136 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December 1, 1912. 



CVLENDERS. 



The calenders, which are 24 inches by 66 inches 3-roll ma- 

 chines, have individual drives, each machine being driven by a 

 75 horsepower variable speed direct current motor. The speed 

 reducing gears have cut double helical teeth to reduce the vibra- 

 tion and wear to a minimum. The motor speed has a variation of 

 1 to 3 and permits a delivery on the calender of from Sli to 16 

 yards per minute when running friction and from S to 24 yards 

 per minute when running even. The motor controller is con- 

 nected with a rod trip, located in front of the rolls, for 

 emergency use. 



Compact and easily operated clutches are used on the even 

 and friction connecting gears, doing away with the antiquated 

 method, requiring the operator to draw and drive keys in the 

 gears when it was desired to change from even to friction, or 

 z-icc rcrsa. Both top and bottom rolls are adjustable from one 

 handwheel, where are also located levers controlling the jaw 

 clutches on the adjusting worm shafts. Change from quick to 

 slow adjustment of the top roll may be made by shifting one 

 clutch. 



On either side of the calender are located the let-offs and 

 wind-ups, the former having the hand tj'pe of brake and the 

 latter driven by reversible gearing and adjustable by a stationary 

 handwheel. An extended bracket placed on either side of the 

 rolls provides for readily adjusted locations for tension rolls, 

 knives, pressure rolls, etc. 



The whole machine, with the exception of the adjusting mech- 

 anism of the lower, and a part of the speed gear, stands clear 

 of the floor and all gearing is proiflded with guards and slush 

 pans. 



DEPARTMENT STORES GETTING THE RUBBER 

 TRADE. 



/^NE of the best arranged displays of india-rubber wares for 

 ^-^ family trade is shown in a variety store in a small citj' 

 within the metropolitan zone of Xew York. The space for the 

 displays of staple and novel wares of rubber and gutta-percha 

 goods is ample on shelves and counters, and the salespeople are 

 well instructed by the salesmen of the makers of the wares, so 

 as to make the buyers appreciate the merits of what is proffered 

 to them. This small city is the home of more than one hundred 

 manufacturers and distributors of rubber goods whose main 

 offices are in New York. A number of these business men 

 pass this particular variety store every day; they know the 

 proprietor, and keep him informed about whatsoever is new in 

 manufactures for household trade. 



In an interview w-ith a representative of The India Ritbber 

 World, the keeper of this variety store spoke as follows: "My 

 frequent window displays and well advertised sales of rubber 

 goods for family trade, are results from what might be called 

 a campaign of education carried on for my benefit by friends in 

 town who make or distribute such wares. I started out here to 

 carry on a department store. But I found out that my ideas 

 ■were, in that respect, years ahead of the times. I found that I 

 must use my space for goods in a few fast selling lines. I gave 

 no thought to rubber goods. I supposed that the local hardware 

 and apothecary stores carried good lines in rubber products, such 

 as families wanted. We have no factories hereabouts, so there 

 is no market for belting or other rubber articles for industrial 

 plants. On a venture, I laid in a small stock of rubber clothing 

 and boots and shoes. There I stopped for a while. Then we 

 began to have inquiries for rubber hot-water bottles, syringes 

 and other wares of descriptions in which druggists specialize. 

 I instructed my clerks to inform customers asking for goods 

 that are commonly kept by drug stores, to go thereto to supply 

 their wants. You see, in our city a great many families come 



every year from other places, and it takes them some time to 

 find out where to go to buy for their household in a place like 

 this, which is large in area but small in population. 



"Sometimes the customers, whom we advised to go to the 

 drug stores or the hardware stores for certain articles of rub- 

 ber, w^ould come back and say that those merchants did not 

 have the goods in stock, or had none but inferior products that 

 were unsuitable for well-to-do families. Then I decided to in- 

 crease my lines of rubber goods, and as I had ample window 

 and shelf-room for displaying such goods. I soon found out by 

 my books that I was doing a profitable trade in rubber goods, 

 which my friends in the local hardware and drug store trade 

 told me were to them not worth keeping in stock. The reason 

 those men gave me they believed to be correct. But I am 

 satisfied that the explanation of their small sales was because 

 they never made window, counter or shelf displays of such 

 wares, and never advertised anything in the rubber line. They 

 kept such goods where customers could not see them. Two drug 

 stores in town used to keep fair lines of rubber goods for the 

 household trade. But both stores now give almost one-sixth of 

 their space to cold and hot beverages, and almost one-eighth to 

 confectionery, ice cream, ices and light luncheon, and almost 

 one-half the space is given to proprietary medicines and tobacco, 

 cigars and cigarettes. In such stores, and the number thereof 

 comes to above 40,000, taking the nation throughout, india- 

 rubber wares, which years ago made quite a department in a 

 retail drug store, are now what might be called sidetracked. 

 That is to say, only a few articles are kept, as compared with 

 the variety shown before most of the drug stores became con- 

 fectionery, ice cream, luncheon and cigar shops. 



"In our city, and in a number of adjacent, cities, the hardware 

 stores do not keep as large a variety .6f rubber goods as they 

 did years ago. This is because in all cities, towns and villages 

 in which a good deal of building, and the repairing and im- 

 provement of buildings by mechanics goes on for nine months 

 in the year, the hardware stores have become niainly distributing 

 agencies for building trades material, in heavy hardware and al- 

 lied lines. In such stores to-daj' one sees little inTubber goods, 

 except garden hose, and small stocks of packing and belting for 

 farmers and small mechanical plants. Of course these druggists 

 and hardware retailers, who keep but a few kinds of rubber 

 goods are always ready to tell customers that they will order 

 from the makers or distributors of rubber products, what is not 

 in these retail shops. But the consumers want what they want 

 in rubber, as in other wares, delivered on the spot." 



This story, told by the proprietor of a department store in one 

 of the suburban cities outside of New York, could be duplicated 

 by many more, in similar positions, all over the country, and it 

 is not only in the large cities and the suburbs that this marked 

 change has taken place. It has occurred in practically all the 

 smaller towns. The drug stores in the last ten years have de- 

 voted more and more of their space and attention to soda water, 

 cigars, cigarettes and confectionery, and in some places to a 

 light lunch as an adjunct to the soda-vi-ater fountain. The rub- 

 ber department in the ordinary drug store, while not actually 

 crowded out, has been much curtailed. But people must have 

 rubber goods, so the enterprising department and general stores 

 have not been slow to seize upon this line of trade. 



CiNAD.i USING OUR AUTOS. 



A large number of the auto cars used in Canada are of Ameri- 

 can make. Exports to that country from the United States in- 

 creased from 1.230 in 1909 to 4,687 in 1911. and this does not take 

 into consideration the separate parts which were exported to that 

 country and assembled on the other side of the line; nor does 

 it take into consideration the cars made in Canada by the Cana- 

 dian branches of American factories. 



