MESSRS TYREE BROS.' BOOT MANUFACTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1170, 2 May 1874, Page 12

MESSRS TYREE BROS.' BOOT MANUFACTORY.

Messrs Tyree Bros, are just preparing to start a boot factory on premises situate in Forth Place. Mr Wm, Tyree has had experience in boot factories in London, and, from experience as a bootmaker in the Colonies, has gained a knowledge of Colonial requirements in his line. In the factory, boots and shoes of every description are to be manufactured — from the commencement to the finish— much division of labour being introduced into the manufacturing process, and employment offered to a good many -women, girls, and boys, as well as to bootmakers. Our reporter visited the premises • last week, when the uses of the machinery fitted up and the process to be followed was explained to him. The first machine is that known as the roller, in which sole leather is put through a pair of rollers at a very heavy pressure, superseding the primitive arrangement of hammer and lapstone. Having passed through the roller, it is next treated in the press, where the " knives " cut it into soles and heels. These "knives," as they are called, might be more fitly termed dies. The leather is laid on a fiat part of the press, a knife is laid on the leather, and on a wheel being turned pressure is brought to bear on the knife, which cuts its way through the leather. The knife cuts out a sole or heel, according as it is a sole or heel knife that is being used, with the greatest cleanness of edge. Each knife cuts out the soles for a pair of boots, rights and lefts being obtained by reversing the leather of the sole m one of the boots. The difference between the sizes of heels cut is something surprising. The heel of the boot in which the sluicer works iB four inches long by four and a half wide, whereas the heel on which Miss Emily " does the block" in Princes street from 3to 5 p.m., weather permitting, is hardly an inch and a quarter long, and one inch wide. Fortune, in heels, hath some small difference made. The old and slow plan of making holes by an awl for pegs or rivets, has here given way to a process by which all the peg or rivet holes needed in, say, a sole or top piece, are made in a twinkling, and with beautiful regularity. Having referred to the soles and heels, we will now turn to the uppers. Messrs Tyree Brothers believe that in the matter of boots of superior make, and in the uppers of which there is much fine work, they can turn out an article of a quality which cannot be approached by any imported. Furthermore, that, while able to produce a better article, they will sell it at the same price as the imported one ; ! and on this fact they look forward to making a business. In the imported uppers of the better descriptions the leather after the voyage is hard, and the cloth lining becomes yellow and faded, but if the leather is not worked up till after it has arrived it remains soft, and the lining put in here has a fresh appearance, and not the faded look to be seen in the imported article. Messrs Tyree for this reason anticipate that they will do a large trade in women's and children's boots of a superior description. The uppers, after being cut out by the "clicker," are subjected to a process which gives them the proper shape ; and if elastic sides are to be put in, are handed to a machinist, and come back to the " clicker " two or three times before he is finally done with them. The soles, heels, and uppers next go to the rivetter, who " lasts " his upper on an iron last which is firmly kept in position on a post a little higher than the bench before which he stands. The rivetter puts m the pegs or rivets, and the boot being rivetted on an iron last firmly fixed, the work is much better and more quickly done than if made in the lap. It is also evident that it is much healthier for the men to stand to their work than to sit in a stooping position, as bootmakers usually do. There is a very large quantity of these iron lasts on the premises, no less, in tact, than three tons of them. The boot passes from the rivetter to the fininher, who polishes, colours, and ornaments them. Iherc are two simple and ingenious labour-saving machines on the premises-one for punchin ff eyelet-holes, and another for putting in brasses. There is also a powerful "Jones's boot Bewing machine,' which m dexterity is equal to and in speed^ f ar our informant forcibly described as no time." Messrs Tyree Bros, will make a beginning with 20 or 30 hands, but with the machinery and appliances on the premises, they can keep going 100 > men, women, boya, and girls, and, with the work promised and expected, they antjoij>*tn they will towe to wlargo tfw

present buildings, and that they will give employment to fully that numoer. They also intend to work up Colonial leather to a very large extent in the manufacture of the stouter kinds of boots. One advantage to employes is that_ they can live near where they work, instead of having to come up to some part of the southern end of the city, which will be appreciated by the girls and women employed. The fact of employment being afforded to so large a number of hands by the factories which have during the past year or so sprung into existence, or have been greatly enlarged, is a very gratifying sign, and affords an answer to the query : "What shall we do with our boys?" — and, we may add, our girls too 1 Constant remunerative .and useful employment to a large section ©f the community cannot but be for the general good, and the factories now starting up not only give lucrative employment to the skilled hand, but to the organizing brain, and afford a profitable investment for capital.