Workbox

“ A good, substantial work-bench, fitted with drawers, tools, vise, steel rule cutter, etc., is an essential for the folding box maker. The box maker who is “handy” may readily build his own work-bench with the necessary lumber, but for the information of those who may not know about it, the American Type Founders’ Company has a steel work-bench which is very convenient for the purposes of a folding box making plant. ”

“ Two shelves, ten inches wide, and as long as the inside width of the box, are to be cut and fastened six inches apart, leaving a ten or twelve inch space at the bottom for high books, or a place to put the feet when sitting at the desk. A top twenty-two inches wide and eighteen inches deep is made fast to the top of the box, and if a slant is desired the back of the top board may be propped up for an inch or [277] two with a strip of wood. On the ends of the side-rails that project above the desk-top a ledge six inches wide may be made fast for ink-bottles, pencils, and other accessories. ”

“ Don’t be afraid of empty spaces—books, flowers, a work box, all have meaning and purpose. There never was a drawing room too fine for a lady’s work box; and what a sense of cozy human sympathy it always has—the chair beside a low table with a work box, a vase of flowers, a book. ”

“ As for the worker himself, the placing of the box where it will be most convenient for him has already been emphasized. Choose a place where the worker can pick the magazines up on his way out at noon or at night, with room enough around the box to allow half a dozen people to stop, select, and chat as they turn the magazines over. One must actually see the workers reading the magazines noon times, instead of, as formerly, losing consistently at poker to the foremen, in order to appreciate the full benefits of the home reading box movement. ”

“ There are good reasons why it would not be advisable for the average box maker to handle both folding boxes and set-up boxes in his factory, and the principal reason is the matter of mechanical equipment. The folding box plant must be equipped with machinery which cannot be used for the production of set-up boxes, and in a like manner, the set-up paper box plant calls for machines that cannot be used for the manufacture of folding boxes. ”

“ From boxes of uneven size, men and animals may be made. Round boxes or small oblong boxes form heads. Larger boxes make bodies. Legs and arms are boxes of equal size.
The faces are drawn with pencil upon the back of boxes where there is no print. A wire hair-pin will keep the arms in place. It will need to be pressed through the box sides and bent so that the arm boxes may be slipped upon it. Men of all sorts may be made. ”

“ Another box that was given me was wide and flat. Into it I put all pretty papers that came my way—lace-paper, pinwheel paper, sheets of waxed sandwich paper and glacine book covers, crape paper, spools, cotton, pencils. Everything that could lie flat went into this wide, flat box, to be stored till needed. This box packed into the first box easily.
The third box was broad, and square, and deep. Into it I packed the playthings I had made after I had finished playing with them. It fitted into the side of the first box above the wide and flat one. ”

“ Snuff-box, like pin making, admits of subdivision of labour; and in all workshops of any size three classes of persons are employed—painters, polishers, and joiners. At the period alluded to, an industrious joiner earned from 30s. to 40s. weekly, a painter from 45s. to 3l., and a polisher considerably less than either. When Mr. Crawford first commenced business he obtained almost any price he chose to ask; and many instances occurred, in which ordinary sized snuff-boxes sold at 2l. 12s. 6d., and ladies' work-boxes at 25l. ”

“ When a force of operators start work at a table, or at a group of machines, there should be a steady flow of material to keep them constantly employed. This is the system now being followed in the leading box-making factories, and it is a system which should be adopted by every box manufacturer, no matter how small his shop may be. Keep your skilled help plentifully supplied with material. Do not allow your best operators to waste time in carrying stock from place to place when boys or girls, with the aid of light trucks, can do this class of work just as well. ”

“ OFFICE FURNITURE FOR DOLLS Material Required to Make the Office Furniture: the end of the lower half of a shoe-box makes the desk, a spool with a round box cover makes the desk-stool, a high round box four inches high makes a flower-stand, the cover of a box nine inches long makes a chair. ”

“ The housekeeper should learn to use the labor-saving devices for her records that are now employed so largely in the world of business. This equipment should include a desk with fittings for systematized and rapid work. A roll-top desk, with pigeonholes and drawers is convenient, but a flat-topped desk with drawers below gives a larger space for writing, although it has to be supplemented by boxes to take the place of pigeonholes. ”

“ Sixth, the box and wrapper are then placed on a form on the wrapping machine. The action of the machine thereafter is “almost human.” The box and its wrapper pass down through a series of brushes and rollers which draw the wrapper closely to the sides of the box, neatly folding the paper at the corners and ends, and turning in the edges of the wrapper on the inside of the box. At the end of a complete revolution of the machine the box emerges from the machine in a finished condition. ”

“ How much?"
"Ten or twelve dollars—I can't exactly tell which. I had the bills in a tin box on the back desk and now the box is gone."
"Perhaps you put the box in some other place?"
"I've looked about every place I can think of. No, the box must have been stolen. The desk is so close to that back window anybody could have reached in and taken it." ”

“ To this, at either end of the box, are glued two side walls which hold the roof in place, slanting. The cover of some tiny narrow box which is made with an inner drawer is the chimney. Inside, the desks are made from the lower parts of three boxes about three inches long. Their three covers make the benches. A teacher’s desk may be made from any small box you have. Its cover is teacher’s chair. A spool forms the stove, and a pencil is the stovepipe. ”

“ The box maker saves the pieces of cherry and black walnut, when old dies are broken up, and these pieces of wood are used again in building other dies.
Steel, iron and lead labor-saving furniture is also largely used in the construction of steel dies, and in many instances, series of small dies for drug cartons, etc., are entirely blanked out with labor-saving lead [126] or iron furniture. What is called “improved metal furniture” (lead) in the printing trade is very useful for the box maker. ”

