Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-02-06

HOPEWELL, Va, Feb. 6:-This
is an age OF amazing and wonderful
machinery, but the china industry is
turning out cups, saucers, and sugar
bowls by practically the same simple
methods that it used fifty years ago.
The cheapest plate on your dinner
table was made on a potter's wheel.
The china in the ten-cent store and
the ware in the finest shop both
represent processes that are 95 per
cent handwork. In the face of
science, invention, and standardized
eHciency the potter has had the
courage-and the strength-to re-
main a craftsman.
The reason is not hard to find. The
pottery industry is tightly organized
in a union and the union men will
not use machinery. They know that
machinery would throw perhaps nine
out of ten of them out of work.
The pottery plant here recently
Installed an $4,000 labor saving ma
chine. This contrivance would easily
and rapidly make the clay containers
In which dishes are stacked when
they r to be fred in the kilns. But
the men refused to touch the ma
chine They r craftsmen and arti-
sans and they prefer to remain in
Ill4o SLdtuH IdllCT lIIdh u DECOIIlS
factory hands. The china industry
pays well. Skilled workers draw from
IS to $50 a day. They are satisfied
with things as they are.
That china is made almost entirely
by hand does not mean that one man
makes each article. In the pottery
here the clay is handled ~thirty-one
times before 1t is shipped out in the
form Of q finished dish. The work is
systematized, and every worker does
his special bit as swiftly and eff
ciently as if he were in a machine
run plant.
The only elaborate machinery in
these shops Is in the mixing DOM.
Six different varieties of clay are
brought here to be made into china.
One kind Is from Florida, one from
New Jersey, and one from North
Carolina. The other three kinds
come from England. All except one
! grayish variety are white and pow
derry. The six clays are taken from
their separate bins and mixed and
reduced to a liquid by machinery,
and the water is squeezed out. After
this mechanical step the clay Is ready
for the potter.
Even the plaster Of Paris molds on
which the pottery is shaped are
formed by hand on a whiriing wheel.
Whole rooms are lined with shelves
or which molds for plates and dishes
of every description are stacked. The
effect is that of a huge pantry stored
with interminable stacks of very
white pies,
These molds and the clay go to a
room where a row of potters are
standing at wheels. A mold Is laid
on a wheel and a fiat cake OF clay is
thrown on that. The wheel revolves
a few times, and under the skillful
| fingers of the operator a saucer
comes into existence. The plaster of
Paris absorbs some Of the moisture
from the clay and in a few hours the
saucer Is entirely dry.
How jugs are Made
Jugs, sugar bowls, an cover dish
es cannot be quickly shaped on a
potter's wheel. To cast a jug, liquid
| clay is poured into a hollow mold.
After a certain length Of time a hard
layer OF clay has formed in the de-
| sired shape inside the mold.
The LIQUID left in the center Is
| poured off and when the jug left In
the mold is dry, the mold Is taken
off and the jug fred.
Handles for pitchers and cups are
| made in a curious fashion. Ihe molo
| for these pieces looks like a nat tile
in which some one has traced with
a finger a grooved line down n
center and a series Of ear-like figures
attached to each side of 1t one above
the other. Clay Is poured into this
| design and allowed to harden. The
result is a row of handles attached
to each side of a central stick OF
clay. A man trims the handles of
neatly and they are cemented on the
cups with clay.
All of this pottery, fresh from the
potter's wheel and from casting,
looks like the material of which
paper picnic plates are made, except
that 1t is a grayish white. The I'M
fred dishes are about as brittle as
short pie crust. A plate al be crush
ed between two fingers with tn
slightest pressure.
To gain the enduring quality or
china this fragile ware must be
baked in a kiln. The kilns are treat
brick ovens that rise above the low,
one-story shops in cone-shaped tow
ers. There r fifteen kilns in this
Virginia plant, and each of the big
Zones can hold 6 1000 pieces at a time.
The china cannot be packed loose In
the oven. Thick clay containers,
shaped like shallow wash boilers and
known as saggers, are packed with