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Cellophane is Born

By A. P. PECK

1. From forest giant to Cellophane is a long stride made possible by chemical research. For the manufacture of Cellophane, the Du Pont Company buys wood pulp—purified cellulose—in square sheets, soaks them in a caustic soda solution (above); the result is “alkali cellulose”.

2. Damp alkali cellulose is shredded into small fluffy particles, aged for two to three days in order that later steps in production may be carried out successfully. Above: Unloading ground-up chemically treated cellulose from shredder.
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MECHANICAL ARTISTS BLOW GLASS BOTTLES

Age-old art of lung-powered glass blowing gives way to puffing, snorting robots of almost human intelligence, capable of turning out 115 bottles a minute.

by Harold L. Zimmer

HAVE you ever picked up a soda or medicine bottle and wondered just how anything so perfect could be turned out in such huge numbers? Perhaps through your mind has flashed the heroic picture of countless, ruddy-cheeked men, industriously blowing away on long tubes, the respective ends of which are covered with round, glowing balls of hot glass.
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HOW ICE CREAM IS MADE

Prepared by the Armstrong Cork Company, makers of Industrial Insulations, in cooperation with the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers

They say Dolly Madison introduced ice cream to America. When she first served it at the White House she probably hoped it would become popular, but she never dreamed of the big plants and automatic equipment that now produce thousands of gallons and dozens of flavors. Read the rest of this entry »

From Rubber Tree to Tennis Balls

NEXT time you drive a well-placed tennis shot just out of reach of your opponent’s racket, give some of the credit to the expert craftsmen who made the ball. How men and machines can turn out an endless stream of the white spheres, each an exact match for its predecessor in weight, balance, and liveliness, is shown in the unusual series of views reproduced on this page. Read the rest of this entry »

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How Your Glassware Is Made

By George H. Waltz, Jr.

TWO opposite extremes in manufacturing —meticulous handwork by skilled craftsmen and high-speed mass production performed by automatic machines—provide the wide variety of household glassware we use each day.

Up until 1903, all types of table glassware, ranging from tumblers to vases, were either hand-pressed or hand-blown by master artisans. Then came what is considered to be the greatest single advance in the 5,000-year history of glassmaking—the perfection of an automatic glass-blowing machine that put glassmaking on the production line.
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Robot Production Line Makes 3 Radios a Minute

THE so-called “printed” radio sets are still new on the American scene, but they are rapidly becoming common items in England. A new factory near London is using a robot machine (above) which takes the plastic molding in one end and delivers the printed circuits from the other end at the rate of three a minute. It would take about 2,000 workers to do the same job by hand.
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A Hundred Miles of Cookies Every Day

USING complicated machines, modern bakeries turn out millions of cookies every day to satisfy the American sweet tooth.

MUCH has been said of quantity production, and in the public mind the term usually is associated with motor car assembling. But the process of continuous manufacture was in use in other industries long before the automobile achieved its remarkable popularity.
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You can read part I here.

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MODERN WONDERS of an Ancient Art Part II

By H. W. MAGEE

Part II

IMAGINE a metal house coated with glass, a home with all the delicate coloring and enduring beauty, inside and out, of age-old cloisonne.

The development of porcelain enameled iron for architectural purposes makes such a home both possible and practical. As a building material, porcelain enameled iron—actually a form of glass fused on to a metal base—offers an admirable union of utility and beauty for it possesses the strength of metal plus the hardness and permanence of glass. It can be produced in any hue or combination of hues in the mineral spectrum, it is colorfast, impervious to weather, non-porous, rustproof and can be made acid-resisting. And it is good for a lifetime of service.
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Auto Made from Beans

Versatile Plant Furnishes Chop Suey Sauce and Plastic Moulded Parts for Cars

PLASTICS — chemical compounds which, are compressed under heat into desired shapes, and thereafter are not subject to corrosion—are increasingly in use. Some are made of coal-tar products, some of milk; and one, which Henry Ford is now employing extensively, utilizes the Chinese soy bean. This useful plant, is, next to rice, the staff of life in the Celestial republic; like beans, peas, and other “legume” plants, it contains the proteins, or nitrogen compounds, for which we eat meat. Its oil, also, has found many uses; and those who have eaten the great American national dish, chop suey, are familiar with the dark soy sauce which accompanies it. The mechanical uses of the soy bean (which does not resemble American beans) are of more recent discovery. Read the rest of this entry »

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Toys Keep Pace With Children’s Tastes

A YOUNG father of a two-year-old youngster, noticing the eagerness of his offspring to lay hands on something with wheels on it in which he could move about, sat down one evening in his basement workshop and knocked together that simple mechanism of juvenile locomotion known to millions as the kiddie-kar. Observing the popularity of the toy with children of the neighborhood, the father concluded that it would be a good idea to manufacture the cars on a commercial scale.

He was right. It was a good idea—good enough to set him on the path to financial independence. Today his invention is produced by the thousands, and this Christmas Santa Claus will slide down an unguessable number of chimneys on a kiddie-kar. Read the rest of this entry »

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AUTOMATION

Robot Machines Are Cutting Costs, Boosting Profits and Making Jobs, Bringing More Leisure to Everyone.

THOUGH its history is brief, automation already has its own folklore. One of its most widely told legends concerns C.I.O. President Walter P. Reuther and a Ford executive who were touring Ford’s automated engine plant in Cleveland. As they strode past huge self-operating tools that bored cylinder holes, positioned connecting rods and bolted down manifolds, the Ford executive wisecracked: “You know, not one of these machines pays dues to the U.A.W.” Retorted Reuther: “And not one of them buys new Ford cars, either.”
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He Made Sky Mapping a Big Business

High above the broken floor of the Rio Grande River basin, an airplane growls monotonously over 32,000 square miles, each click of its Cyclopean camera bringing nearer to completion the largest photographic mapping project ever undertaken in the United States.

EXACTING and tedious is the scientific job of gathering up 32,000 square miles and literally pasting them in your hat. Only one man is utterly capable and he is the fellow who supervises the shooting and assembling of this vast mosaic.
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