Mid-south Industries, Inc.

Drayton Corporation

Thomas H Hogan

Jeff Landers Shelton

Kevin Jay Stallings

The present invention uses a pivotally mounted damper to cover the port and provide damping to the boiler furnace. The damper is aligned with and superjacent the rodding mechanism and is supported intermediate the port and the pivotal mounting by a linkage which raises and lowers the damper responsive to linear motion of the rodding mechanism.

Automated damping port rodder

An ice piece maker has a long tray (100) with an arcuately shaped inner surface divided into full crescent shaped cavities (122) arranged sideby-side along the tray length. A bidirectional rotatable shaft (106) is positioned with its axis coincident with the axis of the inner surface of the tray. Leading and lagging rows of ejector elements (114), (116) are in separate planes with said leading ejector elements (114) extending downwardly into the center of the cavities, herein defined as the 0.degree. position of rotation, and with first ends of the leading ejector elements (114) attached to the shaft and being of a length to leave a space between its second ends and the tray bottom so that an ice bridge (152) can form between the leading and lagging ice pieces. A control controls the shaft rotation to a clockwise direction for X.degree. which carries the leading ejector elements 114 past graduated height stripper elements (104) to distribute impact and strip the ice pieces from the leading ejector elements and then reverse to a counterclockwise direction the rotation of the shaft for Y.degree., where Y.degree.&gt;X.degree.. The control then begins water flow into the cavities and continues to rotate to the dead 0.degree. position where rotation stops and freezing begins. The clockwise rotation of the shaft begins again for X.degree. to begin the cycle for making a new batch of half crescent shaped ice pieces (130) and (132).

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Anniston, AL, United States of America

Thomas H Hogan