Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-10-23
WE ALL USE THIS GUM
HOW THE STICKY STUFF ON POST.
AGE STAMPS Is MADE.

Not one person in five hundred who
ticks a postage stamp ever dreams Of
the precautions taken by the bureau
of engraving and printing to secure
a uniform coating of the best adhesive
and 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, like that Of prac-
tically 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
sandths of a pound.
The room where the stamps are
4 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 grippers. This chain belt
passes under a 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 temperature of
130 degrees Fahrenheit. The sheets
of stamps, after a slow journey of
one minute, emerge from the other
end of the drying box with the
mucilage perfectly dry.
The machine automatically delivers
the sheets on a table to u lady oper-
atlve, who, by passing her experienced
hand over the gummed surface, de-
termines if the sheets are properly
gummed and if they are running
through the machines at just the right
degree of speed to insure their being
properly dried
After being gummed the sheets are
rolled to take out the curl of the paper,
and are again inspected to see if
there are any defects in the cumming.
III they are found to be perfect they
are then counted and pressed and sent
TO the perforating room, the process
of perforating 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 blank form, which
they must fill out during the day as
their work progresses.
\ 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
gummed, can tell at any moment If
>NNh SAiStt 10 lCSSlNluS us GNdCI DTO-
portion of gum.
Ihls system is an elaborate check
on the gummed sheets, and was de-
signed to insure the proportionate
quantity 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.
To meet tie 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
and March. The summer or hard gum
is 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
postcfices 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
the conditions Of half warn and half
cold weather.
b OF course, the most thorough pre-
cautions are taken to begin with in
procuring the very best quality of ad-
hesivc postal gum. This gum is de-
rived from dexterine, product ce-
cured in the process of making starch
from potatoes, corn and cassava root.
The starch obtained from the fore
going vegetables is treated by being
roasted ct temperature of about
600 degrees in its early stages, when
it later turns to dexterine, which is
later converted into postal gum. If
carried further than postal gum it
choDUaS tO prana supor or pIrooco