"This motor's getting old, just like myself," he said as he yanked on a belt to jumpstart the sewing machine. "It needs a little help."
A layer of straw bits and dust coats every surface, nook and cranny of the shop, including a rotary dial telephone on which Shaffer takes orders. In cold weather, he digs coal from a seam on his property to burn in the potbellied stove that warms his workplace.
To make each broom, Shaffer feeds a pine handle into the mouth of the tying machine and threads wire from a spool into a hole in the handle. He steps on a pedal to start the machine, which turns the handle and winds the wire around it. He deftly shapes a handful of broom bristles around the base, turns the handle, tightening the wire to hold the bristles in place. He repeats the process until a round broom base, similar to the classic witches' broom, takes shape. Then he adds bristles to two opposing sides to form a "shoulder."
Shaffer also makes mops, in a less complicated process that requires only the tying machine.
After the broom's base is shaped, he stands it on end, stamps it to shake out any loose bristles and trims the strays. He carries the broom to the sewing machine. A hook beside the machine holds a skein of yellow thread from which he pulls a length and wraps it around the broom several times. As the machine creaks into action, he feeds the broom through an opening where two wicked-looking industrial needles punch through either side to grab the thread and bind it. Each broom is bound with five rows.
"I've only had one accident," he said. "The needle went through one of my fingers and into another." The scars remain, but his hands are nimble and relatively free of arthritis. "If they hurt, I just pull on them to stretch them out and they're fine."
Shaffer has no plans to retire. He never left his broom-making job, except for the occasional vacation at a quiet beach in North Carolina. Large, out-of-state broom manufacturers offered him jobs in the 1960s, but he didn't want to move his wife and their three sons who were active in school and sports.
Today, he spends his days in the workshop along Davis Creek, just a mile from the hollow where he grew up. One of his sons lives next door, and his granddaughter, 12, hangs out with him. When she was younger, she sat on a special chair he built for her with a view of the machines, and watched him work.
"I make brooms because I love it," he said. "If I'm bothered with something, I get at the machine and work and within half an hour, I'm in another world."
Charleston Broom & Mop Co. is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at 188 Alcan Ave., which is off Loudendale Road just outside the entrance to Kanawha State Forest. Call 304-342-7830.
Reach Julie Robinson at jul...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1230.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the world of broom making, Jim Shaffer is the last man standing.
Shaffer, 82, shapes and binds dried corn bristles into about 250 brooms a week in his dusty shop.
He's made brooms for 65 years, after he took his first job at Charleston Broom Co. when the factory stood on what is now a Laidley Field parking lot. When business was brisk, the 20 broom factory employees made about 3,600 brooms a week.
"I started there when I was 17 years old. Some boys I knew worked there, so I quit school and got a job there too," he said. He grew up near the site of the Loudendale shop he built in 1986 when he took over the business from the Goshorn family.
His prices are $8 for a household broom and $10 for a heavy-duty one. He doesn't sell enough to make a living but, he said, the money supplements his Social Security check.
"Of course, my check's not very big because I never made a lot of money," Shaffer said.
Like most of the broom factory employees, Shaffer usually received the minimum wage. With a wife and three sons to support, he supplemented his income by doing work on the side.
The bottom dropped out of the broom business when big store chains began purchasing brooms made inexpensively in Mexico, where labor costs are low and the broom corn is grown.
"We lost our wholesale customers. There used to be 15 grocer and hardware wholesalers that carried our brooms," he said. Customers included Kroger, Heck's, The Diamond and even Macy's in New York.
Today, Shaffer sells the majority of his brooms to Lions Clubs throughout West Virginia, where members sell them as a fundraiser for the clubs. Occasional customers wander into his shop, where they walk through the bales of broom bristles and mop supplies to his workroom.
Shaffer toils on antique machines, some more than 100 years old. They still work well, thanks to Shaffer's skills as a machinist.
"This motor's getting old, just like myself," he said as he yanked on a belt to jumpstart the sewing machine. "It needs a little help."
A layer of straw bits and dust coats every surface, nook and cranny of the shop, including a rotary dial telephone on which Shaffer takes orders. In cold weather, he digs coal from a seam on his property to burn in the potbellied stove that warms his workplace.
To make each broom, Shaffer feeds a pine handle into the mouth of the tying machine and threads wire from a spool into a hole in the handle. He steps on a pedal to start the machine, which turns the handle and winds the wire around it. He deftly shapes a handful of broom bristles around the base, turns the handle, tightening the wire to hold the bristles in place. He repeats the process until a round broom base, similar to the classic witches' broom, takes shape. Then he adds bristles to two opposing sides to form a "shoulder."
Shaffer also makes mops, in a less complicated process that requires only the tying machine.
After the broom's base is shaped, he stands it on end, stamps it to shake out any loose bristles and trims the strays. He carries the broom to the sewing machine. A hook beside the machine holds a skein of yellow thread from which he pulls a length and wraps it around the broom several times. As the machine creaks into action, he feeds the broom through an opening where two wicked-looking industrial needles punch through either side to grab the thread and bind it. Each broom is bound with five rows.
"I've only had one accident," he said. "The needle went through one of my fingers and into another." The scars remain, but his hands are nimble and relatively free of arthritis. "If they hurt, I just pull on them to stretch them out and they're fine."
Shaffer has no plans to retire. He never left his broom-making job, except for the occasional vacation at a quiet beach in North Carolina. Large, out-of-state broom manufacturers offered him jobs in the 1960s, but he didn't want to move his wife and their three sons who were active in school and sports.
Today, he spends his days in the workshop along Davis Creek, just a mile from the hollow where he grew up. One of his sons lives next door, and his granddaughter, 12, hangs out with him. When she was younger, she sat on a special chair he built for her with a view of the machines, and watched him work.
"I make brooms because I love it," he said. "If I'm bothered with something, I get at the machine and work and within half an hour, I'm in another world."
Charleston Broom & Mop Co. is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at 188 Alcan Ave., which is off Loudendale Road just outside the entrance to Kanawha State Forest. Call 304-342-7830.
Reach Julie Robinson at jul...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1230.
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