Asa B. and Frank W. Cutler, brothers, who operate one of the largest fruit ranches in Oregon, have invented and are completing the construction of an apple-sizing machine that works by means of weighing mechanisms. The two young men, graduates in the mechanical-engineering department of the University of Illinois, have been experimenting for several years with grading and sizing machines, and during the past two years have put to practical test graders that made the choice of apples according to the dimensions of the fruit.
“However,” says Frank W. Cutler, “this method proved inaccurate, on account of the different shapes of the fruit. The new method will insure a standard pack, something that has been long sought by fruit districts.”
The new grader is so accurate that it will grade into different bins apples, the weights of which differ only a tenth of an ounce. The local inventors have improved on the receiving bins that are placed at the side of the graders. Their new bin tips itself toward the packer as it fills automatically, the end resting nearest the packer resting on springs.
How to Fireproof Clothes.
At the safety exposition held in New York recently, Doctor Charles Frederick Pabst demonstrated how to make fireproof clothing. He poured from one pound to a gallon of cold water in a solution of ammonium phosphate. Then he took an eight-inch strip of ordinary cotton gauze and dipped it in the ammonium-phosphate solution. He dried it with an electric fan and held it in a flame for thirty seconds, but it did not burn. He took another strip of gauze that had not been treated with the solution, and, on igniting it, it burned in four seconds. He advised that the whole family washing should be made fireproof. The expense of an average-size family would be about fifteen cents a week.
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!