The Block Makers

About 14 years ago the Richmond building firm of Duncan Bros turned to making concrete blocks as a spare-time occupation. Today the firm is putting the finishing touches to a new factory which will be capable of turning out 5000 blocks a day, and which cost about $100,000. This move to new premises and a big, new machine, was forced on the firm by demand for its concrete products and the lack of storage space. And so a new factory has been built about 400 yds beyond the old factory in Beach Road. The new block-making plant is fully-automatic. The aggregate, brought by trucks, is dumped into hoppers and taken by a huge conveyor belt to main bins at the building and deposited into selected bins. All these operations are controlled from a console inside the factory. The cement is also brought in bulk and pumped into selected bins and the mix is weighed, mixed and taken to the machine hopper by skip hoist, by another automatic process. The giant machine (above) can make blocks to any dimension and consistency. The blocks, on steel pallets, are transferred from the machine by a hydraulic off-loader with a magnetic pallet carrier.

At right, we have used an ornamental block made by Duncan Bros as a foreground to the stacks of blocks in the background.