Cortland Evening Standard, Friday, August 7, 1903.
A GROWING INDUSTRY.
The J. E. Davis Mfg. Co. Makes its First Shipment.
THE FACTORY IS A BUSY PLACE.
Sixty-three People Now on the Payroll—Orders Enough Ahead to Last for Months and More Coming—Piano Backs Alone Manufactured Now, but Several Other Lines to be Started Soon—Business to be Pushed Hard.
The J. E. Davis Manufacturing Co. made its first shipment of piano backs last Friday, and from this time forward it is expected that every day will see large shipments going out from that factory.
Few people probably realize how much preliminary work was necessary to the starting of a plant of this kind. Much expensive machinery had to be obtained and set up, shafting arranged, and then a host of wooden tools had to be manufactured to be used in the business, such as benches and horses upon which to place the lumber while work is in progress, and such as trucks to transport lumber about the factory, for every labor saving device means money saved in manufacture and better opportunities in competition. All of these wooden tools have to be of the most solid character so that they will not spring or yield in the slightest degree though heavily loaded, for everything about a piano has to be absolutely exact. It has taken some weeks to get these prepared and the machinery in place, but all is now in working order, and it is believed that there is not a better equipped factory of its kind in the country than that in Cortland.
The company owns its own building, having purchased it of The H. M. Whitney Co. at a large expense. It is a three-story and attic brick structure, built in the most solid and enduring way, and it has about 100,000 square feet of floor surface. It is fitted with automatic fire sprinklers throughout and the water is supplied from 12,000 gallon tanks in the cupola.
Three engines are installed, producing 140 horse power. Two boilers are already installed and one more has been purchased which, when placed, will aggregate 150 horse power.
It was expected that the plant would be ready to start two weeks earlier, but there was a delay in securing some of the machinery and supplies. Several of the machines are automatic in construction and were invented by J. E. Davis of the company and were produced from special designs made by himself, every machine and every device in the whole plant being arranged with the idea of adding perfection to the finished product and of saving labor and time, and thus lessening the cost of manufacture. A veneer press, operated by a one hundred ton hydraulic ram is one of the interesting as well as expensive pieces of machinery in use.
What a Piano Back Is.
Few people know the important part which a back plays in the construction of a piano. The great majority think of a piano back simply as a few boards nailed together to protect the internal mechanism from dust and foreign matter generally and to keep curious hands away from delicate parts with which they have no business. On the contrary, the piano back is the backbone of the whole piano. It is that which marks the difference between a first class and a low grade piano, between an expensive and a cheap instrument. The same grade and quality of wires are used in making cheap and high priced pianos, and there is, of course, a difference in the ornateness of the case and in the material used, but a great difference is in the back.
A piano back is composed of strips of hard wood in thin pieces glued together with the grain of the different strips at right angles to each other so as to prevent springing or yielding in any way and closely arranged with braces and stays till it forms a net work of timbers, the width and height of an upright piano and from four to eight inches thick. It weighs from 150 to 200 pounds. No bolts, screws or nails—the slightest swelling or shrinking of wood in a piano back will cause trouble at once by loosening pins, slackening wires and getting the instrument out of tune. Consequently, the dry kilns of a piano back factory play a very important part in the plant.
The old show room of the Whitney Wagon factory which was a separate building west of the main building is utilized for this purpose. Six separate kilns have already been constructed in this building, and eight more will be put in, and then the whole building will be utilized. The walls of the kilns are specially prepared with air passages for ventilation, while steam pipes carry the heat from the big engine and boiler. A fan operated by a 16 horse power engine which is in motion day and night draws the moist air from the top and sends it dried under the lumber again. Railroad rails laid with the carpenter's level form the bottom of the kilns. All lumber is piled exactly according to rule so as to be perfectly straight when softened up by the steam heat and dried. The temperature in the kilns is kept at 175 degrees. There are 2,000 feet of 1 1/4 inch steam pipe in each kiln. In this heat one-inch lumber can be made absolutely dry in four days and three-inch lumber in fourteen days.
Labor Saving Devices.
The company has already purchased thirty-five carloads of lumber, about 500,000 feet. Each kiln will hold about 30,000 feet of lumber at a time. Very soon the Lackawanna [railroad] switch is to be transferred from its present location east of the kilns to the west side of the kilns. A new fire proof building 20 feet high will then be constructed where the switch now lies between the kilns and the main building. This will be for the storage of dry lumber. When this is ready and the additional kilns are completed the company will be able to carry and will carry a half million feet of dry lumber in stock all the time.
