The Paving Blocks of Paris 



An Important Part of the Machine Is a Conveyor Which Supplies the Timbers 



LIKE many another modern city 

 Paris is paved in part with wooden 

 blocks. The municipal workshop 

 has to supply twenty-five million blocks 

 a year. A large amount of blocks must 

 be kept in stock because the supply of 

 wood is not constant. 



It was consequently necessary to 

 construct a machine that could turn out 

 the desired amount of paving a year 

 while subject to these interruptions of 

 supply. This was done by a M. Josse 

 who produced a wood cross-cutting 

 machine with seventeen circular blades 

 that can make two hundred and forty 

 thousand wooden paving-blocks in a day 

 of ten hours. It economizes both wood 

 and lal)or. Twenty workmen can run it. 

 The important part of the machine is 

 a conveyor which is held in a frame 

 which can be swung up or down. Two 

 endless belts carry a series of fingers. 

 Th^se are mounted on bars which 

 run from belt to belt, and there are 

 sixteen fingers to each cross-bar. The 

 fingers catch each beam as it comes 

 up to the table and feed it to the saws. 

 The saws are not arranged in just a 



single row, but in several rows. One 

 row cuts the center of the beam only; 

 the other rows, the sides. The wood is 

 brought by trucks to the foot of the 

 machine where two workmen place the 

 beams on the chain of the conveyor. 



The cross-bars carrying the fingers 

 are provided each with two little brooms 

 to sweep off the chips and sawdust. 



The saws, seventeen in number, are 

 circular blades twenty-six inches in 

 diameter. They are divided into three 

 groups so as to avoid the vibrations 

 which would result from using only one 

 shaft of a diameter in proportion to that 

 of the blades running at ihe high speed 

 of two thousand revolutions a minute. 



The first two sets of saws trim otT the 

 exterior edge of the wood and cut four 

 blocks each; then the following set of 

 seven saws ruts the central section of the 

 beam into blocks. After this the blocks, 

 drawn along continually by the fingers, 

 pass under rollers, eventually to be 

 pushed out by the following series of 

 blocks. TJie blocks slide down a chute 

 upon tables from which workmen take 

 tliein and throw them onto small cars. 



352 



