Sunday, July 6, 2025

Concrete block machine


     Many decades ago, my father brought this machine home. It's a homemade machine to make concrete blocks, one at a time. It apparently came from a local concrete company, the founder's first venture into the concrete business many, many years ago.
 It's a pretty well thought out unit. The machine has a single chamber that makes a 10" block on its side,  The mixed concrete is trowelled in from the rear tray. The four plungers shown in the image below pack the concrete between the removeable cores. A board is located at the front and becomes the tray for the block to rest on to cure as the cores are retracted, using the large handle on the right hand side. The tray is rotated 90° forward, the sideflaps also rotated out of the way, so someone can carry the block and tray away to cure.
  We never used it, but I can imagine that the process would go quickly once a work pattern was worked out.
  But imagine. A business based on one block at a time. It belongs in a museum. 






As Jack points pout in the comments, it may be a commercial unit, Sears Roebuck had a 50 page catalog on concrete making equipment. 


5 comments:

  1. This looks like it could be filed under Another Job You Probably Wouldn’t Want to Do.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Internet search "Internet Archive - Concrete machinery : Triumph, Wizard and Knox block machines" by Sears, Roebuck & Co.

    Sears, Roebuck & Co., the Amazon.com of the 20th century, once offered a 50 page concrete specialty catalog, which offered 3 different concrete block making machines similar to yours.

    Jack from Illinois

    ReplyDelete
  3. Post Script - Search "Sears Wizard Block Machine" for an 8 minute YouTube demonstration.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, Department store concrete. Concrete is the future!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just looking at that catalog makes my hernia repair area hurt.

    Those molds they have though are incredible...I love the column kits.

    ReplyDelete