St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1896-12-19
MAKING ARTIFICIAL EARS.


4
q vuleanaseA 1abosa
II there il any one branch of se1eD-
tific manufacturing that would seem
to hate reached perfection within the
last decade it II the making Of artificial
ears. Such perfect reproductions are
turned out nowadays that they cannot
be distinguished. even upon . fairly
close inspection, from the natural ear.
Made Of specially prepared rubber.
hesh-colored In the rough, they are
painted by hand in exact imitation Of
the remaining ear Of the unfortunate
customer and - carefully ''touched"
and marked over ~ an artists picture.
This II necessary, for an artificial ear
must Be perfect to be acceptable, and
such careful work pays the maker. for
he gets 500 apiece for them.
In . certain workshop. the other day.
where much scientific work - done.
there was shown to . Tribune repre-
sentative . little box some seven OF
eight inches long. les than two inches.
broad. and hardly half an inch high.
There's $500 worth Of goods In that
on the cover. displaying hve rubber
ears lying In cotton. these arc for
four different men and one woman
you zee that little ear there-and all
they need now n for the artist to call
for them and touch 'em up according
to little slips wen give him telling just
how the coloring should 60 ON. We
studied our customers carefully when
we took the orders.
"A hundred dollars seems big price,
doesn't 1t, to pay for little thing like
one Of those ears that's % flexible you
can crumple II mp in your hand eastly7 !
But people that have never made arti-
fetal ears have NO idea of the work that
is on them. There il no guessing about
making them. You have to be - exact
a. II you were carving out . statue.
In the first place, when Q man comes
here to get nm ear to replace one he's
lost we take . mold Of the ear that Is
left, and If there il any part Of the othef
we must get mold Of that. too. 70 -
to be able to At on the new ear. There
are NO two ears the same, and It takea
our most skilled workmen to get IN ear
from this mold or pair of molds that
10 lifelike and appears to have the color
Of flesh.
'When finished the new ear il pasted
on the old stump. or simply set pre-
cisely where the old ear was, and not
one man in . thousand can tell the
difference. It II really only the first
ear that i expensive. What costs II
to make the mold. If . man has his
mold with US we will give him dupli-
cate ears for about $40 each. There
il ono customer on our books hailing
from Chicago who buys Ave ears = year
from us. ON an average. / don't know
what he does with them all, but he
seems to want them.
'The demand. take it altogether, h
limited. and I don't suppose we ever
turn out more than 20 new ears year.
We have only been making them mp
to our present standard . couple Of
years. by the way.
This vulcanized rubber that can be
bent and twisted experience has taught
" IL the best material to use. We
have experimented with nearly every.
thing. Last summer we tried alumni
mum. thinking that it would be lighter;
but, do our best, the ear turned out far
heavier: and, besides, the metal would
not lend itself nearly ~ well - rubber
to the initiating of flesh tints.
''How do people lose their earsf In
two ways, chiehy-in railroad acci-
dents or by getting caught in ma
chinery. The former II by far the more
common. Y. Tribune.