, and other buildings they are to form is terrific. The fuel used is powdered coal, fed into tlxd furnace through small tubes at regular intervals/ Flues run through the stacked bricks and draw the heat to a gigantic chinmey stack. One side of tho kiln only is cheated, at a time, the other side being left eool to allow the men to work at removing and re-stacking. The water supply is obtained from tho Borough mains, the works being connected by a private pipe line, and tho whole of the machinery is driven by steam. Alongside the kiln yesterday was a large stack of newly burned bricks,- bright red in color, adamant in hardness and without a speck or crack of any kind. The directors expressed themselves as delighted with tho quality and felfi convinced that tliey will be able to put upon tho Gisborne market bricks superior in quality to anything brought from other towns at prices that should make building in brick almost as cheap as building in wood.