American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-05-23
The Making of Steel Pens.

WISH you could go into a manufacto.
ry and see how bars of steel are cut and
rolled and stamped and grooved and pol
ished into dainty pens. But you prob
ably cannot, so I'll tell you about it.
The first operation in the pea factory is
| to cut the steel into strips a yard long and
four inches wide You doHt see how
they can cut steel? Well, they couldn't
cut it if they had only the strength of
men; but they use the same useful ser
want that carries our messages draws our
railroad cars, warns our houses, and
makes nearly everything we use-steam.
With the help of steam power it is as easy
to cut steel as for you to cut an apple;
and not only to cut it into strips but to
roll it out thin enough for pens. And
that isn't all steam does. 1t makes all
the rollers and stamps and presses and
grindstones and chisels that Pm going to
tell you about.
To go back to our pens. When the
steel is rolled thin enough the pens are
cut out just as you've seen cook cut bis
cults, only the girl who uses the cutter
holds the sheet of steel, and the cutter
goes by steam. The cutter is made of
hard steel and works all the time up and
down like a stamp. The girl moves the
steel around, and every time the stamp
comes down it bites out a pen or the out
side shape of pen. As It is cut out it
falls into box, au6 from that goes to an
other girl at anOther stamping machine.
One by one the girl puts the flat bits of
steel under the stamp, which comes down
and cuts the hole at the top of the split
or where the split will be. Then thou
sands of them together go into a mutiie!
That has mysterious sound, and some
how suggests smothering, but it really is
merely an innocent earthen box, which
goes into a furnace for the purpose of an
healing the pens. needn't tell you again
that annealing is only softening.
When they are cool they go to another
girl with another stamp, and this, coming
down in its irresistible way, prints in the
makers name.
When the name is on they are ready to
be rounded up; for till now, you know,
they have been only flat pieces of steel.
Another girl with another stamp presses
them into their halfround shape in an in
slant, and then they are hardened again.
Do you know how they harden steel?
Well, it seems rather odd, but they go to
work in exactly the same way that they
do to soften it; they heat the pens again
in another muffle, red-hot. But instead
of letting it cool slowly, as they do to
soften them, the workmen plunge the hot
pens into oil. A greasy bath, it is true;
but it cools them suddenly, and makes
them hard, yet elastic, so they will bend
as you write. They're dreadfully sticky
and unpleasant to handle, however; so
thousands of them are put into a tin
barrel and shaken violently for long
time by the same steam power that drives
the stamps All this swapping of stamps
and rattling of tin barrels full of pens
make a horrid noise, l can tell you. You
need to leave your nerves at home when
you go to a steelpen factory-that is, if
you have any nerves. hope you
haven't.
The mad dance of the pens is not yet
over. They come out of the barrel into
box with sand and other securing things,
and there they have another horrible
shaking. This leaves them clean and
bright and ready for another lot of girls.
The first one takes a pen in pair of
pliers, holds it an instant to an emery
wheel-which does nothing but fly around
all day-that grinds off the point. The
next girl takes it, lays it in groove made
exactly to fit it, and down comes sharp
chisel that cuts the split in a second.
That's the last stamp and the last cut for
the little pen.
Now it must be colored. Perhaps you
didn't know your pens were colored, but
if you look at one you'll see it isn't the
color of your knife blade. 1t is blue or
brown, and it got its color not in dye tub,
but by being heated in a metal box over
charcoal fire. The workman-not girl
this time-watches them very carefully,
and when they are exactly right snatches
them off. They now have their color, but
they must have luster, a shine, " before
they're nice enough to live in your desk.
For this they go into bath of some
liquids, and are dried again before being
shut up in little boxes, l don't know how
many dozens together. You have seen
them many time.
There are some funny pens in the fac
tory showroom, some SO large as to need
both hands to hold one, and others so
small you need microscope to see the
split-regular fairies pens. Why, gross
OF them will go into a nutshell-not a
cocoa nut either, but a Barcelona nut
shell.-Hdrper's Bdzar.