HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



It may be true that merely to throw a lot of material of odd 

 lengths, narrow widths and dimensions that are not standard on 

 the market and demand a price for it would result in little or 

 nothing being realized, and the trade on that particular wood 

 interfered with to a considerable degree. That is why it is all 

 the more necessary in a case of this kind to apply some of Mr. 

 Sheldon 's scientific salesmanship ideas to the situation. 



Suppose the mahogany man referred to had found a manufacturer 

 who could use short pieces, not particularly wide, in his own work. 

 He would have been glad to pay a price for that so-called waste 

 that would have meant a handsome profit for the producer and yet 

 would have saved the manufacturer using it considerable money. 

 Instead of buying regular board lengths in standard widths, which 

 he would have been compelled to rip and cut to dimensions anyway, 

 he would have had the material practically ready to use and would 

 have been better satisfied than under any other conditions. 



Such a situation is just a case of bringing producer and con- 

 sumer together. Proper methods of selling will determine just 

 what kind of stock the user requires in his business, and will give 

 it to him. Such a system is real service all around, and eliminates 

 the really indefensible waste of intrinsically valuable material. 



As an instance of how this might be worked, a mantel manufac- 

 turer in a big furniture town was throwing away the odd lengths 

 and narrow strips which fell from his saws, because he had no way 

 to dispose of them. By accident he happened to learn of the oper- 

 ations of a manufacturer in his own town who was making fur- 

 niture specialties in the way of stools, children's chairs, etc. He 

 inquired what sizes he needed for that work, and found that a 

 great deal of the wood that he had been burning up could be 



worked into the operations of this manufacturer in excellent 

 fashion. 



' ' The result of this plan, ' ' he said to a H.vrowood Record man 

 uot long ago, "is that instead of charging up against my mantels 

 the full price of the lumber, I am getting it a good deal cheaper 

 by selling the offal, and am therefore making a better profit on my 

 regular line than I would havo done otherwise. On the other hand, 

 my friend is getting his material at a comparatively high price, 

 considering the material as waste, yet he is making a saving when 

 the prices he has been paying for his lumber are considered, 

 especially in view of the excellent character of the material." 



What happened in this case by accident ought to be brought 

 about by the dimension stock man through design. If a factory 

 man can use short pieces, narrow strips and other odd sizes, which 

 is the case with many consumers of lumber, why not give him 

 what he requires, cut to dimension and ready to be worked? 

 There are thousands of factories which require material of just that 

 character, and instead of getting it they are paying relatively high 

 prices for lumber that they must cut to the smaller sizes before 

 they can use it for the purposes to which it is intended. 



It might be argued that this would be bad business from the 

 standpoint of the lumber trade as a whole, since the factory man 

 who bought dimension stock under the conditions suggested would 

 cease buying board lumber, and the actual consumption of wood 

 would be reduced. This is a short-sighted policy, however; and 

 in the long run the use of wood would be encouraged and every 

 foot of lumber manufactured would be used, instead of being 

 wasted, as is the case with an extremely large percentage of it 

 today. G. D. C. 



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L^ 



The Handle Trade 



'1 



SHORTAGE OF BROOM HANDLES 



November of each year almost invariably sees a decided shortage 

 in broom handles, which is sometimes serious enough to be of 

 considerable inconvenience to the broom manufacturer. As a 

 result a number of them have started handle factories of their 

 own. It is the opinion of the writer, who is an old manufacturer 

 of broom handles, that a year's operation, at full capacity, of all 

 the present broom factories of the country would produce a very 

 decided excess of supply over the demand, with a resultant drop 

 in price of from $.3 to $-5 a thousand. Even now there is usually an 

 over production of handles and the chief reason for the usual fall 

 shortage is the fact that most of the handle plants close up for a 

 few weeks during the dull summer season, and do not carry any 

 large stock. When the new corn crop begins to move these small 

 stocks do not last long, and as a consequence it is a case of "rush" 

 until well along in the spring. This condition is being gradually 

 eliminated as the majority of the better plants are running steadily 

 during the year, and accumulating a stock of handles during the 

 dull season. 



There has been a number of notices recently of new entries 

 into the broom handle field. The present manufacturers who know 

 the conditions, of course, would much prefer that these concerns 

 should stay out of an already crowded business, but the chief 

 difSculty is in meeting the competition of concerns who have no 

 accurate knowledge of the cost of manufacture and are willing to 

 sell for enough money to pay off their men at the end of the 

 week. For this reason from fifty to sixty per cent of those who 

 have started in the broom handle business during the last five 

 years have failed. My advice to a beginner who knows nothing 

 about broom handle manufacture would be not to attempt to lay 

 out the building or machinery himself, but to engage the services 

 of someone who has a thorough knowledge of what is required. 

 There is no other branch of the wood-working trade which requires 

 a closer working together of the various units of the plant. It 

 would be impossible to make a good handle factory out of a sec- 

 ond-hand building. When starting to operate, take a car of lumber 

 and run it through the machine, figuring out exactly what you 



have gotten from it and exactly what the handles are worth. It 

 will be found that the actual capacity of your machines is con- 

 siderably below their rated capacity and that your carload of 

 lumber has produced several hundred less handles than you figured 

 it could on paper. A good percentage of these are not saleable. If 

 the new entrant into the broom handle business will work his 

 business along these lines and sell at a price which will show him 

 a profit on this basis of cost, he will be a welcome addition to 

 the handle trade. 



DIMENSION STOCK FOR BROOM HANDLES 

 The articles appearing in Hakdwood Eecokd regarding dimen- 

 sion stock have been very interesting from the point of view of 

 the broom handle manufacturer. It does seem that dimension 

 stock would be worth to the consumer as much as the cost of the 

 lumber he will have to buy to manufacture it himself, but dimen- 

 sion stock as applied to the manufacture of broom handles offers 

 different conditions than for any other line. The writer has found 

 that it is possible to get one-third more handles out of a thousand 

 feet of lumber sawed by himself and working all the logs than by 

 merely working squared boards. The writer buys broom handle 

 squares and is willing to pay full prices for them, if they are prop- 

 erly manufactured, but the average millman seems to have an idea 

 that anything can be utilized for this purpose. Some, in fact, 

 will try to pass off various kinds of woods other than those speci- 

 fied in the order. Positively no knots or shakes will pass in broom 

 handles, but a great many millmen ship this kind of stock. Fur- 

 ther, while furniture people demand absolutely dry stock, it 

 seems impossible to get handle blanks properly dry. Every mill- 

 man who saws beech, birch and hard maple can ruake a good 

 profit out of properly manufactured handle blanks, but he must 

 make them right and dry them properly. He will find an increased 

 demand for this article. Expensive manufacturing gives very 

 little and can be taken care of by the saving in freight charges 

 on waste stock. With a good cut-off and a good gang rip-saw, 

 blanks can be made for less than forty cents a thousand. We 

 would certainly like to see more millmen get into this line of 

 trade on a proper basis. H. B. A. 



