NEEDLES AND PINS 331 



head die advances and partially shapes the head. The blank 

 is then released and pushed forward about one twentieth of 

 an inch, when the head is given another squeeze by the same 

 die. By this repetition of the motion the head is completed 

 and the blank is cut off the wire in the length desired. About 

 one eighth of an inch of wire is required to make a pin head. 

 If the attempt were made to upset this with a head in one 

 motion the wire would be more likely to double up than to 

 thicken as desired. 



These headed blanks then drop into a receptacle and 

 arrange themselves in the line of a slot formed by two in- 

 clined and bevel edged bars. The opening between the bars 

 is just large enough to permit the shank of the pin to fall 

 through, so that the pins are suspended in a row along the 

 slot. When the blanks reach the lower end of the incUned 

 bar in their suspended position they are seized between two 

 parts of the machine and passed along, rotating as they move, 

 in front of a cylindrical cutter, with sharp grooves on its sur- 

 face, that points the pins. They are then thrown from the 

 machine properly shaped, and if they are brass pins they are 

 cleaned by being boiled in weak, sour beer. After they are 

 cleaned they are coated mth tin. This is done by placing 

 alternate layers of pins and grain tin in a copper can and 

 adding water, along with some bitartrate of potash. Heat 

 applied to this produces a solution of tin which is deposited 

 on the surface of the pins. The pins are then taken from this 

 solution and brightened b}^ being shaken in a revolving barrel 

 of bran or sawdust. Lastly the operation of papering takes 

 place. This process is performed now by an automatic paper- 

 ing machine something in the following manner : The pins to 

 be stuck are placed in a hopper, in connection with which a 

 steel plate is used, with longitudinal sUts corresponding to 

 the number of pins which form a row in the paper. The pins 

 in the hopper are stirred up by a comb like tool, the shanks 

 drop through the slits in the steel plate, and the pins are 

 suspended b}^ their heads. Long narrow sheets of paper are 

 presented by the operator to the action of the machine, by 

 which two raised folds are crimped, and the row of pins col- 

 lected in the slit steel plate is then, by being subjected to the 



