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Community : Bradford
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Description : The town's new industry, the Bradford Wood Products Co., which will manufacture hockey stickes and skiis at the outset, begins to look like a real asset to the town in the very near future. Although all the machinery has not yet been installed in the factory, production of sample hockey sticks has begun, and when the balance of the machinery is in place, work will start on a larger scale. By the early part of March it is expected to have about fifteen hands employed.
On Tuesday the writer was shown through the factory by Mr. Love and witnessed the different operations required before the original piece of elm, (seasoned three years) is finally turned out the finished product -- a perfectly balanced A1 hockey stick of the highest grade the kind used by professionals and most of the high-class amateur teams playing the game.
The original long, thick elm plank is the first cut into lengths somewhat longer than a hockey stick and approximately 3 1-2 by 3 inches in width and thickness. The wood is then steamed and bent by a heavy machine into the shape of a hockey stick. Then it is put into a dry kiln for seven days, following which period each block is sawed length-wise into four pieces, each piece being one rough, unfinished hockey stick. The final shaping and finishing touches are put on by a disc sander, after which each stick is shellacked and labelled according to grade. Reginald ("Red") Horner, of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who, by the way, is to be head salesman for the local firm, was lending his expert advice in the final shaping of the blades which means so much to the proper balance of the sticks.
Messrs. Love and Bierge, the heads of the new company have orders for a considerable quantity of sticks in advance, and, with the ever increasing popularity of Canada's national winter game in other countries, particularly in the United States and all northern European countries the prospects for success of Bradford's new industry appear rather bright.
