His Machine Ties Bundles.
About eight years ago a father and his son began to work upon an idea that had occurred to the elder man during his working hours in the mailing division of the Chicago post office. A short time ago the result of their joint effort was put in operation. It is a package-tying machine that does the work of many men. So[Pg 61] convenient is the little contrivance that it has been introduced into the New York post office, too, and the government now is negotiating with the inventors for more of their machines.
The inventors are Romanzo N. Bunn and his son, Benjamin H. Bunn. For years the men have been tying up bundles of outgoing letters for transportation to the trains. Fast as the men worked, it always seemed Bunn thought it should be done faster. His son worked on the mechanical side of the problem. Together father and son toiled in a homemade shop at their home. The little portable “tyer” was what came out of the basement workshop.
The machine is about three feet high and about a foot square. It begins operation after the mail has been distributed in the racks by hand ready for tying to go to the trains. Then the machine is rolled along the line of pigeonholes and fed, by hand, by its retainer. Packs of letters, four inches thick, are placed into position, the machine is set in motion, and then—click, click, clop! That’s the way it sounds. The first two clicks indicate the tying of the packet of letters, sidewise and then lengthwise, and the “clop” the dropping of the bundle into a waiting basket.
Where the best men used to tie five or six packets in a minute, the machine now ties thirty—and it has not tried for a record yet!