The record-union., 1896-04-26


| for great bars through broad plates,
and their efforts at hole-making is
| tireless and entirely satisfactory. These
drill presses are feature of the shop,
and until the work performed by them
is understood, it is utterly impossible
| to build the car which is to carry your
| love letter to your best girl, and which
will, one of these Sundays, be con-
structed for you.
There are nut and bolt-cutting ma
chimes, too, which wind out the delicate
thread with startling rapidity after the
holes in the nuts have been made by the
drills, or both nut and bolt have been
struck out by another machine designed
for that particular purpose.
There is not a station along the entire
line of the Pacific system but what is
equipped with furniture of some kind
and prominent among that furniture
Is the stove. The station stove is some
thlng which everyone will remember,
| and the shoes and boots burned out in
warming toes at them would be sutfi
Gent to furnish Sacramento citizens
with footgear many times over. And
many passenger cars have stoves in
them, too, and most of us nave had The
supreme satisfaction of toasting our
selves before them in the triumph of
our selfishness, and catching cold ct our
journeys end by a too sudden change
| OF temperature. And these stoves are
made and repaired in the car machine
shop, and the men who make them are
adopts at their profession
Then there are machines for repairing
air brake material such as triple
valves, angle cocks, cutoff cocks and
other appliances which only those we'll
up in air" could understand, but
which are, nevertheless, very essential
to the proper conduct of a train of
cars on a heavy down grade
In this shop the iron work is also
made for push cars. handcars and We
locipede cars, the last named of which
are destined to carry track inspectors
over the lines, and would no doubt
make those individuals lives veritable
beds of roses if "Ah, there's the
rub'-if only the whole round trip was
on a down grade.
Then, if you go up stairs, the scene
changes as if by magic, and you are
dropped down among the men who have
made brass the study of their lives.
And they are quiet men, too, these
brass f1nishers, and they under stand
the properties Of brass so well that
none of it appears on their cheeks.
1t is here that all the delicate metal
tracery and more substantial trim
mings for cars are made and polished
until they glitter like FURNISHED silver
before they are sent to the plating
room. And while the curiously wrought
trimmings would catch the eye Of the
visitor, and he would be deeply inter-
ested in the skill of the men employed,
he would turn to watch the locksmiths,
vaguely perhaps recalling a certain
King of France who was an excellent
locksmith, but knew nothing about
governing a nation. He would see the
sides and rims clipped and turned and
the mechanism inserted-the lock
closed and vised and finally smoothed
and FURNISHED, and would, years after,
tell his grandchildren that he had seen
a lock constructed. but might possibly
| not be able TO tell them just how it was
dCne. Those same workers in brass are
now engaged in filing an order for
5000 seal locks, which are destined to
| protect the property of persons of
| itinerant propensities or the imports
| or exports of CALIFORNIA; citizens
Then after the articles made have
been polished they are sent to the plat
| ing-room, where. if the visitor follows
| them, he will have still more to learn
| Here each piece is placed on buffipg
wheels which revolve more or less swift
| ly, according to the work to be done.
! Now, a buffing wheel is a very simple
! contrivance, much more so than many
other things to be found in the shop,
and is merely a wheel upon which is
stretched thick, soft, flexible cloth,
saturated with "crocus," or oxide of
| iron which produces a high polish ID
any metal with which it is vigorously
| buffed, and after an article has been
so treated il is ready for the plating
| process.
| And there are plating processes in
the shop for silver, nickel, copper and
| brass The articles to be plated are
| first cleansed by an immersion in acid.
| They are then placed in watts containing
solutions to perfect the plating, where
they are left a greater or less time, ac-
cording to the thickness of the plate de-
sired When removed from the watts
they are allowed to dry and are then re-
turned to a finer bufflng wheel and re-
polished until they glitter again, when
they are ready to strengthen and en-
bellish the cars for which they were de-
signed.
Some of the work, however, does not
admit Of being polished on an ordinary
wheel In the case of locomotive head
light refiectors, for instance, which are
silver plated on the interior surface,
and require a very delicate as well as
very powerful polish, a much finer
wheel is used which does away with all
hand work The reflector is placed on
chuck. which is a contrivance fixed to
the mandrel of lathe for holding the
reflector in place while being operated
! upon. 1t revolves very slowly while the
furnishing tools puts on a gloss polish
and automatically smoothes the surface
| of the interior. After the furnishing
/ process is completed a swinging buffing
wheel is brought into requisition and
/ gives an extra polish to the FURNISHED
/ parts, after which the reflector is ready
/ for use. Yes; it takes a whole lot of
| patience to make a locomotive reflector.
| but then it takes considerable of that
| article to do most all kinds of work, and
| much Of it is not so highly polished as
| that under consideration.
There is no finer or better equipped
| plating-room than this one in the car
machine shop on the Pacific Coast. and
| probably not in the Unite States.
Indeed, the car machine shop is one of
J the most interesting sights to be seen
| in the city. and while the intricate ma
chinery may not be readily understood
at first glance, the courtesy of the men
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