The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1883-06-13
MAKING CLOTHES PINS.
How Yankee Mills Turn Them On, for All
the World.

Probably very few realize the extent of
the manufacture of clothes pins and the cap
ital employed in the business. Their manu-
facture is mostly confined to New England,
and the State of Maine produces its share
of the commodity. According to the Bangor
Industrial Journal one of tho most COM
plete and extensive clothes pin factories is
located at Vanceboro, Me- From the same
source the process of manufacturing the
pins as carried on at the vanceboro Wooden
Ware Company's factory, is given. The
wood used is mainly white birch and beech.
The logs are cut and hauled to the shore of
the lake or the streams emptying into it,
whence they are foated down to the mill by
windlass and chain worked by steam power
and sawed into lengths of sixteen to twenty
two inches-the former to be made into
pins and the latter into boards for the boxes
required in packing. The sixteen-inch
lengths are next sawed into boards of the
requisite thickness by single machine,
then into strips of the proper size by gang
of twelve circular saws, and finally into
fve-inch lengths by gang of three saws.
The logs have now been cut up into blocks
about five inches long and three-fourths of
an inch square. Falling, as they leave the
saws, ON an elevated belt, they are carried
into an upper story, and returned to the
first floor are deposited in troughs whence
they are fed to the turning lathes, of which
there are several-each being capable of
turning eighty pins per minute. They are
then passed to the slotting machine, in which
peculiar arrangement of knives inserted in
a circular saw gives the slot the proper
hange, after which they are automatically
carried by elevator belts to the drying bins
ON the second floor, where they are subject.
ed to high temperature, generated by
steam pipes, until thoroughly seasoned
There are several of those bins, the largest
OF which has capacity of 100 boxes, 70, 900
pins, and the smaller ones fifty. The pins
are now ready for polishing and packing.
The polishing is accomplished by means OF
perforated cylinders or drums each capable
OF holding forty bushels, in which the pins
are placed and kept constantly revolving
until they become as smooth rs if polished
by hand with the finest sandpaper A few
minutes before this process is completed
small amount of II low is thrown in the
drums with the pins, after which few moro
revolutions give them beautiful glossy mp.
pearance. These polishing drums are sus-
pened directly over the packing counter ON
the first floor of the mill, and being thus inn
mediately beneath the ceiling of the floor
above are readily filed through scut;les from
drying bins ON the second floor, and as easily
emptied upon the counter below, where they
are sorted into first and second grades and
packed in boxes of five gross each. Tho
sorting and packing is done by girls. Two
hundred and fifty boxes are packed per day
The market for clothes pins is not confined
to any special locality but is found nearly all
over tho world. Ten thousand boxes have
been shipped to M4lliourne, Australia, with
in the past four months Ten firms in Lon.
don carry stock of ten thousand boxes
each and two hrms in Boston carry like
amount. Ono thousand boxes constitute a
load.