Alaska sentinel., 1908-02-06
HOW CIGAR BOXES ARE MADE.
A Fortune spent in Producing Them
 Every Year.

There Is probably not cigar smoker ln the land who has not wondered, at one time or another, how much of what he pays for his smoke goes into the box and the Autographed labels and the gilt bands and the like, says Tit Bits. A box which holds fifty cigars costs from to 8 cents, according to what 1t Is made of, and this without counting the labels and bands, or any thing but the wood and~nails. The cost of these boxes used In the United States alone foots up to $6,000,000 ev- cry year. Some of them go to Ha- vana, but they come back with cigars in them.
 Perhaps the most interesting and least known fact about this industry is that, while some cigar boxes are made of cedar, a great number are made of poplar, veneered on one side with ce- dar, while still others are made of poplar without any veneer. In the lat ter case the wood is printed in imi- tatlon of cedar by the use of ink of ull Il uudShihc hiNh carries a printing roller on which are the lines to resemble the graining of cedar wood. The bottom and top of a cigar box of standard grade are 5-32 of an inch in thickness, while the ends are 7-32 of an inch. Despite the very small amount of wood needed, 1t is cheaper, however, to use the veneered poplar than the cedar. and still cheap. CT to print the poplar. Solid cedar boxes to hold 100 cigars now cost about 10 cents and the half boxes, or those for fifty cigars, about cents. The cor responding price for veener Is about l cent less, while for the printed poplar the prices are 8 to cents.
 Such prices are only made possible by the use of intricate machinery and subdivision of labor, and 1t is also i'm portant to waste as little of the ma terial as possible. To this end the wood of the proper thickness is not sawed from the log. but sliced or split by a special machine. The immense pressure, used in veneering wood for the manufacture of furniture is not used, and the veneered sides, which are pretty well warped and twisted at first, are strengthened out and dried simply by passing through rollers.
 Then the slabs are taken to the saw ing table, where they are ripped and cross-sawed-from five to ten in one cut-into pieces of proper dimensions for the single boxes which are being made. Thence the pieces are sent to the inspector, who, besides examining each and sorting out those which are imperfect, make separate piles, con taining the same number in each, of ends, sides, bottoms and tops.
 The ends and sides are nailed to- gether into a frame by one machine and the bottoms and tops are nailed on by another. These machines are fed with nails by an automatic ar rangement which presents the required number of them at each stroke. One stroke does the business of mailing at each corner and one stroke also suf- fees for the bottoms and tops, the nails being pushed in rather than driv. en. One of these machines will frame 5000 boxes a day and two machines working together will turn out 10000 >oxes except for the labels.
 The lid of the cigar box Is held in place by mailing only along the front edge and generally by one nail. The hinge at the back is made by one strip of cheesecloth glued upon the outside and subsequently, covered by the labels and paper trimmings. When the hinge is dry the pasting of the labels Is be- gun. Tiny metal hinges are sometimes put upon cigar boxes, but these are comparatively rare. So are dove-tail- ed boxes, which can, however, be had on order.
 Generally speaking, the entire inte- rior surface of the box Is lined with paper and paper flaps and In large fac tories the label printing and sometimes even the designing of the labels consti- tute an important branch of the work. Such printing is of an unusually va ried character, requiring several kinds of presses, including those for emboss ing.