Lima Insulator Co. plant

Insulator Plant at Lima, N. Y.

The Lima Insulator Company has recently started a new plant at Lima, N. Y., to manufacture line insulators for all classes of service. The location of the plant was selected principally on account of the natural gas fields but a few miles away, and which furnish an apparently inexhaustible amount of gas of high fuel value. The buildings are directly beside the Lehigh Valley Railraod, which affords exceptional shipping facilities to all points, and are arranged so that the raw material can be unloaded at one end of the plant and the finished product shipped from the other with a minimum amount of handling.

In laying out the plant the idea of saving handling has been kept constantly in mind. The result is a workroom in which the various clays are mixed and manipulated almost entirely by the most modern clay-working machinery and then taken to the second floor on the plant by an endless belt. On this floor all the insulators are formed, dried in a steam dry room and glazed. The ware is then taken down an incline to the kilns and landed directly in front of the kiln doors, where it is placed in saggers and loaded. All the fuel used in the plant is natural gas, and by its use a remarkably uniform grade of porcelain is obtained, which can be obtained by no other fuel.

The designs of the insulators manufactured by the company have been very carefully worked out with a view of getting an ample arcing distance together with a maximum leakage surface. These points, together with the great strength of the porcelain used, combine to make an insulator of notable value.

The personnel of the company is composed of men with a wide experience in the manufacture of insulators and with a thorough knowledge of the requirements of the trade, which should insure thorough satisfaction on all insulators. The officers are: W. D. Newton, president; Roy Wellman, vice-president; Eben W. Lathrop, secretary, and M. W. Burke, treasurer.