Importance

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Abstract

Method and apparatus wherein bricks are taken from a kiln car in two or more groups of multilayered bricks, and then moved to a shuttle station alongside a horizontal tray conveyor for loading the bricks thereon. At the discharge end of the tray conveyor, the bricks are discharged onto an elevator to further stack the bricks into a predetermined number of layers after which the bricks are conveyed to a strapping station where a pack of bricks is strapped into a discrete unit. Between the loading and discharge ends of the tray conveyor, certain layers of the brick have spaced rows of brick removed therefrom to form voids in the layer which eventually will constitute the third layer in the ultimate standard brick pack to be formed; the voids being applied to receive the tines of a forklift. In one embodiment where the group of bricks loaded on the trays of the horizontal conveyor include two layers of bricks, the entire top layer of bricks is removed and held temporarily above the horizontal conveyor at a station downpath from the point of removal, after which certain rows of brick are removed from the bottom layer and a support board is placed over the bottom layer after which the top layer is restored on the bottom layer. The brick removed from the bottom layer to form the voids are accumulated and when a predetermined number of bricks are accumulated, they are loaded back onto one of the trays of the conveyor.

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First Claim