Multi-color concrete tiles and method and apparatus for making same

Abstract

A concrete tile of integral, one-piece construction has left side and right side portions of different coloring which extends through the entire thickness of the relatively thin, generally planar tile. An upper surface of the tile has a groove therein which separates the differently colored left side and right side portions. The left and right side portions have different lengths, providing the tile with a stepped front edge. A method of making the tile dispenses wet concrete having two different colors into a partitioned pug box for disposition onto opposite sides of a pallet, so that the two different colors reside on opposite sides of the pallet in side-by-side relation. The wet concrete is metered and compressed by a roller and shaped by a slipper to provide the concrete tile with a desired cross-sectional shape, following which the concrete is then chopped by a knife assembly to form the individual tiles with desired edge configurations. The concrete is cured and then removed from the pallets to form the completed tiles. The method may be incorporated into a continuous process in which a succession of the pallets are passed by a conveyor beneath a making head assembly containing the partitioned pug box and the roller and slipper and then beneath a knife assembly to form a succession of the concrete tiles.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.