Evening star., 1918-08-18

by machinery. The heavy soles are
cut out by machines at the rate of
eight pairs per minute and the heels
are trimmed by rotating cutters which
viii trim more than 1900 pairs in
day. They are nailed on by machines
which will drive more than $50 nails
in one minute, and the welt and the
upper are fastened to the insoies by q
machine that will sew 500 pairs of
shoes in day. The brass eyelets are
put in by q machine which sets 5000
per day and the uppers are made
ready for lasting by the wonderful
pulling over" machine whose pincers
of steel work as though they We're
human fingers. They automatically
pull the leather into just the right
shape so that 1t can be lasted and
fasten 1t with tacks. doing what for
years the cobblers insisted could never
be done except with the hand. THIS
"pu'ling over machine cost more
than $1,000 900 to bring it to its
present perfection, and IT took five
years of experimenting to make II mt
for use on all kinds of leather, canvas
and cloth.
in all seventy-five different machines
are used in making the new Pershins
shoe, and the shoe machines of one
kind or another made by the United
Shoe Machinery Company run high
up into the hundreds. The factories
here ship over 10000 different ma
chimes every year. while the machine
lions. During my visit.to the Beverly
plant I went through the stockroom
which contains these parts ready for
shipment on telegraphic order to any
part of the country. The stockroom
covers about an acre and half and
boxes, each of which has its own
special piece or part of machinery.
There are thousands of different
parts stored in this room and they
are so arranged and labeled that any
can be nottan in five minutes. Some
of the parts are as big as a watch
pivot and others weigh as much as
two tons. asked the manager of the
room how many parts he had stored
there. He replied Just about as
United States, We have more than
twenty million individual pieces of
one kind or another and we are now
shipping out about 100000 parts
every week" 1T takes fifty men to
take care. of the stockroom, and the
messenger boys go back and forth
through the aisles on roller skates.
Xxx
But 1. am getting ahead Of my
story. Let US take an airplane view
of this huge plant. which, is turning
out the many machines for making
the shoes of our soldiers. The United
Shoe Machinery factories at Beverly
have a floor space of more than sew
enteen acres. They consist of great
buildings of stone, iron and glass.
i. each thousand feet long, sixty.feet
wide ana four stories high. Their,
walls and roofs are of glass set in a.
framework of stone and steel, up the
sides of which the ivy has climbed
until they look more like medieval
castles. than q great industrial es-
tablishment II yoh look closely you
will see guards here and there about
the buildings. -ThAr work is such
that they have to be- carefully pro-
tected., and no one may come near
them without pass and the proper
Entering the factories you find every
floor filled with maze Of moving MAJ
chinery. of the most complicated de-.
scriptioJ,. The plant makes nothing
but machinery and machine parts, and
the story of its various processes
would form an encyclopedia almost of
the whole ..steelmaking industry.
There are enormous foundries where
the molten metal is csst into parts.
and there are. great forging estaS-
lishments where huge. steam hammers
shape the red-hot steel as easily as
you could shape shocmakers' wax with
} your fingers. There are lathes which
cut the hardest of metal as though 1t
We're cheese and which. will shave
down the parts SO that they fit 10 the
one e-thousandth, ard some even to tha
ten -thousandth, of, an inch. The
pulling over" machine which have
already referred to has 1.400 different
parts sornd of wllicj, fit SO closely, in
its complicated mechanism, that you
could not put baby's hair between
the Joints.
On my way throagh the factories
L walked over floors covering n half
acre .or more devoted to making a
single class of parts. The machines
are automatic, and some Of them make
screws small enough fora. watch.
while other3 turn out bolts. big
enough for Q safe. In making some
of the screws the raw ma terfak goes
in Mt one end in round steel bars as
thick as lead pencil and comes one
at 1.-The other. in screws. perfectly
, shaped with the cut in the head.
ready for use. All that is necessary is
to feed in the. steel and the machine
does the rest, turning out screws. by
the thousands. 1t takes one man only
to care for five such machines. .Simi-
lar Work for making smaller screws
Is done by other machines not far
away In the latter the steel feed IS
rods as big around as a knitting
needle, and the product is the tiny
screws fitted for the delicate parts of
certain shoemaking tools.
X