Evening star., 1896-10-23
MAKING ART1F1cIAL EARS.

A Delicate Task and AN Expensive
Product OF valca1tised Rubber.
From the New York Tribute. 4
II there is any one brlaaaach q Of scientific
manufacturing that would, seem to have
reached perfection within 1.-THE last decade
1t Is the making of artificial ears. Such
perfect reproductions arg turned out now
adays that they cannot obe distinguished,
even upon a fairly closes inspection, from
the natural ear. Made ofSa specially pre-
pared rubber, hesh-colored In the rough.
they are painted by hand In exact imita-
tion OF the remaining ear Of the unfor-
tunate customer and as carefully "touch-
eo' ana marked over as an artists pic
ture. This is necessary for an artificial
ear must be perfect 10 beracceptable and
such careful work pays the maker, for he
gets hundred dollars apiece for them.
In a certain workshop. .the other day,
was shown to a Tribune representative
little box some seven or eight inches long.
less than two inches broad, and hardly
half an inch high.
box" said the foreman, as he lifted off the
cover. displaying five rubber ears lying
IN cotton. These are for four different
men ana one woman-you see that little
ear there-and all they need now is for
the artist to call for them and touch 'em
up according to little slips we'll give him
telling Just how the colorings should go
on. We studied our customers carefully
when we took the orders.
"A hundred dollars seems big price,
doesn't It, to pay for little thing like
one OF those ears that's 80 flexible you
can crumpie it up in your hand easily?
But people that have never made artificial
ears nave no idea of the work that is on
them. There is no guessing about making
them. You have to be as exact as II you
were carving out q statue. In the first
place. when a man comes here to get an
ear to replace one he's lost we take a
mold OF the ear that is left, and IL there
Is any part OF the other we must get a
mold of that. too, 80 as to be able to fit
on the new ear. There are no two ears
the same. and 1t takes our most skilled
Workmen to get an ear from this mold or
pair of molds that Is Iifelike and appears
to have the color of flesh,
when finished the new ear Is pasted on
the old stump, or simply set precisely
where the old ear was, and not one man
in thousand can tell the difference. 1t is
really only the first ear that is expensive.
What costs is to make the mold. IL
man has his mold with us We will give
him duplicate ears for about SO each.
There Is one customer on our books hailing
from Chicago who buys five ears a year
from us, on an average. I don't know
what he does with them ALL but he seems
to want them. ...- y.
THE demand. take it altogether, is Linn
tied, and I don't suppose we ever turn out
more than twenty new ears year. We
have only been making them up to our
present standard a couple of years, by the
way.
This vulcanized rubber that can be
bent and twisted experience has taught us
is the best material to Use. We have eX-
perimented with nearly everything Last
sumner we tried aluminium. thinking that
1t would be lighter, but, do our best. the
ear turned out far heavier, and, besides,
the metal would not lend itself nearly as
well as rubber to the initiating Of flesh
tintS.
How do people lose their ears? In
two ways, chiefy-in railroad accidents or
by getting caught in machinery. The
former is by far the more common"