The Wunderlich Ceiling Factory.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 2, 1 December 1908, Page 47

The Wunderlich Ceiling Factory.

jjlppiipSoMPAßisoN is the sense which is ijr fi most appealed to Avhen the |fl BSLSi visitor enters this factory, for Pm^^J the sight of the very prolirk^k—tVm| gressive industry before him compels him to bear in mind the past and the future, as well as the present. The present is a neat factory, compact, businesslike, evidently a going concern. The past, Australian, extends back twenty years. In Sydney the "Wunderlich industry began with one room, one product, half a dozen workmen, a limited capital, and an unlimited .stock of brains jand enterprise. The capital limit advanced rapidly to £10,000 paid up, ran swiftly up to £25,000, and before many years it reached £145,000, spread over many establishments employing hundreds of skilled workmen, sending out goods to all parts of Australasia and to most of, the Pacific 1 countries. With this state of things the factory at Newtown, established by the enterprise of Messrs. Briscoe and Co., makes at present but small comparison. But the past of the present establishment justifies the belief that the comparison of the future will show a better balance In an industry like this, a going concern to-day means a vast business to-morrow. They turn out in Sydney at the parent factory over 2,000 tons of sheet steel annually, in the form of ceiling material, amounting to some three millions of square yards, an aggregate big enough to ceil 200,000 12 x 10 rooms; and at the same time there are worked other metals, copper, zinc, galvanised iron, aluminium, nickel, and more, all used for various architectural purposes. Such an output, together with the evident and growing popularity of the departments of the same throughout the Dominion, is the best guarantee of the great development awaiting the newlyestablished industry which Messrs. Briscoe and Co. have taken in hand. The building, on the hill top of Adelaide Koad, with its bright, cool-looking roof of Marseilles tiling, is a prominent landmark, visible from most parts of Newtown. Passing through the offices, you enter the lofty workshop of wood and iron, 166 ft. long by 34ft. in breadth, and 20ft. in height, with

a roof of 10ft. pitch. It is splendidly lighted, and there is a travelling gantry with high speed gear, very convenient, and capable of picking up anything on any part of the floor and carrying it anywhere, to stack or load carts or unload them, or anything else that may be desired of it. Your eye falls on a few machines, a painting machine, a drop hammer machine, and a guillotine, with a couple of electric motors with shafting and belting above, and cases of reserve stocks of steel sheets, 30 gauge, the manager tells you — in various positions. A few men working about the machines, smoothly and fast, and that is all. The practical man is delighted, for he sees in this compactness of simplicity and this easiness of working the evidence of work to be depended upon — evidently the result of much experience and thought.

Bnt the man bent on picturesqueness of description is disappointed, finding but small woof for his warp of words. It is not a case for "words, words, words, words." Nevertheless it is very interesting Take that mechanical painter the workmen are serving with steel sheets, feeding them one by one into the rollers of the machine. These rollers (two) stand one above the other in a trough full of liquid paint; they are worked by a small electric motor, a little giant of seven cubic feet and five horsepower, that is heard not at all, and does strenuous work in an undemonstrative sort of way; there is a screw and some rubber arrangement regulating the thickness of the paint laid on the sheets as they pass between the rollers. The paint is continually splashing in the

