It was 1951, when Juan Cortés Prades founded his mechanical workshop for general repairs. From the Grao de Castellón, came to Alcora, sensing a future in the emerging ceramics industry of that era.
Their machines were moved by transmissions and leather belts, moved by a central engine. Drill, saw, planer and turning lathe, were the technology of that time.
Talleres Cortés was introduced in the small tile factories of those times. From a general repair shop, went to be specialized in ceramics machinery and matrices.
In the 1960’s, they manufactured presses, humidifiers, crushers of turbine and some little tooling. The specialization was gradual, due to the urgent demand of the factories of then. After grinding, there were the presses, then the glazing lines with its applications, classification, etc.
In those days, the star format was 15 × 15, though; the 11×11, 20×20, and even 15×20 were also manufactured.
They were constantly evolving applications on the glazing lines tongues, scrapers, scourers, enamel transfer pumps, mixers of all kinds, silk screen printing, etc…
Of course, reigned the double firing and Talleres Cortés repaired and manufactured all kinds of machines. Later, with the arrival of the automatic friction presses of 175T and 220T came the molds 3 / 15×15; 4 / 15×15; 3 / 20×20, 5 / 10×20, etc. Talleres Cortes bought the first flat surface grinders, to plan properly the parts of moulds and subsequently purchased the manual milling machines to mechanize those molds.
It was a hard time. The lack of means and the arrival of the first new technology made them to do an economic effort to acquire more machinery. The muscle work was replaced, little by little, by the machine tools. A decade later, came the first revolution with the emergence of the pressed single-fired stoneware. Together with it, more powerful hydraulic presses and monolayer roller kilns that would replace the single-channel, two-channel and tri-channel refractory wagons. Talleres Cortés again had to specialize itself, a bit more. The atomized clay with around 5.5% of humidity stuck to the punches of the moulds. Born the vulcanized punches that allowed that the clay not stick to them and without almost not cleaning, with the consequent saving of time. Talleres Cortés incorporated laminated polyurethane; and later built vulcanizing presses of liquid resins with high precision machines technology. Their vulcanizing presses have been recognized in different countries.
Talleres Cortés got 60% of its production, manufacturing and repairing molds. Born the first numerical controls (CNC, the computer-guided machine tools) and with it, the technical and artistic design assisted by PC. Was the beginning of the reliefs and decorations, as well as, an overflowing imagination of a wide range of back patterns. Suddenly it became necessary to change punches to perform varied designs. The mechanical fixation of the punches was costly in time and again, new technologies and imagination were applied to to upper platforms and lower blocks; appeared the electromagnetism. Punches were magnetized (electromagnetically), obtaining a fast and reliable change. Upper or Lower Punches could be changed in few minutes. It was a time of transformation in pressing (for hydraulic or friction presses) and moulds would not be outdone, its transformation were parallel to the presses. Every day, tiles of bigger sizes were manufactured. Hydraulic presses were increasing their power and size.
Talleres Cortés bought “bridge” grinding machines and big size milling machines. Again another mechanical revolution: the porous single firing on an industrial scale.
With the previous advances, the moulds were manufactured more sophisticated and with irregular shapes, different surfaces, special parts of high relief and varied contours and surfaces mimicking marbles, textures, cottos, rustic, metallic, stones, wood, etc.
The third step was the technical porcelain stoneware of big dimensions. Then showed up the presses with 2500 mm of distance between columns, the moulds of big sizes and according to them, the machinery for big dimensions.
In three minutes is told more than 60 years of history. From 1951, a drill, a saw, a turning lathe, a planner, a welding electrode and little more, Talleres Cortés had become into a machinery park, guided by technical, artistic design and manufacturing computers.