We at AECT hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day. As a 100% veteran-owned business, and with a number of our employees having served in the military, it's a day that has a great deal of meaning for the AECT family. We all enjoyed the time off to spend with our families and remember those heroes who fell before us. Having this time to reflect also inspired me to give a shout out to our diligent employees who are at the moment working overtime to fulfill the latest order of two 3500s (AECT 3500) for a customer in Hungary.
Our CEB builds, both those completed and underway, have received a lot of fanfare over the past couple years. Our CEB structures provide a nice visual that people can easily relate to...and it's something that AECT had actually not done a lot of over the first 28 years of its existence. Building with earth blocks and seeing the end result is something that we, as a company, are very excited about for the year 2020 and beyond. But, amid the flurry of block making and CEB construction that we have going on, many people are surprised to find out that we actually build the CEB machines that we use. Manufacturing CEB machinery has, in fact, been the backbone of AECT since we started back in 1989. With that in mind, I wanted to give an update on the two 3500 CEB machines that our talented welders/fabricators are hand-manufacturing as I write this.
This custom-designed, heavy duty trailer serves as the foundation for our 3500 model CEB machines. The 3500 has been referred to as the Cadillac of compressed earth block machines, and the heavy steel, hand-made construction is one of the many reasons this machine will last over 20 years and produce over a million earth blocks.
The heavy duty construction doesn't stop at the trailer. The 1-yard hopper that goes onto the 3500 has to be ready for decades of bombardment from dirt, rocks, and the occasional boulder. Tractor operators have been known to inadvertently smash into the hopper with a front-end bucket as well. The "grizzly screen" mounted on top of the hopper ensures only 1" material makes its way into the machine...and eventually the blocks...despite all the abuse.
Our professional tradespeople pay close attention to our precise machine specifications that have been developed and refined over the past 31 years.
Our world-class fabrication process is something we take great pride in. As always, we appreciate your interest in our CEB machines, and we look forwarding to sending out additional production updates as we get closer to completing these two brand new 3500s.