trough, but not a drop falls outside to make a mess — it is a little thing in itself, but a great demonstrator of the care and forethought of the planning. This paint, moreover, for all its fluidity, does not drip from the sheets, as they emerge each with a light, even, perfectly finished coat, which dries quickly in the racks put up for the purpose. This coat of paint is "the priming," fit to take on any artistic work that any artist may feel called upon to execute. The paint is mixed by a mechanical mixer, which, owing his life to the electric spark, never leaves off mixing steadily and well. What is the mixture? That is the firm's secret; and it certainly looks as if it were worth keeping. Talking output, we get better information. This painter, with his mixer and the aid of two men, can put through some 5,400 sheets a day. Compare that with a daily hand work compass of 60 to 70 per man. The world of factories is certainly not "The Land of Nod." The dried sheets go next to the embossing process. Overhead there are wheels and pulleys actuated by a twenty horse electric motor,, not much bigger, however, than his brother who does the painting. Attached to the wheels and pulleys is the "drophammer," a solid block of metal which stands ready to obey the word of a workman standing by. When that word is given — by a cord, for in this noisy business of what use in the mouth of man ? — the hammer comes down with a tremendous thud. Below stands a die, on a base of cast steel which weighs some 10 tons, and the hammer strikes fair and square for the die, but hits the steel sheet which the workmen interpose, and you have a pattern embossed on the sheet. Suppose there are four squares to the sheet, the workmen move the sheet on after every blow, and the hammer comes down, and so on until the sheet is embossed from end to end. From the hammer the sheet goes to the guillotine, by which it is trimmed with mathematical accuracy so as to take its place in its destined scheme of decoration without further trouble. The patterns are in great variety fit for ceilings, wall linings, wall exteriors, cornices, dadoes, overmantels, brackets, all things that architects design and artificers execute. They suit a vast variety of

schemes of decoration, all planned by the firm's architect, and the firm is ready and willing, even anxious to stand or fall, by them. They go further, even, for, like some politicians, they declare that "these are our unalterable sentiments and designs, but if you prefer others, just trot them out and they shall be made in our factory. ' ' Which means that the firm is prepared to turn out work according to any design that may be sent in to them for the purpose. That was what the firm did for the ceilings of the Sydney Town Hall and of the Wellington Town Hall, for example. Such is the factory started by Messrs Briscoe and Co. the other day. We publish illustrations of the exterior and of the group of persons in whose presence the Mayor of Wellington declared the place open for business. To show the future that awaits the enterprise, we have given some illustrations of the works in Sydney (the drop-hammer room and the guillotine room), together with various examples of the decorative work in situ. The order of the processes is as follows. Artists design the schemes and patterns, under the supervision of the

and extensive, and requires great skill. In addition, there is an engineer's department, in which all repairs are effected to machinery, and new machines made as required; there is a carpenters' and joiners' department, in which is made the elaborate woodwork often required in the decorative schemes ordered from the firm. There are packing sheds and show rooms, offices, board rooms and the rest. The administrative and factory buildings cover two acres at Redfern, and have frontage to three streets. They are provided with electric light, and the most up-to-date conveniences of all kinds, and power is supplied by a "Diesel" 95 B.H.P. oil engine, the only one in use in Australia. There are 260 hands ; they have from the first been on the best terms with the firm, their hours being 44. The Wunderlich were the first in Australia to establish a true eight hours factory day, and there is a provident fund liberally subsidised by the management. The maximum ruling wages have always been paid, and the firm has a library of technical works to which the whole staff has access, and it encourages study by paying half the night class fees of

chief architect of the firm. Modellers put these designs into plaster, and moulders turn them into metal. These are the dies used under the drop-hammers as above described. It takes three separate departments to turn out the dies, and there are several long galleries in which thousands of the dies are stored ready for issue at a moment notice. The painting and the embossing follow, as described, the difference being numerical, more machines and more noise, the latter being in the Sydney works, where twelve are going at top speed all together (at Redfern), deafening. It is noteworthy that, before the embossing, every sheet is overhauled carefully and nothing in the least degree out of order permitted to go on. Then come processes more complicated, A department is busy with the making of the stamped parts of plans requiring building up, those ceilings, for example, which give the idea of great weight with deep shadows, and elaborate ornamentation of centre pieces and other devices. Another department is occupied by tinsmiths — •skilled metal workers — who build up the parts stamped. The work is very elaborate

tho.se who choose to take that method of self improvement. If an industry with "points" like these does not succeed in the Dominion it will be for no defect of its own.