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Statesville Brick Updates Grinding Room

Statesville Brick Company, located in Statesville, North Carolina, has been turning out quality brick for over 100 years. Established in 1904, Statesville Brick is still one of the few family owned plants operating in the United States. When they were looking to update their grinding room with new screeners, they turned to Midwestern Industries.

Statesville Brick manufactures approximately 45 million fine quality face brick per year. Their line includes scratch brick, earth tone, sand-face, through body colors, and tumbled brick. They recently built a new facility on site and will be supplying an additional 30 million brick to the Piedmont and Western Carolina areas.

Greg Rabel, Sales Engineer for Midwestern at the southern facility, has been working with Statesville Brick for a number of years, supplying screens and parts for their existing screeners. While building a relationship through scheduled visits, as well as conversing at trade shows, Statesville Brick felt comfortable approaching Midwestern when they were looking to replace some of their screeners.

“I’ve known about Midwestern for a number of years. It’s hard to do research within the industry and go to Clemson’s show and not know about Midwestern,” said Johnny Meredith, Vice President of Production.

Midwestern is a proud sponsor of many brick industry associations including the National Brick Research Center at Clemson University. Clemson is dedicated to the progression of the brick industry and holds the annual International Brick Plant Operators Forum to help facilitate their mission. Plant tours, speakers, as well as time for social events, allows brick producers and industry suppliers a chance to review new products and solve issues. Statesville Brick is one of the companies who greatly benefit from this forum.

As talks of the project progressed, Meredith decided to send in material for testing. In June 2006, Midwestern received the material and immediately began the testing procedure. Bill Crone, VP of Sales, along with Rabel and various members of Statesville Brick went over their production goals and expressed their need for cut sizes, feed rates, moisture content, and other variables.

Armed with that information, Midwestern was able to set up a full-scale test we believed would produce the best results. As the material fed the unit and data became available, the test revealed favorable results.

“By running that test we were able to determine Statesville (Brick) could replace three of their four existing units with two of Midwestern’s 5’ x 10’ MEVs,” said Rabel.

Statesville Brick operates one grinding room for both on-site facilities. Their streamlined approach in the grinding room helps them to produce a quality brick. The incoming clay and shale go through a primary jaw crusher to reduce the size of large rocks and debris for better screening.

The material then travels to the screeners where the material is sized. The oversized material is conveyed to the secondary hammer mill then closed circuited back to the screeners. All the material that meets their specifications heads to storage bunkers and will be used in producing bricks.

“The Midwestern screeners work great…I haven’t had any problems with them since they were installed,” said Meredith.

Statesville Brick decided to install two 5’ x 10’, two-deck MEVs and took out three of our competitors screening units. Both screeners were designed to handle the incoming material from the crusher as part of their finishing process. The units were outfitted with a low-voltage screen heating system that helps to prevent blinding due to damp material sticking to the wire mesh. The units were also equipped with a low-profile material distributor, designed to evenly distribute the material across the entire screening surface.

“You can’t run a screener without heating,” commented Meredith.

Upon starting the unit, Bill Crone made a visit to Statesville Brick where the machines were being utilized. He was on site to answer any questions and to make sure the set-up as well as the start-up went as smoothly as possible for the brick facility.

Midwestern Industries and its qualified sales staff were able to help Statesville Brick Company with their screening needs. By working closely together and utilizing Midwestern’s screening experience they were able to produce better results in their grinding room with less equipment.

For more information on how Midwestern can help your screening process please contact us toll free at 877-4-Sizing (877-474-9464).