The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-26
HOW PINS ARE MADE.
The Little Implements Which So Mysteri-
ously Disappear Manufactured by a Simple

ousIy Disappear Manufactured by a Simple
Process.
| Detroit Times,
In a long, low-ceiled room pierced on
| either side with windows at close intervals,
| sits q pretty brunette, bending over a little
machine. She Is the only living occupant of
| the room. Ranged in twenty rows, running
| from the door to the rear wall, are some lit
/ tie machines, which keep up a ceaSeess hum
/ and click. The girl moves about from ma
Chine to machine, occasionally stopping be-
| fore one. AS she stands there the sunlight
gilnts in through the open windows, dances
| lightly on her brown hair, strikes the pol
ished steel work of the machines and forms a
! broad band of pflsmatio colors.
| The girl is experimenting the manufac-
ture of pins There are millions of them
here. One no longer wonders at the frequen-
| cy with which those fatal destroyers of a
| famlly's happiness are found in the carpet in
| the dead OF night but one does wonder why
! it is that when a man bursts his suspender
| button he has TO search all over the house
for the little dart, and finally fall back on
| tenpenny nail and bail of string. Appar-
emily there are pins enough here to stock
every notion house in Java, Jupiter or
Japan" and at every click of the little ma
! chimes few hundred pins are born.
The process OF manufacture is beautiful in
| its simplicity. The machine used is little
low affair about four feet high. While it APP
pears to be of very simple construction, it
| has almost as many fine and delicate com
ponent parts as a watch, and to do its work
1 Thoroughly it must also be as carefully adj
| Justed and regulated. About two feet from
every machine is a rapidly revolving reel
rouudwhich is coiled a hank of brass wire
The wire, which is of the thickness used for
particular sized pin, is fed into the machine
in continuous golden thread. Here it passes
under knives which cut il off to the required
length, and as it is cut it passes under die.
| This die gives three sharp and distinct lit
| tie clicks and the head is formed Caught
up by the invisible iron hands, tine
pin now resembles joke of any alleged hui
| morist on blanket sheet-it has no point
After having head put on it the pin falls
into little niche in traveller, which takes
| it under a series of files, The rapid move
ment causes the soft wire soon to become de-
Cidedly pointed, and it then drops through
tin chute into a basket on the floor You
pick up one of these little strangers and find
it covered with grease and fine wire dust. To
remove this they are taken into the base
ment and put in barrels filed with sawduSt
The barrels are on aXles, and have a rotary
motion. The shaking causes all the grease
to cling to the sawdust, or perhaps it might be
more correct to say that the pin is enveloped
in two enyelopes-grease as the inner one
and sawdust as the outer one. The next pro-
cess is to turn the contents of the barrel in
sitting machine connected with a powerful
blower. This causes the chat TO separate
from the grain, or in other words. the pins
to be thoroughly cleansed from the sawdust
attaching to them. Brass pins are the most
expensive made but if used in their pure
state would cause garments through which
they are run to cOrrode To prevent this
they are taken to copper watts and coated with
an acid, the preparation used being one of
the secrets OF the trade. The pin is now made,
but before itcan go out to the trade it must
be stuck on paper. The operation required
to do this is as pretty as any of the others.
The pins are dumped into the trough of
machine. They run down an inclined bed in
which are cut a number OF grooves Just wide
enough to contain q pin when standing up
perpendicularly. The bed of the machine is
V-shaped, the base of the V being furthest re-
moved from the point where the nins first
enter. AS the pins come to the narrow
point of the bed they pass under a species of
trip-hammer, with six or seven distinct ham
mers set in frame. There is now fed in
from below a continuous roll Of that narrow
blue paper on which pins are always sold
As the paper passes under the hammers they
drop on the heads of the pins, and with one
blow drive them into position. This opera
ton goes on without interruption, the
whole process being automatic. The machine
requires no attention except to keep it prop
erly supplied and to see that the pins do not
choke up.
In another department. of the pin establish
ment steel pins are being made. These are
the ones most commonly used. The process
is nearly similar to that already described,
except that instead of being pointed by pass
ing over files, they pass over rapidly reyolv-
ing wheels.