Commonwealth Art Pottery and Insulator Company making insulators

OUR INDUSTRIES.

INSULATOR MANUFACTURE

A PROMISING LOCAL TRADE.

GOVERNMENT ENCOURAGEMENT

ESSENTIAL.

Few people are aware that within ten miles of Melbourne, in the picturesque neighborhood of Box Hill, an industry has been established which may prove of enor­mous advantage to the Commonwealth, and incidentally produce considerable employment. Some time ago in the district named a remarkable deposit of clay was discovered, having many of the conditions essential to the manufacture of art pottery and a special suitability for the non-conductive properties desired in insulators used for telegraphic and electrical purposes. Vast quantities of insulators are used annually throughout Australia. The Postal department alone has an annual consumption of about 800,000, while electrical supply undertakings are also large users. The Commonwealth Art Pottery and Insulator Company acquired this valu­able bed of clay, and has since worked it, mostly in the production of insulators.

Realising the experience of all pioneers in a new field of manufacture, the company has had a career of variety stimulated by hope. It began with the idea that an in­sulator was a very simple article to make, and that any pottery hand would be possessed of the apparently moderate skill in­volved in turning out a cone of sufficient durability to hold a telegraph wire. The assumption proved a delusion. Pot making and insulator construction have nothing in common. The company had to start from the beginning and train men to fashion the goods for which there was the best market. Gradually it succeeded. Insulators were made for the Postal department and for various private consumers; the works were considerably extended, new plant laid down, and additional kilns erected, until in time the establishment became an im­portant factory, employing from 70 to 80 hands.

Prior to the war insulators were im­ported from Germany and Austria; a few came from Japan. The Box Hill works might compete with European manufac­turers, but had no chance against labor that considered itself handsomely renumerated at 7/ per week. Recently the Postal department called for tenders for insulators involving a considerable supply. Imagine the consternation among the shareholders and employes of the Commonwealth Art Pottery Company when the rumor got about that the Postmaster-General intended to accept a Japanese tender. It seemed that certain influences within the circle of officialdom were trying to make up for extravagances in other depart­ments by strenuous economies in the region of small things. When the Post Office is losing hundreds of thousands a year there is a cry that the department should be run upon commercial lines, and that, ignoring the accepted policy of encouraging local industry, departmental supplies should be bought in the cheapest market. Happily Mr. Spence resisted the blandishments that would have undermined his protectionist principles, and the Commonwealth Art Pottery Company obtained an order for 200,000 insulators.

The works are now in full swing and a visit there is an interesting experience. All the machinery for converting clay to an essential article of commerce is erected immediately adjoining the deport of raw material. The particular clay most suitable for insulator making is exposed to the weather for several months. After being mixed with other clays, it is passed through filter presses and subjected to a pressure of up to 100 lb. to the square inch. The material receives a preliminary treatment through the pug mill, and subsequently undergoes a second treatment to form it into suitable shapes for "stamping" which gives the clay the rough form of the insu­lator. When the embryo has been dried to the required consistency, it is turned on lathes, enjoys a further drying, and then undergoes the finishing treatment prepara­tory to being dipped in the glaze. The ware is then placed in fire clay boxes, which are "hermetrically [sic] hermetically sealed. These are piled in the kilns and built up in columns 11 feet high, until the kiln is completely filled. The building up of the door completes the setting.

Each of the eight fire holes in the circu­lar kiln is then lit with small fires for the first period of the burning, and gradu­ally increased to "full fire" at the end of the first 24 hours. Full fires are main­tained approximately for a further 24 hours until the "trials" which are drawn from time to time during the process of burning, indicate that the firing stage has ended. After the cooling down process which take's about 48 hours, the boxes containing the insulators are drawn from kiln. Then comes sorting for flaws, and packing, and the insulator is ready for use. From the period of its birth in the stamping machine to the realisation of its finished existence the insulator is exposed to numerous fractures during the drying and burning processes, careless and unskilful [sic] unskillful handling, foreign matter in the clay and the damage incidental to the manufacture of fragile articles. The "B" pattern insulator so largely used by the Postal department is handled 26 times, each handling leaving its wreckage of defectives owing to faults and accidents. A collision will frequently cause the loss of a whole board of ware in the clay state (about 50 insulators), there being rarely a survivor. The most serious losses, however, are those occurring in the burning, as the complete cost of manufacture has then been expended on the ware.

The six filter presses produce about 10 tons of plastic clay per day; the two pug mills treat a similar quantity; three stamp­ing machines have, each a capacity of 3000 insulators per day; the 13 lathes have an average capacity of 500 per day; the 4 kilns have an average capacity of 9000, and the average stock in process of manu­facture is 45,000. Insulators only are produced, the clay being especially suitable for the manufacture of high tension ware. It is practically the only deposit of clay in the State which has so far turned out any considerable quantity of insulators suit­able for electrical installations. In addi­tion to being used by the Commonwealth Government, the company's insulators find customers in the Melbourne Electric Supply Company, the councils of Northcote, Brunswick and Port Melbourne, the North Mel­bourne and Essendon Electric Tramway Company, and numerous local and inter­state firms. The bulk of the output, how­ever, has been absorbed by the Postal de­partment, private orders being necessarily of an intermittent character. Although numerous attempts have been made in a small way to supply high-tension insulators, only the Commonwealth Art Pottery Com­pany has succeeded on any extensive scale. Being a combination of primary and secondary production, the industry should become one of the settled activities of the Commonwealth. The manufacturing cost is made up of about 92 per cent, labor and 8 per cent, material. The industry is sub­ject to a wages board, and the rate of pay is considerably higher than the rate of wages in foreign countries. Germany and Austria, hitherto the chief suppliers, pay wages of one-third to one-half those fixed by the wages board, and, despite the sneers of the free-trade organ about undue preference to local industry, it is to be hoped no Government contract will ever be allowed to run in that direction. With the perfecting of the plant and appliances, and the increased skill of operatives, a steady reduction in the cost of manufacture may be anticipated.