The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1888-10-11
HOW PENS ARE MADE.
Young Gillott's Eye for Business-Details OF
the Pen Making Industry of
the Present Time.
[Chicago Times.

was a clumsy instrument at best.
Various attempts were made to i'm
upon Wise's invention, and
among others working to this end was
a Birmingham Jew named Meyer.
Meyer had pretty daughter just
going through the interesting process OF
falling in love with young cutter by
the name Of elliott. In her paroxysms
of emotional insanity she would tell
her lover all she could learn during her
rational hours of her fathers progress.
Young elliott encouraged this conf
dence, having an eye to business as
we'll as to the girl, and the result was
that after securing the latter, he anti
cipated his father-in-law, and started
factory for the making of the very
kind of pens the old man had spent
years in devising. The world knows
what elliott has done-by the way, in
England the first syllable Of his name
receives the accent. Birmingham is
to-day the steel pen trade center of the
world, though there are three pros
porous manufactures in this country.
Birmingham could readily fill an order
for four or five hundred thousand gross
at weeks notice.
How are the pens made? Take q
sheet of Sheffield steel six feet long, two
and half feet wide and one-sixteenth
of an inch thick, and cut it into strips
each large enough to make two pens.
Anneal these strips by placing them
into pots with clayed lids and leaving
them over night in the ''muffier," or
oven, which is kept at an intense heat.
When they are cooled scour them with
acid to remove the scales and brighten
them. Roll them to the gauge desired
and take them to the cutting shop to
be transformed into blanks by hand
presses worked by women, who make
from ten to twelve English shillings
per week at this, their first work in a
factory. Thence they 80 to the piercing
shop, where hand press makes the
sits in the sides. After being cleaned
in sawdust to remove the grease they
60 to the hardening shop and spend
second warm night in pots in the ''muf
ler." Next comes the stamping room,
where the firm name and trade mark
are received. Thus far they have been
nerelp fiat blanks. Now comes the
transformation scene. In the raising
shop they are given the semi-crcular
form that makes them pens. After a
brief incarceration in the "muff1er'
they are given an oil bath, shaken in q
revolving colander till the drippings
are removed and saved, and then wiped
pry in drums with sawdust towel. 1t
may be mentioned incidentally, and as
an indication of American enterprise,
that almost precisely the same revolv-
ing colander arrangement in use for de-
cades in England for removing the oil
from steel pens has been recently
patented in this country as an original
invention, and is doing duty at most OF
the Chicago distilleries' separating
shops.
IN THE TEMPERING SHOPS.
In the tempering shop a hundred
gross are put in a single drum and
turned slowly over a charcoal fire, a
man with long handled ladle watch
ing the changing color, scooping them
up at the proper instant and spreading
them on a cooling pan. In the scour
ing shop they again encounter sawdust
in drum; in the Sitting shop hand
press makes the Sits in the points. in
the grinding shop they are treated tc
either straight or cross grinding, the
latter being considered preferable. The
back of the pen shows readily to which
process it has been subjected. The
longest stay is in the polishing shop
two days-the time being spent in the
most intimate intercourse with the rub.
bish known as "pot," and in revolving
drums. They emerge polished and
with the sharp corners worn off the
points. Then another trip is made tc
the tempering room, where they are
given blue, light, dark straw, or any
other desirable color. Into thin var
nish Of alcohol and sehellac they are
plunged, aud spread on perforated
and heated iron plate to dry, and
thence to the looking over room, where
| girls hastily inspect each pen, rejecting
all defective ones. They are very par
ticular as to this part of the process, al
bad pen, like bad egg, will spoil the
reputation of the entire box. The fna
processes are counting in gross lots anG
boxing, when the product is ready fol
the trade; and after going through al
these mauipulations the completed
pens are sold to dealers for about /
third of a cent apiece.
Soon after the pen of steel had be
come popular ingenuity went to WORK
to discover something better, and pen:
of elastic material, with durable ant
therefore extremely hard points, were
contrived. Glass, horn, tortoise shell
and other substances were tried, ant
the numerous experiments eliminated
in the gold pen with double diamond
points, first made in England by Isaa'
Hawkins, an American residing
abroad. Subsequently the same mar
found that iridium was about as gooc
as the diamond, and it is now uset
almost exclusively. 1t is found in con
nection with gold bearing quartz in tn
| of J-,1;