“ Of the boxes which possess some attraction beyond their immediate purpose the feminine work-box is the commonest. It is usually fitted with a tray divided into many small compartments, for needles, reels of silk and cotton and other necessaries of stitchery. ”

“ So Rue Carew was transferred to the box factory adjoining, in which the mill made its own paper boxes, where young women sat all day at intelligent machines and fed them with squares of pasteboard and strips of gilt paper; and the intelligent and grateful machines responded by turning out hundreds and hundreds of complete boxes, all neatly gilded, pasted, and labelled. And after a little while Ruhannah was able to nourish one of these obliging and responsive machines. And by July her cough had left her, and two delicate freckles adorned the bridge of her nose. ”

“ In the time to come the broken-open desk, the empty room would effectually tell their own tale. One or two things from the gamboge-coloured box, a pair of thick boots which she did not put on, this was all she needed. ”

“ I like it so much that I want just such a one, to be really my own, but very, very much smaller it should be. I should like to use it as a money-box, a kind of savings-bank. The chimney should be open all the way down, so that I could drop the money in. The door should be locked, and I should have the key. I have a lock from an old work-box that would just do. Pelle could help you to fit it in, I am sure; he is so handy about everything. Will you do it, Nono? ”

“ In these days of high wages and short working [131] hours, the folding box maker should have a plentiful supply of both wood and metal furniture, and the furniture should be systematically stored in cabinets so that the die-maker can work to the best advantage. A plentiful assortment of improved metal furniture, plain iron furniture, and enlarged or mammoth iron furniture, in cabinets, will pay big dividends in any folding box plant. ”

“ Burly office-porters jostle delicate shop-girls in their efforts to reach the letter-box; tiny office-boys strain and struggle beneath a load which might more appropriately have been conveyed to the post in a cart or wagon; and hapless youths who have started late, and who have been leap-frogging by the way, are fain to shy their bags or baskets of letters at the nearest opening, and take their chance. ”

“ Ideas for labor-saving devices which cannot be bought upon the market present themselves now and then, and if there is a boy in the neighborhood to carry them out, the housekeeper will be only too glad to pay him for doing the work.
For general jobbing you will require a carpenter's carrying-box (Fig. 17, Chap. I) in which to carry your tools, and a nail-box (Fig. 18) for nails, screws, hinges, and such hardware as you will need upon the job. With these you will have a complete outfit. ”

“ Many set-up paper boxes, which are made for heavy usage, such as for holding hardware, tools, toys, glassware, etc., are wire stapled at the corners instead of having the corners strengthened with Kraft paper, or stay paper. Some box manufacturers are making all of their set-up boxes with wire-stapled corners. ”

“ Not the little stack of handkerchiefs, the folded collars and the like. If Hilda Glaum was in the habit of visiting Deans Folly and used this room it was natural that these things should be here. If this were her bureau the little carton of nibs and the spare note book were to be expected. It was the steel box which set her wondering. This she discovered in the far corner of the drawer. If she could have imagined anything so fantastic she might have believed that the box had been specially made to hold the thing it contained and preserve it from the dangers of fire. ”

“ A type case, with 49 to 100 or more small boxes, is not a simple thing to make by hand labor. While the making of the outside frame and the bottom involve no special difficulties, the box partitions and their proper fastening to each other and to the bottom of the case require patience and skill. Only a highly developed system of specialization could provide the cases of today at the prevailing cost. ”

“ A machine for making box blanks comprising a plurality of groups of working-controlling means, each group for a separate individual side section of the box, and comprising means to support cleats and side material in cooperative relationship for being secured together to form a box side, and each group having means to support its cleats and side material in a relationship to enable the same to be folded cooperatively with corresponding portions of a side section controlled by another group ”

“ In some handsome designs a unit unfolds as a small writing desk, while adjacent units contain drawers of various sizes. Each unit is so moderate in dimensions as to be readily portable; a dozen, a score, a hundred may be joined together to equip a sitting-room or the cashier’s office in a bank. ”

“ By opening flat some carton which is nearly the size and style of the new carton desired, the box maker will have an idea of the layout for the die which will be necessary for the new carton. Follow the measurements taken with the aid of the blocks, and with pencil, ruler, penknife and blank sheet of stock, make up a dummy for the desired folding box. When completed, the flat dummy will appear like this diagram:
This dummy will serve the box maker in measuring off the sizes of steel cutting and creasing rule which will enter in the construction of the die. ”

“ A box consists of foundations of newsboard, the edges of which are stayed with strips of tape or vellum, and the outside covered with paper. The cover should be larger than the bottom by 1⁄8 inch in both directions to allow it to slip over the box. This amount will vary somewhat with the thickness of the newsboard, the paper with which it is covered, and the skill of the worker.
The foundation for each part is to be developed from a single piece of newsboard. The box and cover are to be covered with a thin paper. ”

“ The children that played with the lower handles had got tall enough to open the desk, to reach the upper shelves behind the folding-doors,—grown bent after a while,—and then followed those who had gone before, and left the old cabinet to be ransacked by a new generation. ”

“ The home reading box will prove a success in any plant, no matter how simple the installation and running plan are, but it can only retain its best results when a careful consideration is given to the conditions that affect the particular problem. The important feature is, of course, the type of worker who is to receive the literature. Where the group of workers consists of foreigners, many of whom read no English, and speak it little, the picture magazines are the most sought. Where you have a group of highly skilled mechanics, technical magazines and trade catalogs are highly appreciated. ”