Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-02-26
A Curious Pair of Jaws.

Don't you think it must be a curious
pair of jaws that can bite off chunk OF
| cold iron as easily as you can bite stick
| of candy?
You can hardly believe its Wait til
[ tell you.
One of the most interesting places
! ever visited was room filled with these
| monsters with the sharp steel jaws, called
| nail-machines.
In the first place, the noise made by
several of these machines in one room is
something absolutely fearful. I wanted
to stuff my ears with cotton; but | thought
| that would not be very civil to my guide,
and after a little got used to it, and soon
found myself so much interested that
really forgot the noise.
Some machines nip off the tacks so fast
that stream of finished tacks runs down
| a tin tube into a reservoir-thousands in
a minute.
Listen to the ticking of the clock, and
reflect that every time it ticks at least
twenty tacks are snapped off.
But [ must tell you how they do it.
First, the iron bar, as it comes from
the iron works, is put between immense
rollers, which flatten it out as nicely as
cook can roll out pie-crust with a rolling
pin. The bar of iron is thus made into a
sheet, just thick enough for the nails they
want to make. Itgoes next to the Sitting
machine, which makes no more fuss
about Sitting it into the proper widths
for nails than your scissors make about
cutting paper.
1t is cut little longer than the nail
is to be, because the heads are to be
made.
When the strips Of iron are all ready, a
man takes one, and slips the end into the
steel jaws l told you of.
These jaws are worked by steam power,
and instantly they bite off nail, while a
furious little hammer springs out sudden
ly, and with one blow on the end of the
bit of iron f1attens it, and thus makes a
head.
If you want to know what blow that
must be, take piece of iron and try to
pound head on it yourself
The instant the head is made, the jaws
open, and the nail drops out finished. OF
course it is done much quicker than
have been telling you, for machine can
make brads (which | needn't tell the boys
are small nails without heads at the rate
of three thousand minute.
It is said that Figures won't lie," and l
hope they won't, but l must admit it is
hard to believe that story.
After the tacks come out of the machine
they are "blued," as it is called. 1t is
done by heating them in an oven or on an
iron plate.
Then they go to the packingroom,
where one girl can weigh and put into
papers two thousand papers of tacks in a
day.
That's another tough story, but my guide
assured me it 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 one factory, beginning with spikes
which weigh nearly half a pound each,
and ending with the tiniest kind Of tacks
| not 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 had
/ 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. 30 they
work at nailmaking as their grandfatners
| did.
Every man has a little forge-such as
you have seen in blacksmith's shop if
you live in viIlage-and a small anvil
Every child is put to work to make nails
at eight or nine years of age, because
they learn so little that every one of a
family must help earn his bread. OF
course these children have no time to
learn to read, and many grown women
can neither read nor write.