Signs of our times

From the archives of All thing Ironing - It's a Sign.

Jerusalem, Israel

Electricity before Steam

From the archives of All things Ironing - H.W. Seely.

Before the Steam Iron came the Electric Iron.

Born in Richville, Kentucky, on July 2nd, 1854 Henry W. Seely invented and patented the first electric pressing iron on the 6th of June in the year 1882. The invention was named as the “electric flatiron.”

H.W.Seely

Although it is the only invention Seely patented, he witnessed many of Thomas Edison's inventions, including the light bulb.

Unlike current models, the first irons manufactured, used a carbon arc to create the heat needed by passing a current across carbon arc electrodes.

 

  A carbon arc to create heat. It even looks dangerous.

Can you imagine the WorkCare premiums?

 

  1892

Electrical resistance used to heat the soleplate.

1920's

First irons with a thermostat to regulate the temperature.

1939

E.P.Schreyer patents the iron steam chamber.

 

The credit for the invention of the steam iron however, goes to Thomas Sears in the early 1950's.

Mothers Day gift 2011

About Osca - Osca gifts.

Hot on the heels of Easter comes Mothers Day in 2011.  It has been a tradition at Osca for 25 years to give our customers a small gift for Mothers Day and a week from the first Sunday in May we had no gifts.

Panic...

As it happens, this year Easter and Mothers Day were just over a week apart and it wasn't until we had all the easter eggs packed that we realised we had forgotten all about Mothers Day.

Not that we are always ready on time :) Last year we fixed a similar problem by high tailing it to Chocolate Box and ordering a hundred chocolate hearts. It is getting harder each year to come up with something unique so that we don't repeat our selves and don't exceed our budget by too much.

In desperation we visited our mate Gary and as if he knew we were going to call on him, he had the perfect gifts. Fragrant reed diffusers. Already packed in stylish slender boxes, it was just a matter of tying and curling some nice ribbon and adding a little Osca card. Come Sunday night, a day before we needed to start distributing we were ready with all the gifts wrapped and packed. Close, but done.  Now we hope our customers will like them :)

Wrapping this years Mothers day presents was easy as they already came in stylish little boxes. So just a little ribbon and an "Osca card to say "Thank you for your custom".

It always puts a smile on a customer's face when they spy a little gift in their deliverd basket of ironing,

and this is what the diffuser looks like out of the box.

UFO over Melbourne ?

Thursday night on the evening run, what is that streaking across the sky ?

Looking west from Burke Road railway crossing near the Monash freeway.

Most likely a plane, would that make it an IFO ?

Views on the run

A mixture of fog and afternoon traffic smog with the sun just having set makes for a magical silhouette. This moment was snapped while waiting for the lights to change at the intersection of Canterbury and Burke roads earlier this week. A couple of seconds... and it is time to move on with the rest of the run.

Easter gift 2011

Chocolate Easter eggs. A small gift for all customers who have used our services in the week coming up to Easter. What can I say, It is a tradition and the look on children's faces when they spy Easter eggs in mommy's ironing basket is priceless :)

With a little persuasion, we managed to talk Easter bunny into parting with some Easter chocolates.

 

 

 

 

Each basket contained a small gift.

Easter logo.

February 15, 2011

Osca Newsletter 15.2.2012 - Wish List.

One of the plans for the year ahead is to introduce a shirt only service to Toorak and Kooyong.
Customers will be able to fill in the Osca Shirt Wishlist on-line thanks to this form from Google Documents.

So today, I am testing embeding a link into the blog.

If it works we'll most likely add it to the next web page upgrade.

You are welcome to try it out.
(note - any data collected is for test purposes only and ignore the last untitled question).

What do ironers do on a weekend ?

From the archives of All things Ironing - Humor.

So what do ironers do on the weekend ? Pack up their ironing boards and...

... go surfing of course :)

Ironing board Surfing beginner ? Here are some hints.

Positioning is all important when it comes to surfing. If your feet are not positioned correctly you will fall off or not be able to make decent turns. If you are not in the correct position when paddling for or catching waves then you will find yourself taking a pounding whenever you surf.

