Masonry Magazine January 1978 Page.13
A Prime-Mover with latch-on flatbeds that interchanged with buckets and could haul 200 to 300 bricks per trip from stockpile to bricklayer. It could equally handle block or stone.
bodies or tilting platform beds to transport block, brick, stone, mortar, refuse and other materials.
However, while moving these materials via power buggy was an improvement over wheelbarrows and certainly over hods, it was still a slow and tedious process. Block, for example, had to be picked up one at a time and placed on the power buggy bed at the storage area; the loaded buggy was moved to the point of usage, and then each block was unloaded, again one at a time, and manually placed on the scaffold or on a conveyor.
A logical development was to place a forklift attachment on the power buggy chassis in place of the hopper body or platform bed. In the late forties, Koehring introduced the first machine of this type a power buggy forklift with a 1,000-pound capacity at 12" load center and a 30 lifting height.
In 1951, Koehring began featuring a 5-foot lifting capability on its forklifts, so that a load of 240 brick could be placed on the first stage of a 4-foot-high scaffold. This now made it possible for one man to pick up an entire load of brick or block at the storage site, transport it to the point of use, and then raise and place it on the scaffold. Prime-Mover and Whiteman also joined the market in the early
One of the earliest power buggy type forklifts manufactured by Koehring, circa 1949. The greatest feature of this unit was the lift capacity of 1,000 lbs. to a height of 20 in.
1950s, and lifting heights of the forklifts were increased to 6, 7% and 10% feet.
Where the power buggy had gained almost widespread acceptance at the outset, the same could not be said for its later counterparts. Mason contractors were hesitant to purchase these strange and untried pieces of equipment, for not only was the investment substantial but the success of the machines was uncertain.
It was also difficult for mason contractors to get materials palletized or to get them palletized in the 24" x 32" pallet size which the small forklifts could handle. Either the block or brick were not palletized at all or they came in a variety of pallet sizes. When mason contractors could not get their suppliers to palletize in the 24" 32" size, they would palletize the material themselves as it was unloaded. However, subsequent savings in material handling costs made this additional expense a relatively minor one.
In the early 50s, Flink Co., Streator, III., developed another approach to handling packaged materials with a 2-wheeled had cart. Subsequently Valley Craft Products Co., Lake City, Minn., introduced its Ezy-Tilt brick and block hand truck which allowed movement over rough terrain.
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L-812 Mason Tender (counterbalanced) introduced by Prime-Mover in the early 50s had a 9 ft. 6 in. lift height and 1,000 load capacity.
Palletizing of materials on the job site in the early 50s, prior to general use of pallets and standardization of sizes.
MASONRY/NOVEMBER/DECEMBER, 1978 13