The lumber as it arrives will then be transferred directly from the cars to the kilns. When dried, it will be passed out of the kilns into the dry room. As it is needed for use it will be passed from the dry room into the main building. Five swing saws will be located in five doors between dry room and main building, and the lumber will all be cut as it passes those saws into the desired length and placed upon trucks, of which there are now a hundred in the factory. From this point forward there will be no lifting of lumber to move it about, it will all be rolled upon the trucks.
Orders in Advance for Everything.
In the manufacture of piano backs there is no such thing as making up stock backs to be supplied at once to any one who may wish to buy, for every piano [house] has its own distinctive style of backs and places its orders for a supply to be made according to its own patterns. In the Washington, N. J., piano back factory, with which Mr. Davis was connected before coming to Cortland, there were at one time patterns on hand for 130 different styles of piano backs for as many different piano companies, and orders were filled for each according to the different patterns as often as desired.
There are now noted in the trade papers about 450 different piano manufactories in the United States, of which 60 per cent make their own backs because they believe they can make better backs than they can buy. The other 40 per cent buy from piano back factories and it is to supply the demand for these that the seven piano back factories of the country are filling orders. All of those who make their own backs prefer to buy if they can get equally good finished products, as cheap as they can make them. The J. E. Davis Mfg. Co. believes that there is not a plant in the country better fitted than its own to turn out backs of the most perfect style and at a minimum cost and it will try to secure orders from some of those houses which now make their own as soon as it is capable of making more than it can sell to those who are now buying from the open market. At present, however, the desire is not to secure new orders, but to fill the orders already on the books.
The order book was exhibited to a Standard representative upon a recent visit to the works, and this showed over twenty carloads of orders ahead, and not one of them taken during the month past. The company had declined to accept orders during the previous thirty days, being unwilling to book more till it was ready to ship and had begun to work off the orders already received. All the orders that have already come in were from former customers of Mr. Davis in Washington, N. J., and were obtained as a result of a call upon them during a two days' trip to New York. He has also had a host of letters from other former customers and other piano manufacturers who had never been customers asking him to quote prices and inquiring when he would be ready to fill orders if orders were placed.
Pay Roll and Employees.
Last Saturday the payroll was shown to The Standard man, and it disclosed the fact that sixty-three men and boys were employed in the works and that the total sum to be paid the help for the week's work was $859.23. Only two on the list receive less than $1.25 per day each and these two are boys who do boys' work, while few receive less than $1.50 per day for unskilled labor.
The plant is now turning out about 200 piano backs each day, and these make a carload and a half. A barrel of the best quality of glue a day is used in putting together the parts that make up the back.
This company possesses a decided advantage in that it is located in a hard wood district. The kinds of lumber most used are maple, beech, birch, elm, and one soft wood—basswood. Already the company has bought several large tracts of timber which it will clear up, using the lumber it desires and selling the rest. It expects to use three carloads of lumber a day in the one line of piano backs when the factory is running up to its capacity.
Plans for Enlargement.
The possibilities of this plant are very great. Not all of it is yet utilized for making piano backs. When this line of the trade is well started, then Mr. Davis has in mind turning his attention to the sounding boards of the piano, in which there is also a large field. And when this is in operation, then will come piano cases and finally piano stools. There is a great demand for all of these articles and a possibility of employing at least 300 men and boys at the factory. The company has made plans to run day and night when the time comes and it is believed that the day is not far distant when the only shut down of the machinery will be from Saturday night till Monday morning. This factory indeed promises to be one of the standby industries of the city, and it was a good day for the place when it decided to locate here.
BIG TIMBERS FELL.
Sixty Workmen Caught—Many Hurt but No One Killed.
Syracuse, Aug. 7.—Big beams to support the new building to be used by Lyman C. Smith & Brother for their new typewriter factory had just been put up when a sudden gust of wind at 1:20 o'clock this afternoon caught the structure and wrecked one side of it. Sixty workmen were employed on the floor at the time including carpenters and masons. Falling timbers struck a score of men injuring eight so seriously that they had to be taken to the hospital. Seven more were removed to their homes. No one was killed.
BARNUM'S CIRCUS.
To Exhibit on Owego-st.—Fair Grounds are too Small for Tents.
The advanced tent man of the Barnum & Bailey circus was in Cortland today for the purpose of staking out the grounds for the erection of tents. He found the fair grounds to be too small for the great size of the numerous tents and after a search about the city it was decided to have the exhibition on the Milne lot on the east side of Owego-st., Cortland, south of the Lehigh Valley railroad tracks where circuses have often exhibited before.
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