THE BRUSH-MAKER.
1. There are few manufactured articles in more general use than brushes. This has arisen from their great utility, and the low prices at which they can be purchased. The productions of the brush-maker's labor are denominated variously, according to the purposes to which they are to be applied.
2. The operations connected with this business are very simple, as there is scarcely a tool employed which is not familiar to every other class of mechanics. The brush-maker, however, does not manufacture every part of the brush. He procures his wooden stocks and handles from various sources, but chiefly from the turner, and bone handles, from the tooth-brush handle-maker.
3. The first part of the process which may be considered as belonging particularly to the brush-maker, consists in boring the holes for the reception of the bristles. This is done with a bit of a proper size, which is kept in motion with a lathe, while the wood is brought against it with both hands. To enable the operator to make the holes in the right place and in the proper direction, a pattern is applied to the hither side of the stock.
4. The greater part of the bristles used by the brush-makers in the United States, are imported from Russia and Germany. Large quantities, however are obtained from Pennsylvania, and some parts of the Western States. American bristles are worth from thirty to fifty cents per pound, a price sufficiently high, one would suppose, to induce the farmers to preserve them, when they butcher their swine. Were this generally done, a tolerable supply of the shorter kinds of bristles might be obtained in our own country.
5. When the bristles come into the hands of the brush-maker, the long and short, and frequently those of different colors, are mixed together. These are first assorted, according to color; and those of a whitish hue are afterwards washed with potash-ley and soap, to free them from animal fat, and then whitened by bleaching them with the fumes of brimstone.
6. The bristles are next combed with a row of steel teeth, for the purpose of placing them in a parallel direction, and with a view of depriving them of the short hair which may be intermixed. The workman, immediately after combing a handful, assorts it into separate parcels of different lengths. This is very readily done, by pulling out the longest bristles from the top, until those which remain in the hand have been reduced to a certain length, which is determined by a gauge marked with numbers. At each pulling, the handful is reduced in height near half an inch.
7. The stocks and the bristles having been thus prepared, they are next fastened together. This is effected either with wire or by a composition of tar and rosin. The wire is used in all cases in which the fibre is doubled; but when the bristles are required in their full length, as in sweeping-brushes, the adhesive substance is employed.
8. It is superfluous to enter into detail, to show the manner in which the wire and composition are applied in fixing the bristles, as any person, with an ordinary degree of observation, can readily comprehend the whole, by examining the different kinds of brushes which are met with in every well-regulated household. The bristles, after having been fixed to the stock or handle, are trimmed with the shears or knife, according as they are required to be equal or unequal in length.
9. The brush is next handed over to the finisher, who applies to the back of the stock a thin veneer of wood, which secures the wire against the oxidizing influence of the atmosphere, and gives to the brush a finished appearance. The stock, together with the veneer, is then brought to the desired shape with suitable instruments, polished with sand-paper, and covered with varnish.
10. Those brushes which the manufacturer designs to be ornamented, are sent in great quantities to the ornamenter, who applies to them various figures, in gold or Dutch leaf, japan or bronze, and sometimes prints, which have been struck on paper from engraved plates.
