The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1874-05-01
4 Curious Pair of jaws.

thTious VA
DOM YOU think it must be a curious
pair OF Jaws that can bite off a chunk
of cold IRON as easily as you can bite a
stick OF candy?
You can hardly believe it? Wait till
I tell you.
One OF the most interesting places ]
ever visited was 4 room filed with these
monsters with the sharp steel jaws,
called nail-machines. In the first place,
the noise made by several of these ma
chimes IN one room is something abso-
luteiY fearful. l wanted to stuff my
ears WIZ cotton; but l thought that
would not b every civil to my guide, and
after a little / got used to it, and soon
found myself so much interested that I
really forgot the noise. Some machines
nip off the tacks so fast that a stream
OF finished tacks run down 4 tin tube
into a re,erToir-thousands in a minute.
Listen 4 the ticking OF the clock, and
reflect that every time it ticks at least
twenty lacks are snapped of.
But ! nust tell You how they do it.
First. the iron bar, as itcomcs from the
i~ron-works, is put between immense
rollers, which fiatten it out as nicely as
a COOK can roll ont pie-crust with a roll
ing-pir. The bar of iron is thus made
into a sheet, Just thick enough for the
nails they want to make. 1t goes next
to the Sitting machine, which makes
no more fuss about sitting it into the
proper widths for nails than your scis-
sors make about cutting paper. 1t is
cut a little longer than the nail is to be,
because the heads are to be made.
When the strips of iron are all ready,
a MAJ takes one and slips the end into
the steel jaws I told you of. These
jaws are worked by steam power, and
instantly they bite off a nail, while 4
furious little hammer springs out sud
denly, and with one blow on the end OF
the bit OF iron fattens it, and thus
makes a head. If you want to know
what "A blow that must be, take a piece
OF iron and try to pound a head on it
yourself.
Tie instant the head is made, the
jaws open and the nail drops out fin
ished. Of course It is done much
quicker than 1 have been telling you,
for a machine can make brads (Which l
needn't tell the boys are small nails
without heads at the rate of three thou
sand a minute. 1t is said that figures
won't .ie," and I hope they won't, but
must admit it is hard to believe that
story.
After the tacks come out of the ma
chine, they are "blued," as it is called.
Il is done by heating them in an oven
or on an iron plate. Then they go to
the packing-room, where one girl can
weigh and PIT into papers two thousand
papers Of tack in a day. That's another
tough story, but my guide assured me
il was true.
How many kinds of nails can you
name? You will probably be surprised
to hear that two hundred kinds of nails
are made in n factory, beginning with
spikes which weigh nearly half a pound
each, and ending with the tiniest kind
Of tacks, not a quarter OF an inch long.
Men didn't always have machines to
make nails for them, and Of course they
had to make them by hand. That was
no such easy matter, and, in fact, they
couldn't make them of cold iron, but
mad to heat every one. In some parts
OF England they are very slow to get
machinery, and the ignorant people,
thinking their trade is to be spoiled,
will break up and destroy any machinery
that is brought there. So they work at
Matchmaking as their grandfathers did.
Every man has a little forge-such as
You have seen in a blacksmith's shop if
you live in a village-and a small anvil.
Livery child is put to work to make
nails at eight or nine years of age, be-
cause they earn so little that every one
OF a family must help earn his bread.
81 course these children have no time