Stencil
Manufacturing ( part 4)
I (Mr. Gumbinner) invented and patented a stencil with a yellow top coat and a heavier
black coat on the underside. These stencils were sold to Weber
Addressing and Sten-C-Label who made a small device to mark shipping
cartons. They mounted the stencils to a backing sheet, which when
the address was typed could be kept in the office and the stencil be
sent to the shipping department to mark the packages. This reduced
the possibility of shipping errors as well as saving the time of
making a Marsh stencil. We used Marsh stencils to mark our shipping
cartons. In the 1940s, much of Polychromes production was for the
armed forces. An inspector would check the shipments before it was
released. They always accepted our test results. When a new
inspector came, he would make us remark the cartons. The inspectors
weren’t consistent.
We
were not patent conscious in the forties, so we did not patent
several other of my stencil inventions. Two other products that we
produced on the stencil coating machine were a clear stencilizing
coating on a heavy tissue for strain gauges. This was for a company
in Eddystone, Pennsylvania and a heat sensitive paper which was used
in cardiograph machines and similar marking applications. The black
tracing was made by a heated sapphire stylus.