In China, the sawyer’s, the carpenter’s, the joiner’s, and the sashmaker’s trade are all exercised by the same person. There are no saw-mills, planing machines, or sash factories, and in sauntering about the streets of the cities, at the door of a shop, or new building, may be seen one or two men sawing boards from the logs, and inside other workmen manufacturing them into the different forms for constructing or finishing a house.
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The following interesting story of a man’s reckless treatment of a machine illustrates, very forcibly, that it is more times the man’s fault than the machine’s that the latter refuses to work properly. Of course, it means the replacing of prematurely-aged machinery with new, to have them run under careless or incapable management; but even at that, we do not believe that there is a single machinery manufacturer who would like to see the product of his brain, or his brawn, abused for the sake of added profit. The story comes from a bright correspondent of the “Indianapolis Woodworker.”
Some years ago, I left the furniture factory, where I had been employed as a machine hand, to look after and keep in repair four small planers in a slack barrel cooper shop. It was with considerable pride and elation that I had accepted the position, which had been offered to me through the superintendent of the factory, who had been asked to recommend a man for the place, and, as I was but one out of nearly a hundred or more in the machine room, I felt real chesty to think that out of that bunch I was the lucky chap. It jarred me considerably, however, when the sanderman said, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, ‘I guess you must be the only one whom the boss wants to get rid of.’
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Does machinery pay in the carriage-shop? This is a question to which we have given considerable attention during the past year, and in the descriptions of leading carriage factories which we have published, we have in each case given a full list of the machinery employed. During the coming year, we hope to ventilate this subject still further.
The following article, from the “Harness and Carriage Journal,” and evidently written by Mr. J. L. H. Mosier, who is already well known to our readers as a regular correspondent of The Hub, is valuable in this connection:
“Let us enter into a review of this question, commencing with the smithing-room and ending with the paint-shop. In the matter of power vs. hand-blast, power-blast is a saving over hand-blast of nearly one man to a fire, and yields a production of fully ten per cent more. Next come the drilling-machines: with the ordinary hand-power machines, we will allow that a good workman can drill forty three-eighth-inch holes through half-inch iron in one hour. With a power-drill, fully sixty of the same holes can be drilled in the same time by any ordinarily good boy, at 50 per cent less wages, showing a gain of 50 per cent in production, at a cost of 50 per cent less for labor, from which deduct about 20 per cent for power.”
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New York though not a leading State is an important one in the production of handles. The Lake States and other central western States have the principal factories of the larger well known corporations manufacturing fork, hoe and axe handles. Nearly every large manufacturing establishment has need for handle stock in one form or another. A number of industries like broom factories and cutlery stock occupy a prominent place. Establishments producing farm tools, files, saws, cutlery and other metal implements call for a great variety of woods.
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Sawing planks and boards is his employment, at which ſome will earn three or four ſhillings a day. There are great numbers of them, which is given as a reaſon why we ſhould not erect ſaw-mills as the Dutch do, and by the help of which one man will do as much as fifty can by their labour. Thus the Dutch run away with moſt of the trade of Europe for planks and timbers ready framed for building ſhips and houſes, But ſurely a publick good ought to be preferred to that of any private men. And if we ſtill want hands, as ſome ſuggeſt, theſe men might find employment in other branches of buſineſs.
The General Shop Book: or, Tradesman’s Universal Director – 1753
—Jeff Burks