DUNEDIN MANUFACTURES.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2261, 5 August 1870, Page 2

DUNEDIN MANUFACTURES.

There are some very unpretending looking establishments in Dunedin, where manufacturing processes are followed on a large scale, and with every advantage of suitable appliances. Trades are growing into importance without attracting public attention. The work is done in rooms away from the public street, and even visitors to the shop in which the articles are sold, seldom suspect that the cheap and excellent goods they see, are manufactured on the r .In' Princes street, nearly opposite- the DplUij Times office, is the shop of MessrsHugh.es and Harvey. Any one going • tliereibUtinware or A colonial oven, would hardly think of asking himself where what he wanted was made. ' He might- be surprised at the difference of price between what he sought to buy now, and what the same goods would have fetched years, ago. If the thought crossed his mind at all, lie might attribute it to altered times ; and this would be true, but hot'in the sense in which he imagined it. Tho.alteration is that the goods are now nqjacjie here which used to bo imported—that in spite of high wages and importations duty-free they can be manufactured cheaper arid better tbau they can be obtained from home. This can only be done by the application of adecpiate machinery. It seldom enters one’s head to think how the tinsmith manages to make jam tins so cheaply, or tins for preserved meats, or billy cans, or saucepans. Most persons would be as much puzz'ed to answer that question, as George the Third was to know how apples were put into a dumpling; and they would look with curiosity upon the machinery adapted to every part of the proc.ss. The sheet of tin is cut into the necessary forms far more rapidly than it is possible to describe bow it is done. Tops and bottoms to the tins are formed by dies that move with irresistible force on pujliug a lever, and which stamp them out at one pressure. .Shears cut a' piece of tin to an unerring gnage of length and width. It is then folded by machinery with the utmost precision at the edges, so that when they are brought together, they slip into each other and form a joint. Under the force of another machine the little sheet thus prepared heeomes a perfect cylinder. The joint is placed on a narrow steel rail, a little wheel under heavy pressure is driven along it, and it is perfect—air-tight, and water-tight, and. in need, afterwards soldered. The saving processes are not the least to be admired. There is nothing wasted. Tinware is so varigus in its uses that almost every strip can be put to some useful purpose, especially where there are other manufactures carried on. In England scraps that cannot be used up in tinware find a market with the dolls’- dressmakers, - No-doubt - when- New Zealand numbers ten or twelve millions in population, colonial dressed dolls will be in demand ; but failing thrse ultimate • purchasers for manufacturing purposes, it is sti'l profitable to save the scraps as the tin can be separated from the iron and-'used over again. In the manufacture of such goods as colonial ovens, similar machinery is required. It is necessary to be able to cut a plate of iron a quarter of an inch thick as if it were cardboard ; to punch holes in it as easily and rapidly as a lady could send a needle through a piece of embroidery; and to rivet each part together, so that the cook may not have the annoyance of having to contend with the unauthorised entrance into the oven of either ffame or smoke. These' conditions are all present at Messrs Hughes' and Harvey’s establishment, and it is' not too much to say that the substantial, strongly made ovens made there, are very superior to the limsy thin-plated imported thdngs-, mid twisting when, heat ,wa? a few years ago commanded very much ffloher prices. We merely single out these W articlfes as instances ofhdw4h» manufacture is progressing. The fact that employment»