Hardware, estimating, and mill design — A Closer Reading

From Staple Hardware to Radial Brick

The table of contents lists “Builders’ Hardware” as the first section, with topics such as “Staple Hardware,” “Cut and Wire Nails,” and “Wood Screws, Expansion and Special Bolts.” The hardware section is not merely a catalog of products; it appears to be a systematic classification of fasteners and fittings used in construction. The estimating section, however, dominates the excerpts. A detailed table breaks down labor prices per thousand brick for four classes of buildings, from “absolutely plain factory buildings” to “highly ornamental brick buildings” with molded cornices and sunk panels. The prices vary by floor level and building class, and the text includes adjustments for bond patterns, arches, and terra-cotta floor arches. This level of specificity—down to the cost of raking out joints and wetting them before pointing—demonstrates that the book is a working manual, not a theoretical treatise.

The Estimating Section’s Concrete Data

The estimating excerpts provide a window into early-20th-century construction economics. The text states that the prices “include office expense and builder’s profit” and are based on specific hourly wages: bricklayers at 65 cents, hod carriers at 25 cents, and common laborers at 18 cents. A table titled “LABOR PRICES PER THOUSAND BRICK FOR FOUR CLASSES OF BRICK BUILDINGS” gives costs ranging from $7.50 per thousand for a basement in Class 1 to $16.00 for a sixth floor in Class 4. The text also lists “miscellaneous brick prices” for walls of varying thickness and facing, with notes on adding costs for English or Flemish bond, light piers requiring plumbing, and segmental arches. For pressed-brick arches requiring radial brick, the labor cost is set at twice the cost of straight pressed brick, because the radial bricks “have to be unpacked and laid out on the full-sized diagram on the floor.” Such details reveal the practical reasoning behind the figures.

Mill Design and the Limits of the Excerpts

The third section, “Mill Design,” is listed in the table of contents but is not represented in the provided excerpts. The catalog subject “Factories—Design and construction” suggests that this section covers the layout and structural design of industrial buildings, likely including framing, floor loads, and machinery foundations. However, without excerpts, the specific content cannot be verified. The preface notes that the volume contains “223 Illustrations” prepared by the schools’ own Illustrating Department, which implies that the mill design section is heavily illustrated. The absence of this material in the excerpts means that any characterization of the section must remain tentative. Readers should consult the full text to assess how the mill design portion complements the hardware and estimating sections.

The book’s value lies in its concrete, data-driven approach to construction practice. Readers interested in historical building methods will find the estimating tables especially useful, as they preserve wage rates, material classifications, and labor productivity assumptions from the early 1900s. The hardware section likely provides similar detail on fasteners and fittings. The mill design portion, though not sampled here, probably extends the same methodical treatment to industrial building design. This is not a book for casual browsing; it is a reference work best consulted for specific cost data or construction techniques.

I keep thinking about how that old catalog’s quiet structure—each paper pretending to be plain instruction—held so much of its era’s way of seeing. It reminded me of something gentler, almost accidental, in this one: Manual of Oriental Antiquities — Story, Setting & Ideas, where the fragments linger like rooms you’ve left but still feel warm behind you.