W. J. Hoynes
W. J. Hoynes is president of the Hoynes Safety Powder Company, with offices in the Leader-News Building of Cleveland. The principal plant of the company at present is near Massillon, Ohio, but the company is planning the erection of another plant in Cuyahoga County.
The product manufactured by this company is known as Hoynesite, a safety powder that has achieved remarkable results and demonstrated its clear superiority over every other form of safety powder used in coal mining and other blasting operations. Mr. Hoynes is the inventor of this powder, and it has been growing in favor and use for the past seven or eight years.
Hoynesite has many special qualities to distinguish it from the powders and dynamite, nitroglycerin and other explosives. Actual tests and the experience of long use have brought out many of its valuable features. Perhaps the most essential things are safety in handling and using plus efficient results. Hoynesite has the explosive power of dynamite and other powders, but accomplishes its results with less of the destructive energy and the shattering force of other powders. Many tests carried out, especially in coal mining operations, have proved that Hoynesite breaks the coal in large lumps rather than in pulverized slack, and thus increases the profit both of the mine owner and the miner. These are the results from the economic side, but those affecting the safety of use are equally important. Hoynesite apparently exerts its up heaving and shattering power within limits that can be accurately defined by the operator, and there is no case on record where, under competent handling, a misdirected blast has occasioned destruction of property and lives.
This element of safety and restricted but powerful action has made it especially available in blasting work for foundation and other construction. Blasting operations have frequently been carried on within the congested limits of large cities and enormous massed of material have been broken up with no danger to traffic only a few feet away. Not long ago a spark ignited one of the powder houses of the company’s plant and not only was there no explosion such as the popular mind as come to associate with powder and dynamite factories, but the fire was kept under control by the operatives at the plant, who apparently experienced no fear in handling and being in close proximity to the high explosive under dangerous conditions.
Hoynesite, in spite of its safety characteristics, is rated as a high explosive powder, and while its efficiency is on a par with nitroglycerin, it can be handled and used with a minimum of risk attending the use of explosives. Its safety characteristics cause the Municipal Explosive Commission of the City of New York to grant the company permission to transport and store and use the powder within the limits of the City of New York. Not long ago a test was carried out in Ohio, contrasting the power and also the safety of the powder. A section of a stone quarry, estimated at over 50,000 tons, was torn apart and broken up by a single blast of 400 pounds, the charge being fired by a young girl. This girl a little later took a frying pan and cooked eggs from the fire made by a quantity of the burning powder thrown on the ground and ignited, with no danger to herselfor the spectators.
The Hoynes Safety Powder Company, of which Mr. Hoynes is president, is a corporation organized under the laws of Delaware with an authorized capitalization of $2,000,000. This company, with principal offices in Cleveland, is the sole owner for the united States and the Dominion of Canada of all the patents, formulae, and special equipment for the manufacture of the explosive known as Hoynesite.
From Cleveland - Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York, 1918 v.1