March i, 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



210 



THE RUBBER TRADE AT AKRON. 



BY A RESIDENT CORRESTONUENT. 



THE widely circulated estimate of $15,000,000 as the probable 

 value of the automobile tire output of the Akron rubber 

 factories during the current year is regarded by local authorities 

 as far too small. Some go so far as to say that the number of 

 tires manufactured here during 1909 will fall little short of the 

 million mark. At any rate manufacturers are making prepara- 

 tions for the largest sales of any year in their history. Out-of- 

 town branches are being stocked up, and many carloads of tires 

 are shipped every month. 



The preparations of The B. F. Goodrich Co. for the New York 

 tire trade serve as a good indication of what is e.xpected. Their 

 new twelve story building at Broadway and Fifty-seventh street, 

 which is intended to be in readiness by May I, will be devoted 

 to tires alone, their mechanical goods trade being continued at 

 No. 66 Reade street. 



The Goodrich company have defined a campaign of improve- 

 ment which will result ultimately in replacing nearly all the old 

 buildings of their factory with an almost solid quadrangle of six 

 story structures of reinforced concrete construction. Two sides 

 of this quadrangle have been completed. A building has just 

 been started which will form a part of a third side in the rear, 

 and plans are under way in the office of the engineer for a 

 building 300 feet long which will form the fourth side, extending 

 from a point near the general offices to the canal in the rear. 

 To erect this last building it will be necessary to tear down sev- 

 eral old brick buildings three and four stories in height. The 

 new building will provide, on the same ground space, three 

 times the present floor capacity. The last building to be com- 

 pleted, on the front side of the quadrangle is now being equipped 

 with machinery for the manufacture of automobile tires. 



The B. F. Goodrich Co. are putting on the market a new golf 

 ball with a white gutta-percha cover to be sold under the name, 

 "Haskell White Streak." The price will be 50 per cent, higher 

 than that customarily charged for golf balls. The white covers, 

 designed to do away with the troubles caused by the wearing of 

 paint on the black cover, is forced into the thread of the center. 

 A perfect balance and uniformity is claimed for tlie new product. 



The boot and shoe department of the Goodrich company is 

 unusually active at the present time. Though the normal output 

 of the plant is about 5,000 pairs a day, it ran up to 9,300 pairs 

 during the middle of February. 



The Diamond Rubber Co. have developed their insulated wire 

 and cable department to an extent which enables them now to 

 enter the market on a large scale. Wire drawing, braiding and 

 stranding machines have been installed, and 165 men, many of 

 them brought from the other factories, have been put to work in 

 this department. The position of superintendent of this depart- 

 ment is held by Mr. O. F. Houben, widely known as an expert in 

 the insulated wire manufacture, and who had charge of the con- 

 tract for laying a rubber insulated cable in the Red sea, where 

 peculiar conditions seem to point to india-rubber as preferable to 

 gutta-percha for insulation purposes. 



An official of The Diamond Rubber Co. has given your corre- 

 spondent authority to say positively that there is no truth in the 

 reports that they intend to take up the manufacture of boots 

 and shoes. If such plans do exist they are so far in embryo 

 and confined to the secret councils of the company. 



The Diamond Rubber Co. were the only Akron tire manufac- 

 turers represented at the Toronto automobile show, beginning 

 on February 18, Mr. N. E. Oliver being their representative there. 

 On March i the Diamond company will open a store at No. 602 

 Pike street, Seattle, Washington, which will be subsidiary to their 

 San Francisco branch. They have opened also a branch at 

 Omaha, Nebraska, in charge of P. Karbaugh. 



Akron tires were more in evidence at the late Chicago automo- 

 mobile show than in any previous exhibition in that city. The 



Diamond Rubber Co., the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. (par- 

 ticularly for tires for commercial vehicles), The B. F. Goodrich 

 Co., the Swinehart Clincher Tire and Rubber Co., the Motz 

 Clincher Tire and Rubber Co., and the Consolidated Rubber Tire 

 Co. were the Akron manufacturers represented, most of them by 

 important members of their staffs. 



Since the establishment of the Diamond Rubber Co.'s rubber 

 covered wire and cable department, the only rubber product not 

 made in .\kron is rubber clothing. For a long time boots and 

 shoes as a product of the rubber manufacture were unknown here, 

 hut the extensive departure in that line by the Goodrich com- 

 pany has made Akron a producing center of such goods of im- 

 portance. Rubber clothing is not considered here on account of 

 the fact that this class of goods is almost always made by some 

 concern devoted exclusively to its production, and it has not been 

 classed among general rubber products. 



The Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. have located a store and 

 branch ofiicc at Nos. 1918-1920 Euclid avenue, Cleveland, where- 

 their products will be handled after March i. 



The faculty of Buchtel College, which is located in this city; 

 announce a course in rubber chemistry, to be inaugurated begin- 

 ning with the new college year in September. This will be 

 unique among college and university courses. It is an outgrowth 

 of a demand for instruction in the chemistry of india-rubber by 

 young men who arc desirous of entering the industry in the 

 various factories in this city. The course will cover a period of 

 two years, two years' work in elementary chemistry being re- 

 quired before the student may enter. The first year will consist 

 of instruction in the analysis of samples of rubber, the study 

 of the various rubber solvents and other simpler phases of the 

 subject. In the second year the students will be introduced to the 

 more intricate branches of the study. One student, Yutuka 

 Tanaka, of Tokio, Japan, has already enrolled for the course with 

 the intention of making it the foundation of an expert knowledge 

 of the industry which he intetids to take with him to his native 

 country. The course will be taught in a new chemical laboratory 

 now ncaring completion. 



THE RUBBER TRADE IN SAN FRANCISCO. 



BY .\ RESIDENT CORRESPONDENT. 



'T'HE past month has been productive of little but rain, and has 

 ■^ the rain has been almost continuous there has been little 

 time or inclination for branching out in new enterprises or mak- 

 ing business changes. People in the rubber business have been 

 supplying what orders they had to fill at the present, and taking 

 care of what orders come in by mail, but they have not been out 

 after new business very hard. There has been such a steady sea- 

 son of nothing but rain that everybody is convinced that as soon 

 as the sun does begin to come out for a little while there will be 

 a respectable season of fine weather and that then business will 

 blossom out like the flowers of spring. The wet weather has held 

 things back, but it will not take long to make up for lost time. 

 'Jaking the city and coast as a whole, conditions are very favor- 

 able. In San Francisco husiness activity has increased to a 

 marked degree. There is work of all kinds in progress and there 

 is employment for large numbers of men. Out through the in- 

 terior the rains have checked work of nearly all kinds, and busi- 

 ness has not been very active, but there is a general feeling of 

 prosperity, because it is certain that the coming j'ear will bring 

 out crops that will make this one of the most flourishing years 

 which California has ever known. 



The Phoenix Rubber Co. has been incorporated and the new 

 company is settling down now to reap the benefits of an active 

 business and a promising future. Mr. Kanzee states that Jan- 

 uary was the biggest month they have had, in spite of the rains, 

 and that February is looking up well also. He has no do.ubt 

 but that the future will be bright. Business has been especially 

 good on automobile tires. 



