This article was found in The Manufacturer and Builder – February 1870 issue. It looks at how fish hooks were still being produced in the 1870s and near the end of the article it briefly compares to how they were made many years before this. The wire for making fish-hooks isContinue Reading

A contemporary answers this question by stating that they are cut up in small pieces, and these are put for a couple of days in chloride of sulphur, which makes the leather very hard and brittle. After this is effected, the material is washed with water, dried, ground to powder,Continue Reading

Every eating-house visitor of this city and other leading cities of the Union has doubtless noticed a small tumbler of wooden toothpicks upon the counter of the cashier, for the use of customers. These toothpicks are a good feature of the present day. The wooden toothpicks have to a considerableContinue Reading

Different regions were known for wanting different characteristics in shoes. For example in the United States the Northerner liked shoes that were comfortable, neat but also stylish. The southerner was known to desire a pair that were fancy and handsome. Then the westerners would demand a shoe that had solidityContinue Reading

The defects of many of the ordinary pipe-wrenches are that they are heavy, not easy of adjustment, apt to slip, and even sometimes crush the pipe. A pipe-wrench not subject to these drawbacks, but light, easily adjusted, and of such a form that it cannot possibly either slip or crushContinue Reading

After making a variety of experiments, extending over a considerable time, a Paris house has at last patented a process for the ornamentation of tin plates. By means of colors, prepared in a way which is as yet a secret, the tin plate is printed. All kinds of neat patterns,Continue Reading