Additional memo from Mr. Gumbinner 8 Stencil Construction

While Speed-O-Print and Gestetner  were  by far our biggest customers others were Rochester Stencils, Canadian Polychrome stencils and several New York City dealers.  While a large percentage of the stencils we coated were blue we also coated green, white and yellow stencils.  We occasionally coated black cushion sheets which were mounted between the stencil and backing sheet.  To completely prevent type filling we would for the premium stencils mount a sheet of pliofilm, rubber hydrochloride made by Goodyear, on top of the stencil.  It was attached with removable glue dots so correction fluid could be applied if an error was made.  We later glued the pliofilm to a folded tab. It could be used for several stencils.  Louis Mestre made a machine to make the tabs.  He had also made a machine to assemble the stencil and backing sheet.  A roll of backing sheet paper and a roll of the stencil tissue were mounted on the machine. A keyhole was punched in the backing sheet and a line of glue was applied.  After the he stencil and backing sheet were cut off, the direction was changed at a right angle and then fed through two multigraphs to print the heading and scale, and then a unit that punched the mounting holes on the backing sheet.  The ink for printing the scale was purchased from IPI.  But I found that if we used paralac it worked as well. The pliofilm machine was installed on the second floor of an old school building on Prospect street. It was operated by Ray Lauzon.

Additional memo from Mr. Gumbinner 7 Gestetner

Gestetner which made a two drum stencil duplicator in the Tottenham section of London had made a number of years ago an agreement with A B Dick not to compete in the American market.  This agreement was now ended and Gestetner made an arrangement with Polychrome for Polychrome to furnish the stencils for the Americas.  Polychrome had a dealer in Chicago,  Arnold Rose, who sold a large number of die impressed stencils when he visited us in Yonkers we offered to take him to lunch.  He asked for a drink.  We had a half bottle of Scotch.  He finished it and said he was still hungry.  We sent out to buy another which he finished.  He said he had cut down on drinking. He had been drinking  two bottles of whiskey and a case of beer a day.

Additional memo from Mr. Gumbinner 6 Stencil improvements and Speed-o-Print

Our tests showed excessive type filling.  I made a solution that was coated on one side by a coating unit installed at the back end of the coating tunnels which consisted only of nitrocellulose and a plasticizer.  As this coating had a lot of glare I had diatomaceous earth solution put in the middle of the drying tunnel which solved the problem.  For the lower price Polychrome label stencils this was added to the back coating solution.  Later when we made the stencils for the Gestetner duplicator we added an anti-static coating in the middle of the tunnel.  Mr. Halpern made an arrangement with Speed-O-Print that made a hand operated stencil duplicator and was located in a former Bell and Howell building on Larchmont Street, Chicago to take over their stencil coating and mounting facilities.  Speed-O-Print sales manager was Gibby Grant.  We moved their finishing equipment to Yonkers.  They had an 18 inch multigraph to print the heading and scale on the stencils.  The man who ran this press was brought to Yonkers.