The suburban citizen., 1901-09-14
WE ALL USE THIS GUM
HOW THE STICKY STUFF ON POST.
ACE STAMPS IS MADE.

Talcers--19, 900, 900 stainps Gumihcu }"
Eight Hour Day.
Not one person in five hundred VINO
licks a postage stamp ever dreams Oh
the precautions taken by the bureau
of engraving and printing to secure
A uniform coating OF the best adhesive
ana purest gum on the back of the
stamps.
The process Of cumming postage
stamps is as much an exact science
as the building of the large guns at
the Washington Navy Yard, says the
Star. This work, ike that Of prac-
ideally all other similar kinds for the
Government is done at the bureau
of engraving and printing, and so ac-
curate is the process Of cumming
stamps that when the work is finished
the stamps are tested to discover If
the coating Of mucilage on the sheet
varies as much as seven ten-thou-
sandths OF a pound.
The room where the stamps are
gummed is airy and well lighted; it is
eighty by fifty feet and contains at
present eight cumming machines. The
stamps after being printed reach the
cumming room FROM the examining
room in sheets eighteen and one-half
by twenty.three inches, each sheet
containing 400 stamps, The sheets to
be gummed are fed by women
operatives on an endless chain belt,
held by grlppers. This chain belt
passes under glass cumming roller,
which is automatically coated with
the exact proportion Of mucilage to be
received by the sheet. This mucilage
Is fed to the roller from a small tank
just above, The gummed sheets are
then carried by the endless chain belt
into covered drying box fifty feet
long, which contains coils of steam
pipes, which produce a temperature Of
13O degrees Fahrenheit The sheets
OF stamps after Il slow journey Of
one minute, emerge from the other
enc OF the drying box with the
mucilage perfectly dry.
The machine automatically delivers
the sheets on Il table 10 a lady oper-
atiye, who, by passing her experienced
hand ever the gummed surface, de-
termlnes IL the sheets are properly
gummed and IL they are running
through the machines ut Just the right
degree OF speed TO insure their being
Properly dried
After being Summed the shecys are
rolled 10 take out the curl of the paper,
and are again inspected to see il
there are any defects in the cumming.
If they are found to be perfect they
are then counted and pressed and sent
TO the perforating room, the process
Of perforatipg being in itself an ex-
ceedingly interesting one.
The care taken to insure perfect uni
fOrmity in the cumming Of the stamps
is not the least interesting part of the
work. Every morning when the ma
chine pressmen report for duty they
are each given Il blank form, which
they must fill out during the day as
their work progresses.
a record Is also kept on the blank
form of the number of printed sheets
of stamps gummed, so that the fore
man, by a glance at the graduated
scale and the number of printed sheets
gummcd, can tell at any moment if..
each sheet is receiving its exact pro-
portion Of gum.
This system Is an elaborate check
on the gummed sheets, and was de-
signed to insure the proportlonate
IIantlty Of gum on each sheet of
stamps. Every afternoon the work
men are given credit for the amount Of
gum they return to the Government,
and the balance is struck between the
gum used and the total number of
sheets gummed Careful experiments
and exact scientific calculations have
determined the proportion Of gum and
paper.
70 meet the different conditions of
the seasons of the year the quality Of
the gum is changed four times during
each year. The winter or soft gum
is used during the months of Novem-
ber- December. January, February
-dhNi AlhANhs Lht ouhlNltIsOE. hdIu Buul
lis used during the months OF June, ]
July, August and September, and the
spring and fall gums are used in Oc-
tober, April and May. The summer
gum is the hardest, and best resists
the humidity during the hot months of
summer, likewise preventing the sheets
Of stamps sticking together in the
postcffces Of the country. The winter
gum is used to enable the stamps to
resist frosty weather, which often
causes the stamps to curl and crack.
The intermediate sum is used TO meet
tho conditions Of half warn and half \
cold weather. f'
OF course, the most thorough pre-
cautions are taken to begin with in
procuring the very best quality of ad-
hesive postal g1m. This gum is de.
rived from dexterire., a product ce-
cured ia the process Of making ctarch
from potatoes, corn and cassava root.
y'hc starch obtained from the fore
going vegetables is treated by being
roasted at temperature of about
600 degrees in its early stages, when
IL later turns to deXterine, which is