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Veneer and Its Uses 



THE GLUE SALESMAN PUTS UP A TALK AND SAYS 

 SOMETHING 



"There are a lot of miglity {;oo'i \t'necr manufacturers,'' said the 

 glue salesman eontemplativelj', as he spat into the sawdust box at 

 the depot while waiting for the next train oiit, "who don't know 

 much about the glue they're using. 



, "Oh, yes, I got the order. I wasn't kicking because this fellow 

 here didn 't buy my stuff, but because he insisted, unsight and 

 unseen, as it were, on classing all glue together — quality, tensile 

 strength and all the rest of it. 



"When I go into a man's plant, I do so with the expectation of 

 studying his line of production and glue requirements thoroughly. 

 I managed to save one of my customers $300 a month in his glue 

 expenses not long ago, simply by showing him that he was using too 

 little water in his mixture for some of his work. Then in another 

 department, where he was using high-priced goods, I found that he 

 could get effective results with a less expensive graile, and I'm 

 selling him that now. 



"No, I'm not magnanimous; not if I know it, that is. But I'm 

 selling glue, and I know my business. I know that if my stuff gives 

 satisfaction I can come back and sell another lot. If it doesn't, the 

 veneer man will buy his glue stock somewhere else next time. 

 And, mind you, when there is trouble, it's always the glue manu- 

 facturer 's fault. The laying of the veneer is never wrong, and if 

 the panel doesn 't turn out the way it should, it is because the glue 

 isn't right. 



"And I know that if I can ajjply my expert knowledge along 

 this one line to the business of my customers in such a way as to 

 save them money and enable them to produce better goods, I'm 

 going to continue to get their business. So I'm trying to point out 

 a few of the ways in which they can do that, without hurting 

 their feelings, and endeavoring to produce Satisfaction with a 

 big S, spelled in pica type, instead of the nonpareil they 've been 

 using. I used to be in the printing business, you see. 



"I'm working for a good house. Sure, we all are. I know that. 

 But I mean that our glue is the real stuff. We've got the best 

 chemist in the business, and he knows as much about blending and 

 grinding glue as a Main street rectifier in Louisville knows about 

 producing twenty-year-old hand-made sour mash. His glue is glue 

 that is glue, and that, let me tell you, is some glue. When it goes 

 into a piece of work, provided the veneer man hasn't burned the 

 gizzard out of it in the making, it sticks like the fellow you bor- 

 rowed that ten-spot from the day of the races. It does the work. 



"What I'm complaining about is that the average veneer man 

 doesn 't keep enough ' dope ' on what my glue does and what the 

 other man 's doesn 't do. If mine holds the stuff together and de- 

 livers the goods, I want to get the credit for it. But, likely as not, 

 even if the stuff is working all O. K., one of my 'esteemed con- 

 temporaries, ' as the editor of the Kokomo Bugle, where I used to 

 work, called the publisher in the next county (not the man in the 

 same town — not by a jugful; you ought to 've seen the names he 

 called Mm), will put xip a mixture to my customer, claiming it's 

 'just as good' and all the rest of it, and agreeing to knock off half- 

 a-cent a pound if he '11 order ten barrels as a sample lot to see how 

 it works. 



"Well, that reduction in the price looks good to Mr. Veneer Man, 

 so he gives the order to my competitor, and maybe gets a lot of 

 junk stock that you could smell from here to the courthouse on a 

 warm day. Honest, when stuff like that gets to working, the men 

 in the glue room think they're in a South side lodging house, with 

 the wind blowing from the stock yards. It's fierce! 



"The veneer man sees he's made a mistake, and by the time I've 

 got back to him he 's ready to admit it; but he hasn't finished using 

 up his bum glue, and he doesn 't want to buy any more until he 

 gets rid of it. So he holds up the order, and maybe he '11 forget 

 about what a rotten consignment he's had by the time another 



fellow comes around with a job lot of bone-stock glue and buy on 

 the strength of saving a few dollars on the order. 



"And then he wonders why the furniture manufacturer he's soil- 

 ing to gives his business to somebody else. 



"Of course, it isn't all in tfie glue, but I should think that a 

 lot of good business men like panel manufacturers would keep 

 records of the character of the glue they buy; how much it costs; 

 how many thousand feet of stock 100 pounds of glue of my kind and 

 the other fellow 's cover, and the relative cost and the relative satis- 

 fa"tinn that attaches to each kind. Figures extending over a year 

 or two and covering glue operations would tell some interesting 

 stories, I imagine. 



"Glue is animal matter held in solution by water. Everybody 

 knows that. Now, animal matter deteriorates, as anybody who ever 

 discovered that an automobile had run over the neighborhood dog 

 without resorting to any sense save that of smell can testify. For 

 that reason common sense would suggest that it is well not to make 

 more glue than is going to be used. It isn't advisable even to make 

 enough at one time for use in one day. A supply for half a day or 

 less is best, and at the end of the day there should not be any left 

 over. This takes close figuring, but it's worth while. 



"Suppose you have a batch of glue in gelatin form standing over 

 night, or over Sunday, as some of my friends in the business occa- 

 sionally do. What is going to happen? Deterioration is a mild 

 word to apply. And yet, in spite of the obviously poor character 

 of the material, I have seen some high-class mahogany, Circassian 

 walnut and quartered oak panels laid with glue containing part of 

 an ancient — comparatively — batch of glue which ought to have 

 been thrown out of the shop. 



"It's poor economy, to my way of thinking, to put cheap or de- 

 cayed glue into high-priced work; and yet that's what I have seen 

 done lots of times. I 'm not saying this to everybody, but the prac- 

 tice of carelessly allowing prepared glue to stand around for days 

 at a time is the best argument that manufacturers of glue made 

 from vegetable matter have. Their stuff isn't as good as ours — 

 why, certainly not! — but they've got a pretty good talking point 

 there, as well as in the lower price of their goods. 



"Every vessel used in handling glua, as well as the main 

 kettle in which it is prepared, ought to be thoroughly cleaned at 

 least once a day, preferably at the end of the day 's work, so that 

 none of the old material will get into the fresh glue and impair 

 its quality. It 's as bad to put deteriorated glue into a batch of 

 fresh, clean material as to offer a guest a plate of fruit, some of 

 which is past the mellow stage. 



"filue isn't a very romantic subject to think or talk about, but 

 it's one of the most universally used substances. The next time 

 you eat Jell-0, just remember that it's the second cousin of the 

 glue they're using down at the veneering plant, and you won't 

 feel so bad over the latter — nor so good over your Jell-0. But 

 there's no reason why gelatin shouldn't be an excellent food 

 product, and the success of that which I have mentioned shows 

 that, properly handled, the public will buy anything. You prob- 

 ably couldn't sell as much Jell-0 if you emphasized its relation- 

 ship to glue, but that's no argument against it. 



"The glue men are willing to tell all they know. They haven't 

 been investigated by the government, but they're not as tight- 

 mouthed as they used to be. If you have any trouble getting 

 satisfaction out of the glue you 're using, just let me or any other 

 high-class glue man know about it and we'll be glad to put you 

 straight. Here's my card, and there comes my train. So long!" 

 NEW VENEER PLANT 



Work has just been started on the erection of the new plant of 

 the Cincinnati Veneer Company, whose warehouses, veneer mills 

 and stocks were destroyed by fire recently. The new structure 

 will be a one-story, mill construction building, and will have a 

 floor area of 6.5,000 square feet. It is planned to enlarge the 



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