The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1909-07-22
The Making
Of Brushes
An Expert Review of the Business
of Making Brushes of
All Kinds.

Nv AoUNt q low Ied0cIS ucIo WOu1U
be glad to learn something about the
different industries of the worlds com-
merce as they progress in the various
stages of manufacture. My first SUBJ
ject will be that Of Brush Making.
There are some people who do not
know the first rudiment of how brushes
are made and still they have to use
them every day of their lives. Brush
making is divided into three parts,
namely: Block making, brushing Tor
puliing) and finishing. A block before
it can reach the drawing stage has to
go through whole lot of processes. 1t
has to be milIed, planed, shaped and
hole-bored, which vary as to the style
of brush desired. The number of holes
in block vary from II to 500.
Now we are r. ady to draw the brush,
or as some would say, fill in tie holes.
There are two ways of drawing brush.
Some draw by hand and others draw
with the aid of machine, which is
much quicker and turns out double the
amount of work. Wire OF very fine
and strong nature is used to draw with,
the different kinds of brushe, neei diff
ferent sizes of wire to make strong
and good brush. What tie drawer calls
the stock is composed of the different
kinds of hair, or whatever goes in to
make the brush, which are too namer-
Gus to mention but will name few
to give my readers an idea.
The cheapest kind of stock is Tampi-
co which grows in Tampico Bay and
which is dyed into different colors, and
the dearest kind is goats hair cut from
goats chin whiskers which makes it
expensive as there has to lie lot of
goats whiskers cut before a brush can
be made out of tle hair These brushes
are made for ladies with dainty COM
plexions such as the Four Hundred as
that kind of brush is round aud they
have anywhere from $50 to 375 holes in
them and you can hold the brush in the
palm Of your hand. Tie backs of them
are trimmed with silver or gold mount
ings, according to how much one cares
to spend.
Now to eet back to my story there
are also Bristol, horse hair, camels' hair
and Chinese Bristols which are longer
than our own and cost more as they
must be imported from China. think
the reason the China Bristol is longer
they give the boars plenty of time to
grow. In our country the Beef Trust
is too greedy to let our boars grow.
In drawing brushes you hold the wire
between your thumb and fcrefinger in
order to make loop and then push it
through the hole and with the other
hand you hold the stock the same as
you hold the wire and pass the stock
through the loop. If you have too
much it will not go in and if you have
100 little it will pull through. 1t takes
time like any other trace until you get
used to it. This is the drawing-by-han
method and in order to see if brush
is made good or not you hold it up to
the light. If you see daylight through
it you can put it down that brush will
not last long.
The machine way of drawing is much
easier and quicker as you have handle
to hold your wire which runs around
on little wheel inside and your stock
can come any size you wish by just
regulating little screw.
The record for drawing by hand to
my knowledge is 5000 holes for days
work of nine hours and by machine
10000 for the same time which cav
myself in the state of New Jersey.
Before l become bore to my readers
/ will come to the last stage Of the game
which is the finishing Of the brush.
After the brush has been drawn it is
sent to the finishers to have the back
put on, trimmed to the desired style