The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-15
srRINGED INsTRUMENTs.
Making Banjos, Mandoiins, Guitars and
 Zithars.
[From the Ohleago Reoord..

buildings as marvels of mechanical gen.
 ius and engineering skill, That is be-
 cause they are so eye-filllng and inn
 posing, And yet it takes half the time
 to complete one of them from founda-
 tion wall to elevator boys than it does
 to make an ordinary guitar or mando- | lin, banjo or zither. This is not be-
 cause the ordinary stringed instrument
 passes through so many hands in the | process of manufacture, nor because it
 is a patchwork of so many hundred of
 small pieces cunningIy dovetailed to-
 gether or inlaid one above another.
 Age is the essence of every process, just
 as it is in the curing of wines.
 All the parts of a guitar must be old
 before they are put together, and then
 it takes years to settle the wood, the tones growing finer and mellower as time advances. That is what makes 8 manufactory of stringed instruments
 such wonderful place It has to be provided with innumerable lofts, shelves l and racks, where the parts of future
 guitars may grow old. It is just like a civil service system. The logs or
 green, rough wood and the plates Of brass and steel enter at one end of the building, and after passing through an almost endless evolution, each stage at tended by close examinations, they go from the French polish room out into the world in the form of complete in- struments. But even the best and most satisfactory subject may not pass
 through the course of construction un- der five or six years.
 One of the largest manufactures of musical instruments in the country IS
 beautifully located on the west side of Chicago facing Union park. Once in- side of the big brick building 1t is vell-
 nigh impossible for the visitor to get away until he has peered into every
 crany, each hiding its own little group
 of cunning wprkmen.
 Ther is something irresistibly fascin-
 ating about shop in which close-peer- ing workmen in sawdust covered cloth
 ing are engaged in making something
 with their own hands It Is interest ing because it is human, natural. Such
 is the wood shop where the work of
 making the guitars and banjos begins.
 It is a long low room, with benches un-
 der the dusty windows, The ceilings
 hum with belts, which run a number of simple band saws and lathes; shavings and pieces of fragrant rosewood and mahogany litter the floor On the dark side of the room slabs of thin wood, un-
 finished guitar necks and other parts of instruments are corded up in racks to dry, some of which have been undis- turbed for years. Every spare part of the ceiling is festooned with banjo hoops, and the odors which they give out in drying suggest endless southern forests.
 Most of the workmen-and there are more than three hundred in the build- ing-are foreigners Germans, Scandin- avians, Swiss, and even Icelanders. The American has not the patience nor the inherited skill to do well at the work He would rather plan land booms or start an employment agency than to make guitar. While much of the work is done by hand, as in Europe tools are used to a certain extent, and 1t is largely owing to this fact that instru- ments can be turned out so rapidly.
 One man in the wood shop bends over band saw and takes the great slaps of rosewood, wet and green, just as they come from the Yucatan forests, and saws them into regular shaped strips for parts of a zither. As they fall to 1 the red-powdered floor they are gather ed and carried away to the seasoning pile to remain three or four years. An- other man is turning drum sticks from | ends of ebony, and his tools have to be | kept sharp to make an impression on | the stony wood. Here boys are turning | and whiting out scores of rosewood | ''bones" each pair for the lend man" of some minstrel show, and there man | is chiselling a delicate dulcimer bridge | from hollywood. That machine is like 8 lathe, only 1t isn't. Instead of turn ing things perfectly cylindrical, like an ordinary device of its kind, it's knives are controlled by wheel running on a wooden pattern below. As the wheel turns on the model--in this case a gui- tar neck-the knives jump back and forth and cut and gouge in a really re- markable way until the rough piece of wood placed in the jaws of the guitar lathe has assumed the proportions of a guitar neck.
 At the back of the room in a cosy It, tie nook pleasant-faced, spectacled old is engaged in bending banjo frames and drum tops. He first puts the wood in a closed cylinder full of steam, and when it is thoroughly soak ed he takes it out and readily bends it at will After it is dry he glues the ends together and then adds 1t to the festoons of hoops around him to season.
 Not far away a man is bending over B Stygian pool of steaming liquid and stirring up short pieces of wood which are floating in it. Here ordinary maple and birch are converted into ebony, or, If the color is changed into any one of the vari-colored woods sometimes put into mandolins. The ebony color is made Up of haywood, vinegar, sulphate of iron, nut gals, paris green, nitric acid and other chemicals.
 Opening off from the wood room is ] little alcove i'll which the nickel plat ng of banjo rims and other articles is lone. A number of vats which look ike bath tubs are arranged around the