[Trade Journal]
Publication: Ceramic Industry
Chicago, IL, United States
vol. 5, no. 5, p. 430-432, col. 1-3
Plant of Elevators Produces 100,000 Porcelain Tubes Daily
Novel Conveyors, Hydraulic Sagger Press, Horizontal Heading Machine and Continuous Dryers Feature Plant of Adamant Porcelain Company
"A PLANT OF ELEVATORS" is what the East Liverpool establishment of the Adamant Porcelain Company may justly be called, due to the two-story construction favored by this company as the most economical in the manufacturing and drying of the ware.
The concentration of operation of this factory lies in the conveying of materials from and to the different floors. Under ordinary conditions this is accomplished by laborers but this company has replaced the laborers with elevators and conveyors of various sizes which have proven to be successful in accomplishing the work required.
Compressed Air Sagger Press Among the many ingenious devices is a sagger machine designed and constructed by this company. This press is operated by compressed air at a pressure of one hundred and forty pounds. This air is taken from a storage tank which is governed by a three way valve and by changing dies it is possible to make both oval and round saggers. This machine is capable of making between 600 and 800 saggers per day of eight hours.
Other machines worthy of note are an automatic tube heading machine, a cleverly designed and operated dipping machine, a home made cutting device, and a tunnel dryer thru which a belt passes conveying the headed tubes.
Use Plastic and Dry Press Methods The raw batches for all of the tubes and other household electric porcelain made at this plant is prepared in the basement of the building in the usual manner, that of blunging, lawning, filter pressing. pulverizing and pulverizing and crushing. Not all of the batch made up is used for dry press electrical porcelain for household insulators. Much of it is worked in the plastic state. That portion of the raw batch which is used in the plastic state is pugged after being filter pressed and aged for about 30 days and then repugged and sent up to the second floor of the factory for further treatment. The plastic batch is elevated to the second floor by means of elevators. These elevators consist of shelves slung on an endless chain and have the advantage that if the workman is not in position to take off the lump of clay it makes another trip before it is taken off.
This plastic batch is taken to the tube machine which is operated by one man who is capable of turning out enough clay tubing to make 100,000 six-inch tubes a day. The board containing this tubing as it comes from the tube press is placed on a portable table equipped with adjustable circular knives. The boards containing the tubes rest on a conveying belt and pass beneath the knives to another workman who discards the sections or tubes which are not properly made, and places the remainder on the board in the dryer.
This dryer is 42 feet long, three feet six inches wide and about ten inches high. Suspended from the roof of the dryer are steam coils; one fan located at the outlet removes the hot partly saturated air, sends it thru a circulating system in which two other fans are used to dry the air and the air run thru the dryer a second time. After passing thru the dryer, which moves at the rate of about six feet a minute, the tubes are well tempered and are placed in piles ready to be taken to the tube heading machine.
Horizontal Tube Heading Machine Most of the heading machines used in the electrical porcelain industry are vertical in type but the machine used by the Adamant Co. is of the horizontal type and can head 75,000 three or four inch tubes a day. This machine is operated by an individual motor and requires the services of but a single operator.
Furthermore, the operator does not have to release the headers after they have plunged the head on the end of the tube. This part of the operation is entirely automatic and after the heading block, he need not worry further about it because as soon as the tubes are headed they are automatically ejected on to a conveying belt situated just below the head plungers and are carried at a speed of about 15 feet per minute to the lower floor.
The angle of the belt carrying the tubes to the lower floor is about 45 degrees. When the tubes reach the first floor they are automatically transferred to another belt running in the opposite direction and over steam coils. This belt, which is about 30 feet long, acts as a conveyor in the dryer. When the tubes reach the further end they are ready for the kiln.
Dry Press Process We will now turn our attention to the manipulation of the pressed insulators. After the insulators are pressed and placed on boards, these boards are stacked on platforms and carted by truck to a room directly over the kiln shed. Projecting thru the floor of this room are the kiln stacks. Natural draft is used in this room and the ware which is placed as close to the stacks of the burning kiln as possible, receives in this manner a regular, satisfactory, drying.
Unique Dipping Machines As soon as the pressed bases and caps are sufficiently dry they are sent to girls who fettle off the rough edges. From here they go to the dipping machines, which were designed and built by the Adamant Co. These machines save the labor of two men and increase production. They consist primarily of endless chains equipped' with spindles of various design which hold the bases and the caps. The caps are glazed on one machine and the bases on the other.
Continuous Dipping Process Here is how the operation is completed. On the second floor there arc the girls who take the pressed pieces from the board and place them on the endless chain. These in turn pass over the glazing brushes or thru the glazing tank in which they are sprayed, pass on to the room below where they are removed from their brackets and placed in saggers. The complete operation is so handled that a girl after placing the dipped bases in a sagger, shoves the sagger to the girl handling the dipped caps, and she places the caps on top. of the bases. When a sagger is filled with glazed caps and bases it is taken direct to the kilns which are close by. With plant it is possible to dip 100,000 caps and bases a day.
The ware at the plant is burned in six regulation up-draft potter's kilns, each approximately 16 feet in diameter and capable of holding about 3,000 saggers of the type used in this plant. All of the ware is burned to Cone 10 in about 60 hours and the kilns allowed to cool naturally. All of the dies and conveying equipment installed in this unique plant is made in the machine shop of the Adamant Co. plant.
