The Clemson Brick Show always draws a quality crowd. They’re ready to learn and enjoy themselves, which makes for a great event.
We kicked off the 2018 Show with plant tours. Steele customers from around the world travelled together throughout the Southeast for a week, looked at new automation technologies and learned about our new sources to support better informed machine operators.
The night after the Show, we dined al fresco at the Steele family farm in Statesville, enjoying a meal catered by Fifth Street Ministries (Fifth Street is a non-profit serving the homeless, the impoverished, victims of violent crime and the working poor in Statesville and neighboring counties).
Fifth Street Ministries catered our dinner together.
We treat our customers like family!
Material handling tips at the National Brick Research Center
As usual, the NBRC had plenty of need-to-know information on making better bricks. Did you know that conveying clay indoors changes its humidity and temperature, which affects handling, shaping and finished product quality?
No? Maybe you should look at an NRBC membership… it gives you access to machines, testing and data that you won’t see otherwise, including analysis of soil samples.
Thin brick and steam events
Your customers want thin brick. Are you ready to give them what they want? Mac Steele and Yann Rouquie from Direxa Engineering took the crowd through to make quality thin brick (if you missed the show, you can download their presentation here).
They were a tough act to follow but Steve Denham came through with a detailed demonstration on hard caking and steam events. Hardcaking in the barrel can have catastrophic consequences. Watch a die being blown off the extruder below:
QR codes for machine operators
In case you hadn’t heard, Steele is now publishing machine drawings, installation and operating videos, technical service bulletins and more for our machine operators. They need fast answers to maintenance, repair and operating questions, and they’ll find them online here.
That knowledge base is a critical part of increasing machinery uptime, efficiency and consistency, and one more example of our commitment to customer satisfaction.
Go fast and go home
After the show, we headed from Clemson back to Statesville, for a plant tour and engineering presentation. Then we headed to the GoPro Motorplex for The Steele Brickyard Challenge.
Is there a better way to say goodbye to your friends and fellow Steele customers than climbing into a kart and leading them to the finish line?
We hit the track for kart racing before everyone headed home.