i8 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Ameiican Forest Trees. 



West Chester, Pa., April 20.— Editor Hard- 

 wood Recoiid: Eeferi'ing to the articles under 

 the title American Forest Trees, published in 

 your paper, will you kindly advise us when these 

 articles will be printed in book form? We should 

 like to get a copy.— Yours truly, Hoopes Bugs. 

 & Darlington, Inc. 



There are upwards of 300 varieties of com- 



mercial forest trees growing in the United 

 States. Of this number the Hardwood 

 Record has published articles covering only 

 about sixty. It is our intention to eventu- 

 ally edit this series of articles and put them 

 into book form. The first volume will prob- 

 ably be issued some time during 1908.— 

 Editor. 



The Care of the Glue Tot. 



The glue pot has more to do with the suc- 

 cess of the factory than the average wood- 

 worker supposes. Some of the important 

 points of this branch of the industry are too 

 often neglected. The methods of heating 

 glue for veneering and other work in many 

 shops and mills would surprise the average 

 artisan in the woodworking line. In some 

 cases the glue pot is any old kind of ket- 

 tle or pot that happens to be available. One 

 sometimes sees glue pots in operation on 

 masses of coal, coke and charcoal, the glue 

 coming in direct contact with the interior of 

 the kettle, resulting in its piling up, baking 

 and gritting into a mass as illustrated at 

 a, Fig. 1, which is a sectional sketch of 

 the glue pot with partly burned and clogged 

 glue adhering to the sides of the metal uten- 

 sil. This is a most imperfect way to dis- 

 solve it and it is invariably burned. 



Some of the utensils employed for work- 

 ing the melted glue are not kept, in proper 

 order. In many instances the melting pots 

 have the appearance of not having been 

 cleaned for ages. In one mill, where much 

 veneering work was in process, the writer 

 noticed that glue melting apparatus was 

 quite submerged, together with burned and 

 clogged matter, refuse and slime. The lids 

 of the pots failed to close, due to hardened 

 masses of glutinous matter on the hinges. 



No effort seems to be made in some estab- 

 lishments to care for the gluemaking outfit, 

 although tlie power plant may boast a pol- 

 ished engine, a clean floor, machinery in per- 

 fect running order, with shafting and belts 

 in good condition. In these same factories 

 may be found a careless boy or two making 

 glue in crude utensils, rendered unsuitable 

 because of neglect, and even the floor be- 

 smeared with the gummy stuff. Just why 

 this department shouhl be so often over- 

 looked, it is difficult to understand. How- 

 ever, some of the woodworking plants have in- 

 stalled very desirable systems of glue-pre- 

 paring apparatus and invested considerable 

 money in them. Often old apparatus which 

 is defective in some particular point is 

 changed at slight expense into a suitable 

 device. For example in Fig. 2 is shown one 

 of the single pots altered so that there is a 

 boiler inside, thus preventing the glue from 

 coming into direct contact with the metal 

 that is next to the fire. There is no chance 

 for the glue to get burned in the inner kettle, 

 providing that the proper amount of water is 

 kept in the exterior kettle at all times. A 

 melting pot of this description can be used 

 to good advantage in dissolving common glue. 



The brushes and the mode of applying 

 them are worthy of special note. 



There are instances of using crude brushes 

 made of a rag tied on a stick, and instances 

 in which worn and broken brushes are utilized, 

 but the majority of users of glue depend 

 upon common bristle brushes. The camel's 

 hair brush cannot be used long before the 

 fine strands become clogged and torn. The 

 stubby bristle brush will not do, and the user 

 of glue finally hits upon the common hog- 

 bristle brush of the character exhibited in 

 Fig. 3. Of course he often seeks to alter the 

 original condition of the brush and sometimes 

 ruins it this way. In one shop a glue worker 

 had his brushes bridled with wire as at b. 

 This shut off just that much action of the 

 bristles. In other places, while the glueman 

 did not put his brushes "on the bum" by 

 Ijinding up the bristles with wire, he went at 

 the work in such a way that he ruined his 

 brushes early in the game, besides doing de- 

 fective work in the meantime. Some glue- 



the work, without jamming the bristles as in 

 the previous case. 



Many brushes are put out of working order 

 prematurely because of their use in grooves 

 of work to be joined, as at e. Fig. 6. Wide 

 and full brushes are often squeezed into nar- 

 row grooves. The best way is to have an 

 assortment of glue brushes, and in this as- 

 sortment there sliould be some small ones, the 

 bristle combination of which should just fit 

 the width of the grooves of the work in hand. 

 Tliis will prevent tearing and wearing the 

 bristles on the grooves. Then the brush is 

 often worn down unevenly by constantly drag- 

 ging it over the work at an angle, as shown in 

 Fig. 7. While the inner side of the brush 

 slides over the surface, the outer drags irregu- 

 larly as at f, and the result is that the un- 

 equal pressure makes the brush crooked in a 

 short time. Much depends upon the manner 

 of holding the brush. 



Of course all manner of schemes for heat- 

 ing the pots are invented by ingenious glue- 

 makers in the shops. In one the resourceful 

 glueman introduced a complete Bunsen burner 

 device. He got gas from the main by run- 

 ning a rubber tube from a jet to the gas 

 pipe, as shown in the diagram. Then he 

 rigged up a little fan blower motor, attached 

 a tube and secured an air blast therefrom, 

 'inen the air and the gas were combined in 

 the Bunsen burner at g and intense heat was 

 obtained from the flame. 



Fig. 9 shows another kind of glue pot. 

 The object of this contrivance is to enclose 



^gi 



men apply the glue to the work by grasping 

 the brush as in Fig. 4, exerting more than 

 necessary pressure in the direction of the 

 arrow e, thereby reducing the bristles to a 

 flattened condition. Many glue brushes are 

 prematurely ruined by this method. A better 

 way to operate is exhibited in Fig. -5. The 

 brush handle is grasped with the forefinger, 

 the thumb on the stem as shown. The fore- 

 finger d is not brought down hard upon the 

 brush head. This gives opportunity for a 

 clean sweeping of the brush to and fro on 



the heating chamber. Coke, charcoal or other 

 fuel is employed and ignited just beneath the 

 pot, which is constructed with an inner boiler 

 for the glue. 



There are many different kinds of glue 

 melting and working devices in use in wood- 

 working mills. The large veneer and fur- 

 niture factories have special glue rooms, care- 

 fully fitted up, where all ghiing is done, for 

 this department of any shop of importance 

 is worthy the best appliances and the atten- 

 tion of an expert. 



