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Press Release
May 2011
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100th anniversary of the Keller fully automatic brick handling machine – "Type Hörstel"
[May 2011] There are technical inventions that are long forgotten and outdated. Then there are important technical inventions where the basic idea survives for generations and is still universally accepted today. Such an invention for the brick industry was made in 1910 in the machine factory C. Keller & Co Laggenbeck. The fully automatic brick handling machine "Type Hörstel" designed at that time by the engineer Joseph Keller automatically transferred cut/shaped bricks to pallets, ready to be forwarded into drying installations. In 1910, this fully automatic brick handling machine was field-tested in the Hörstel brick factory (hence its name) and marvelled at by experts on a construction exhibition in Berlin in 1910. The fully automatic brick handling machine was a decisive step forward towards further development and process automatisation in brick factories and in other related ceramic production plants.
Editor’s note: The engineer Joseph Keller was the son of Carl Keller sen., who, as the inventor of the dryer finger car in 1894 already was a "revolutionary in brick drying". He then founded the company C. Keller & Co. Apart from the "anniversary fully automatic brick handling machine", Joseph Keller at that time designed several technical and technological novelties for cutting, handling and process engineering installations.
Thus the fully automatic brick handling machine "Type Hörstel" was the beginning of automatic brick handling and it was no longer necessary to take up each brick and to transfer it manually. The carrying laths (pallets) were introduced into the automatic machine first via an inclined feeding system and later laterally, and a sophisticated mechanism grouped the cut bricks smoothly, separated them and transferred them to pallets. Some time later followed the development of an automatic pallet circulation system with dryer loading and unloading facilities. At the beginning of the sixties kiln car loading and unloading systems with setting installations and dehacking and packing machines were developed, thus guaranteeing an automatic operation from the clay pit to the packing station.
With their inventive talent and entrepreneurial spirit, the above mentioned "KELLER pioneers" already discovered basic elements for an automatic brick production at an early stage. If they would have been given a longer life …., probably they would also have invented the robot that for some time now perfects and elegantly supports automatic processes in certain areas of brick, roof tile and ceramic tiles factories.
This engineering tradition of developing innovative machines and plants has been continued by KELLER HCW ever since. Innovative brick factories, such as the Heluz plant in Hevlin (Czech Republic) or Röben in Bannberscheid (Germany) are examples of these engineering skills.
You will find further information on this topic as well as general information on our website www.keller-hcw.de or on www.zi-online.de (Robotics)
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Picture 1:
The "fully automatic brick handling machine" cuts wet bricks with a universal or multi-wire cutter, turns them automatically, if necessary, and carefully sets them in double pairs on two lath pairs (or other pallet types).
Download pdf file [2 MB] »
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Picture 2:
Robot technology is used today for various production processes in modern brick plants. Cut wet bricks are here set on pallets by robots.
Download pdf file [4,5 MB] »
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