The Adobe Factory, Alcalde, New Mexico

https://youtu.be/KrGiCaRaU9g

© Movie: Mark Chalom

The Adobe Factory, Alcalde, New Mexico

The Adobe Factory in Alcalde, New Mexico, is the largest adobe factory in the world, with the capability of producing up to 25,000 adobes each day. 

Mel Medina's Adobe Factory in Alcalde, NM 

Here’s how the mechanized Adobe creation and laydown process works. 

Mel and its crew have the Capacity to Produce 20,000 a day. 

Hourly output can vary depending on many factors from available space remaining to maintenance of the machines. 

Here is the Hans Sumpf machine laying adobes on the ground. Mel feeds the laydown machine with two big front end loaders that dance in and out of the giant concrete pit with loads of mud to shuttle to the field. Then there is a road grader to sweep the field after bricks are picked up and palletized. Tanks with water, asphalt emulsion, mountains of barley straw, the giant open trough pug mill that mixes the dirt, straw, water, emulsion and whatever else might go into the mud. 

Then there are semi-trucks with belly dumps or end dumps to haul in the earthen material from the source location, flat-bed trucks to haul bricks to their destinations, a washdown area, and service pits to work on machinery. The last Hans Sumpf machine was built in 1957. Maintenance, replacement and fabrication of parts is on-going and relentless.

For more information, please visit their website.