Abstract: A masonry system in which specially shaped brick are dry-stacked and subsequently bonded by pouring mortar or grout into apertures in the brick to flow through the stacked structure to surround the individual brick leaving the front and rear faces exposed. The brick have alignment projections extending from the bottom bed faces which register with alignment grooves in the top bed faces of the lower brick to align the upper brick prior to bonding. The projections and grooves define a recess to admit mortar between adjacent brick faces. The brick also have recesses in the header faces to admit mortar between adjacent header faces. The front faces of the brick are contoured to create the appearance of mortar joints when the brick are stacked. The brick may be manufactured by extrusion, wire cutting and final shaping using suitable blades to achieve the desired finished shape. If desired, certain apertures through the brick may be covered over using a suitably shaped blade operating under appropriate conditions.

Abstract: A neon or luminous tube transformer is provided having a primary coil located between a pair of secondary coils. Each of the coils comprises a plurality of windings and is associated with a laminated magnetic core. A secondary terminal extends vertically from each secondary coil and is provided with a threaded upper end. The primary and secondary coils are disposed in a housing defining an enclosed first compartment and the compartment is filled with asphalt to a level so that only the upwardly projecting secondary terminals are exposed. A pair of primary input conductors are connected to the transformer primary coil and pass through one of the walls defining the first compartment into a smaller second compartment adjacent the first compartment. One wall of the second compartment is provided with a knockout to permit the conductors extending from a low voltage power supply to be connected to the primary input conductors within the housing thereby allowing the primary coil to be energized.

Abstract: A current supplying device is provided and connectable across the positive and negative terminals of a battery to supply a direct current to the positive terminal. The device includes an alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) converter for generating a direct current from an AC power source. A pair of circuits biased to inoperative conditions are coupled to the converter and separately actuable to an operative condition to supply the direct current to one of the battery terminals. A polarity detector senses the polarity of the battery terminals and provides siganls to a plurality of switches which actuate one of the circuits to the operative condition so that the direct current is always supplied to the positive terminal of the battery. Current overload protection is also provided for protecting the polarity detector and inhibiting the operation of the switches in order to return the one circuit to the inoperative condition in the event of unsafe current flow in the one circuit.