BRUSRMAKING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11049, 29 August 1896, Page 3

BRUSRMAKING.

MESSRS T. BUNTING AND CO.’S FACTORY.

Though the brushmaking industry is not a new one in Canterbury, it is only within recent years that it Mias been followed on aught but a very small scale.

Its extension is due to the enterprise of Messrs T. Bunting and Co., who in June last year took over the business established, ten years ago by Messrs Nind Ward and Co. In this business, in June, 1895, onlya foreman and five hands were employed. Now there are thirty-one persons, nine of them girls, most of the rest men, occupied therein, and the greater part of the block of buildings opposite the Oxford Hotel, at the corner of Colombo, and; ChesterStreets, is used as factory and storerooms.' 1 A gas engine is employed to drive the machinery used for turning and ■boring, the ‘backs, or “stocks” ofthe brushes, and additional machinery is expected to arrive shortly. • Native' woods—kauri, .white pine and tawa—and l ash and sycamore wood of New Zealand growth, are used for the stocks wherever, practicable, and as much of the other materials as possible; the horsehair, for instance, is also procured in the colony. The horsehair is hackled, combed’ and tied in tight bundles in a room on the ground' floor. Here also other materials—bristles, ! bass and whisk—are prepared ready for the hands of the brushmakers. The machinery for turning and boring stocks is on the upper floor, and on this floor the nine girls are occupied in “ drawing and wiring ” the bristles into- the stocks of scrubbing, shoe, clothes and other brushes. After the brushes leave their bands the backs are. glued on. When the glue is set the back is cut into a‘ form somewhat resembling its final shape by means of a guillotine knife.' It is finished off with a spokeshave, and the back is, riveted,., sand-papered, varnished, stamped and labelled ready for sale. The inianufnto.ture ' of flue-brushes —a, very interesting opera-, tion, in which the. brist.los-a.ve;Md-betweea two. niece's of wire, which are then, twisted together—is. also carried on. upon. the upper floor. Wh at--;is' Tmowp. ils “ pan ” work—--1 thej’, making of ".bass> whisk .and' hair brooms, ‘of hearthbrushes,- and;'other -brushes, in which the ~ha*r .is secureddnr. tile stock' .'by means; -of pitch * melted in, ;: “pans”—is done on the ground floor; whore ■ also Hie hair, bristles, &c., used in the panroom hre mixed kind tied Jn bundles according to size and quality. The firm produce upwards of one;, hundred different “lines,” varying from' blit 1 knq clothes brushes to chimneysweeps’ - , brushed. The J finish of their prodiictions ,'is /undejiiably good, and the quality iVprovqudiy the fact that the demand is -so.great that they have had to advertise' for 'workmen in. ail parts of the colony, ’to..'’cable,. for further supplies of material, -'and ;td work overtime for the last nine months. '' A 1931 ; ''

iNFiiUENKA.—lnstant relief and otuo by using Platypus Brand.. of ■Elualygtasgfßxr V tract aad Jy.ixi' 1 035.- i !-rAi)V'j'.'J Two wiigjjbng wore taking ji -bridal ;jpagty { to church in Texas, when they'had to puli,.up at a level- crossing, near which an engine was - standing on the lino. The party were merrily, when, the boiler of the ' engine suddenly exploded, killing the hride'and bridegroom, and five other women and four men. The nearest living relative of Professor Rdntgen is said to be his first cousin, the Reverend Dr J. 0. H. Rontg-cn, pastor of the first Reformed Church of Clove- ■ land. •• :