NEEDLES AND PINS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11581, 13 October 1900, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEEDLES AND PINS.

It seems remarkable, pays Engineering, that fifty to sixty workers ate needed to produce a needle or pin or patr ot hooks and eyes, and yet ir, is by this concentration and specialisation of plant that t!<s cost has been ho greatly reduced. T<"ii thousand hairpin* are ma \p for the a our cost of 3s sd, ogun6t 10s twenty y«-ars ago; 14.4:00 ot hooks and eyes for 6?, agiinst about 2Gs; 1,000 knitting needles for 4s against 10; 1,000 sewing niauhine neR-Jles for 9^ against neirly £17; 1,003 curved sowing rnadiine needles for 15* 7d against £27; while pius cost only Is for twelve packages instead of £2 2s. Engineering gives details of the change in making sewing machine needles. Straightening and cutting the wire into lengths is the first process, and by special machines this is done in about one-twontipfa of tbe time formerly required. R»ducing the wire to s ; ze used to take 285 times tho period now required; and here it may be remarked that one person attends thirteen of the cold pressing machines which carry out this part of the prowsa. Iv another case the same' work is done by a cold swaging machine and thirty three of thesi machines are attended by thrpe pe'nons, and each is paid twelve shilling* a day. The cold swaging machine does the work in 1-i 54th of the time required by hammer and anvil. Pouting the wire is done by steam-driven pmery wheels, and takes l-239t,u of the time needed by file, vice, and block; but :n other cases waterpower emery wheels are used, aud take much longer than with this steam driven tool. The grooving onchines take only l-177th lo 1-77 th part of tho time formerly necessary and here it should be noted that on 3 person earning 8s 4d a day nttandjg ten or twelve machine'?. A pnno'i substitutes the drill used in Ih i old process tor making the eye. The time taken is about the samp. The reaming and drilling is now done in l-205th part of the time; smoothing by a barring micuine 1-37 of thp time, aud other processes a correspondingly short period of time. The average wage piid is higher by 2i.d per hour, being 10J, notwithstanding that in the former prec u a3t'S only the scouring was done by fi-n.a'es, whoress now women an 1 eusfasr ••' in tbirropn' of the processes, twenty- civ; lit. of the fifty-seven of the workers beiug females.