[Newspaper]
Publication: Latrobe Bulletin
Latrobe, PA, United States
vol. 11, no. 304, p. 1, col. 1-2
Big Addition Completed for
Derry's Fine Insulator Plant
Imagine standing at the Citizens' Bank corner and looking down an avenue flanked on one side by busy machines and opening out on the other aide into drying rooms, and extending clear to the Pennsylvania Railroad, nearly 500 feet away,--and you will get some idea as to the length of the new addition which the Pittsburgh Voltage Insulator Company of Derry is now occupying.
The new addition, into the last completed section of which machines are being moved, today, extends the entire length of the company's main building, and represents one of the most important of the many improvements and enlargements which have marked the history of the plant during the past few years.
The addition houses the machines upon which the insulators are shaped end prepared for the drying rooms and the kilns. The machines are placed in a long row, extending the entire length of the structure, and by means of the new arrangement, the operating facilities of the plant have been made vastly more effective, with a consequent material increase in capacity.
With the completion of this addition achieved, the company plans to increase still further the capacities and the facilities of other departments, within the near future, the erection of two new kilns and the building of a big addition to the mixing department being among the further improvements contemplated.
Three hundred employes are busy, in the plant, turning out thousands of insulators of various kinds, every day. The general public has no idea, probably, of the largeness of this industry, located in Derry, the ground it covers, the bands it keeps busy, or the market It serves. Insulators for a big electric company in Barcelona, Spain; and insulators for a customer In South America, are included in the orders which are now being filled at the plant.
It is declared that the operating de. pertinent has now reached the point of efficiency where any design of insulator desired, can be made.
The company's catalogue contains hundreds of designs ranging from the little porcelain affairs used in wiring a house, to the great bowl shaped insulators arranged in series and capable of resisting the hundreds of thousands of volts which they are made to carry. Yet, the patternmakers are being kept constantly, forming new moulds. Just yesterday, an inquiry came in, concerning a new type of spark plug for automobiles.
The plant is going at full speed now, as it has been practically ever since the making of insulators was begun in it and Mr. C. M Semler, the general managers, is optimistic as to the outlook for business ahead.
Even the changing about of the machines, into the new building was accomplished without the loss of any time, through plans devised by Mr. Semler and Mr. Ward, the general superintendent.