WHAT CAME OF A DROP OF SOLDER
As is generally understood, automatic maohi'nefy has within the ppst few years come to ahuoßt entirely supersede manual labor m making oa^B, which are ÜB3d m enormous quantities for preserving fruit, vegetables, fi<h, meats, etc. In one of these maohines the longitudinal Reams of the cans are soldered at the rate of fii'.y per minute, the bodies passing along m a continuous stream, so to speak. There is left a very email surplus of solder on the cans thus soldered. From the outside of the ran it was easy to devise means to wipe this off, but it was not so easy t ) see how the inaide could be wipedOf course it would not do to stop the progress of the stream of cans; the possible eaviDg by wipiog off the Inside of fche joint was only a drop of colder, to a can, something almost without value, The solder used when the work was done by machinery was le:s than when the work waa done by hand, and to nine hundred and ninety-nine men In a thousand the matter would be looked upon as worth no consideration.
The thousandth man was a workman m the employ of a firtn using one ef these machines. He Wan evidently Impressed with the idea that this little drop of solder had nob received due consideration, and he devised an- ingenious arrangement for wiping the inside of tbe Beam without m any. way interfering wicb. the other operations. It la interesting to note what this amounted to. One of theie machines will solder 30.GC0 cans p3r day, and from aotual obaetvation the multiplioation of the insfgnifioant drop of solder by 30,000 represents a saving of fifteen dollarn a day on every machine m use. The last time the writer had the pleasure of meeting the inventor and meohanioal head of the large company manufacturing this machinery be drew from his pooket a nugget of solder. There was nothing particularly handsome about it, but :'U represanted the saving m " raw material" on a certain number of cans, and he seemed to prize it higher than he would have p'izad a diamond of the same Bias; Be talked entnusiaßtloally of the man who devised a means of saving— not a million or ten dollars— 'but' a single drop of solder, worth perhaps fourteen cents a pound.
The sequel of this imperfect narrative is by no means the least interesting par oo it. 'Jhe workman referred to was; 6a oonraged to p.Uarit his little arrangement and the parlies m intefeot agreed to, pay him a haudsome royalty for it. From tha number of machlo* s already m osh he is assured of aome thousands of dollars of royalty, and from those likely to come into Q9B this will be swelled to a very handiomo flam,
tefcThe laafc clause of this/entirely ti-ttthful atDiy should be* the moral. -IW'pm t<£ think aa yon work.
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Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1633, 11 August 1887, Page 2
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493WHAT CAME OF A DROP OF SOLDER Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1633, 11 August 1887, Page 2
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