If you are not correctly positioned on your ironing board when riding on the wave then you will not be able to keep up the momentum necessary to ride the wave.

Attaining good foot position as soon as you get on the ironing board is desirable so you can get straight into your surfing. You don't want to concentrate on sliding your feet up and down the ironing board when you could be carving it up dude!.

Keep your body slightly crouched to lower your center of gravity. You will find you pobably have your arms out wide to aid with balance which is great. Keep your knees bent at all times, riding a wave can be a bumpy ride. Your body will be turned to the side (which you can see demonstrated in the picture above) and the top half of your body will be turning to face forward.

The origin of this image has not been determined. Found at http://www.stumbleupon.com/ searching for 'ironing'

and the week goes on...

The end of week came by faster than expected. Overall, another good week. All the work got done and delivered on time. No customer complaints.

Sadly, our trainee driver was not successful by the end of the first weeks trial. Although he is a lovely young man with high principals and pleasant manor, an Osca driver requires to have some basic skills, like a Victorian driver's licence. Personally, we were privileged to meet, however personal feelings aside, we are in the business of providing the best posssible service to our customers and ultimately it is the customer's intersts that determine the outcome. Never mind, we'll keep looking.

The workshop crew are still enjoying the new jigsaw puzzle and it is beginning to take shape.

IN PROGRESS -

The new sleeve arms are being made. The sleeve arms are used to iron garments such as 'ladies shirts' enabling ironing a sleeve without a crease. Although we've used various manufactured arms, ultimately the best kind are ones we can make our selves to a customised size and shape design.

step 1 - measure accurately.

step 2 - if measuring accurately fails, draw line by hand

step 3 - once the wood is cut to shape, the ventilation holes are drilled.

"Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert hall."
- A day in the life.

step 4 - the sanding and shaping begins on the bottom side.

step 5 - the top (most important) edges are rounded and smoothed.

step 6 - 'Hey Presto', five new arms ready to be covered with padding.

The Ironer (La Repasseuse)

The Ironer (La Repasseuse) c. 1850

Bronze

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva

PRADIER, James

(b. 1792, Genève, d. 1852, Rueil)

Pradier was in Italy from 1813 to 1819 and thus missed the upheavals of the fall of Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration. He returned from his years in Italy an almost unblemished classicist. Yet, after 1830, he infused a new sense of modernity and sensuality in his art. His conversion to realism was sincere and led to him being a pioneer of everyday subjects, such as the Ironer. Significantly, such works are small-scale bronzes. In this semi-private type of sculpture it was possible to experiment with innovations without undermining the values of mainstream monumental sculpture.

Tuesday, and all's well. 

I relayed Sue's comments on the quality of predampening yesterday to Harjit and Ishani this morning.  It is a tricky business knowing just how much moisture a particular fabric might need in order for it to "just right" to iron.  If it is too wet it will need to be dried out and take too long on the table.  If it is too dry it will need further predampening, and again, take too long on the table.  Though Harjit has already been at Osca for over 4 months, getting that "just right" balance takes a bit of training and a lot of practice and understanding of fabric types and how they had been laundered and dried.

Ishani, who has only joined us a few weeks ago is realizing just how much she still has to learn.  So far she has only been learning the correct proccess of ironing the perfect Osca shirt.  This week she he has

Nimali is progressing very well with her English.  She has decided to start a Thesaurus for herself, rather than continuing to rely on translations in her dictionary.

Monday. Everyone is in, a couple of customers were a no pick up this morning, but there is plenty of work in the workshop to keep the crew buzzing.

Nimali had an hour with Eve, practicing her english expression for her upcoming residency application.

Gasbaging with Wats all morning trying to sort out the why's and wherefores of commiting to a daily blog.

Monty is due for a first week trial (again!) at 4:30. Let's hope he's on time.

(arrived at 3:00!) Go Monty If it isn't 15 minutes late it is an hour and a half early. Job ready?)

The new jigsaw is coming along.