Among the factories of interest in and around Waterbury, Conn., is the
Clinton Pin Factory. This is one of the largest in America, and has
perhaps the most highly developed machinery in the world.

It is well to remember that the pin-machine is a purely American
invention, and its immense advantage can be fully appreciated if we recall
that it does the work that was required of eighteen distinct hands hardly
more than fifty years ago.

Pins are made of either brass or iron wire. Those made of the latter are
much cheaper, as the price of iron wire varies from three to five cents a
pound, while brass wire is usually worth fourteen.

The wire is fed to the machine from large reels. It is first cut into the
proper lengths by a small steel knife, so arranged that when the regular
length of wire is drawn, the knife descends and cuts it off. Next, each
small piece of wire, for we can hardly call it anything else yet, is
headed by a sharp rap from a small automatic hammer. Lastly, the blunt
ends are pointed by passing over a series of rapidly revolving
emery-wheels, and the pin falls, the essentially completed article, into a
large box, at the rate of three or four per second.

The pins are now placed in large vats, filled with soft soap and water, to
be freed from the dirt and grease gathered while passing through the
machine. After being thoroughly washed, they are put in the "hopper,"
mixed with bran or sawdust, to be dried. The hopper is shaken rapidly,
and the clean, dry pins fall out at one side, the sawdust at the other.