Our next brick-maker this week takes us to Eastern Cape, home provincial territory of Doubell Machines. Travelling westwards just past Storms River Mouth, one finds the most beautiful snapshot of nature that the Garden Route has to offer - Tsitsikamma.
Having an untouched environment like this comes at a cost - there are no big factories to offer economies of scale bricks for construction. This is why Mr Goeda decided to manufacture locally rather than pay extra for transporting bricks from elsewhere.
You can see that the results are excellent. But a large brick-making machine was not necessary to produce the bricks required. A Doubell hand mould that creates a single M6 cavity block at a time was purchased and collected from the factory in Nelson Mandela Bay and driven to the site in Tsitsikamma (using a normal passenger car, not even a bakkie!)
Following the simple instructions of 8 parts sand + 1 part cement, Mr Goeda mixed a batch for his first test. 1 bag of cement (50kg) was added to 4 wheelbarrows of building sand (400kg) and once mixed thoroughly, water was added and the mixture turned by hand with a spade.
Without any assistance initially, Mr Goeda made 200 blocks on the first day to test. The next day he moved them from the floor to inspect them before stacking them, watering them to keep damp and then covering them with black plastic sheet to retain the moisture inside and prevent the sun from drying them out. In two or three weeks, they would be ready for building with confidence, which is what Mr Goeda was planning to do.
At this point, you might surely be thinking the same thing everyone else is - there's money in this brick-making story. If you're not making money by selling your own bricks, you're definitely saving money by making your own bricks.
Here is the machine that Mr Goeda used to get started:
But have a look at the rest of the catalogue to find a product that suits your local market. If we don't have it, we can custom-build it.