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The Mopman Cometh
by Jeanne Kissane
Small Business Magazine June 1977
Remember the iceman in leather pants who used to visit the
neighborhood regularly using gigantic tongs to deliver blocks of ice to each
family? Remember the ragman who made his rounds in a horse drawn cart filled
with bright scraps of people's unwanted cloth? Remember the mopman who went
door to door selling the handled fixtures for which the buyer supplied the
rags to make his own mop?
Well, you may never see the iceman or the ragman again, but the mopman is
still very active in his little shop in West Boylston, Massachusetts, where he makes mops in the
same way that his great uncle did 50 years ago.
It's not that it was Tom Slack's childhood ambition to become a mopmaker the
way it is some kids' dream to be firefighters or baseball players. But at the
age of 24, after three years of work as a mechanical designer for an
electronics company, the prospect of working for himself appealed to him. So,
when his father decided to retire from mopmaking, Slack decided to take over
where his father had left off.
When he bought his father's mop company in 1972, Slack became the forth
generation of his family to be involved in the 70 year old business. The business
originated when Slack's great grandfather Alexander, father of 11 children,
began making mop fixtures which he and his four sons sold door to door and
the customer would then finish by inserting absorbent rags for a wet mop or
wool for a dry mop.
Slack's great uncle, Steve, incorporated the business with its own
trademarked name, Sla-Dust, in 1927. Slack's father, who originally worked
for Steve, owned the company from 1960 until 1972 when his son took it over.
Slack decided to relocate the business in a neatly refurbished barn just
behind his home; it is there that he handcrafts the 11 different styles of
mops and dusters which bear his family's trademark. Anyone who thinks a mop
is just a mop, hasn't seen Tom Slack's one-man operation. He is the first to
admit that most people don't realize how one mop could be so different from
another, but the quality of his materials and the care he takes with his
workmanship greatly distinguish Slack's mops from the mass-produced versions
which represent his competition. He uses 100 percent wool for the mop heads
while competitors usually use synthetics. "Wool contains natural lanolin
and static electricity which attract dust, so it's a better mop
material." Slack keeps an example of one of his competitor's mops on
hand to show how easily the strands can be plucked out of the head and to
demonstrate how floors can be marred by jagged edges hidden underneath the
strands. His mops are much more tightly assembled and he smilingly admits
that the only drawback to making such a durable product is that he has so few
repeat customers. "A woman came in the other day to buy a new one and
said she's had the same mop for thirty years."
The display rack just inside the door shows off the several different
Sla-Dust varieties which include a long handled wall duster and a baby mop
just the right size for kids. The prices range from $1.99 for a hand duster
to $21.99 for a large industrial size mop. Tom handles most of the work
himself with some help from other members of the family. The wire fixtures
that fit into the handle are made in his cousin's basement. Another of his
cousins also helps with the assembling on a part-time basis. Slack's wife,
Karen, keeps the books.
There are 12 steps and 10 different machines and tools involved in Tom
Slack's unique process. The tools include some fascinating examples of
homemade contraptions which Slack, his father and his great uncle designed
specifically for mopmaking, and a few pieces of antiquated machinery whose
original functions have been adapted to the Slack's own purposes.
The wool used on the mop head is carpet yarn which Slack buys as remnants
from carpet mills. Several cones of yarn, in various colors and in slightly
varied textures, are laid out on the floor and wound into long skeins on a
homemade reel. After the yarns are skeined, they are cut into bunches with a
yarn cutter that Slack fashioned from the rotary blade of an old meat slicer.
The length and thickness of the bunches varies according to the style of mop
that is being assembled at the time.
The bunches of yarn are then weighed, laid out on squares of cardboard and
stacked on shelves. When Slack has set aside enough bunches to make several
mops, he goes to the next step: the wool is locked into a wire fixture with a
machine Slack constructed from a washing machine motor, a gear box, an air
vise and some pieces of scrap metal. The excess wire is trimmed with a
formidable-looking old punch press which was used by Slack's great uncle.
"Today you could probably get a much more compact machine to do the same
thing, "Slack says, "but I prefer this one..it's more rustic."
Next, Slack parts the wool with a one-toothed comb, winds electrician's tape
around the wire edges, and clamps them down tightly with two hand vises. Anyone
whose beautiful floor bears an ugly scratch from the uncovered edge of an
inferior mop can appreciate the importance of so small a step.
The wool strands, which at this stage resemble a stylish clown's wig more
than a mop, are neatly combed before the ends receive a custom trim from what
looks like a guillotine. According to great uncle Steve, the guillotine was
originally a leather cutter but it now serves very nicely as a mop trimmer.
(A small tarnished emblem on the side indicates that the guillotine was
patented in 1911 and manufactured by a Milwaukee engineering company.) The
larger mops, which are too wide for the trimmer, are manicured by hand with
large scissors. Then the mop is ready to be packaged.
The packaging is one of the changes Tom Slack has made since taking over the
business. The loose plastic bags in which the mops used to be sold didn't
hold up under the frequent squeezes that the multi-colored wool attracted
from passing shoppers, so Slack invested in a sealer and shrink wrapper which
seals the head, now cardboard covered, in tight plastic wrap.
Slack does all of the selling himself, mostly to local hardware stores and to
chains with branches throughout New England.
The industrial models are bought by several area school systems and state
institutions, and the small dusters are popular with mail order catalogues
like Miles Kimball, Vermont Country Store, and Popular Club. In fact, the
hand dusters have come to represent an increasingly large part of Slack's
sales. In his first year, he sold 3,000 dusters and 7,000 mops. This year he
expects to sell 18,000 dusters and 8,000 mops. As a result, he plans to put
more effort into developing the mail order market for his dusters, which seem
now to be more in demand than the mops.
The mail order business is also an attractive outlet because it provides some
of the advertisement which Slack could not otherwise afford. "In the
store, people looking for a mop just buy the least expensive one. But the
mail order catalogue writes up a nice article describing the product. The
dusters have been going well."
Not surprisingly, the spring and the fall are the mopman's busiest seasons.
From February through April, there is a very hectic period in anticipation of
spring cleaning binges. Slack estimates he does 35 to 40 percent of his
yearly business in March and April. The pace slows down considerably during
the summer and then picks up again in the fall with a concentration on the
Sla-Dust's dusters for the Christmas catalogue season.
Slack doesn't foresee many major changes in his operation and doubts he'll
change jobs or businesses again. "I don't think I could work for
somebody else again. I think I'll stay with this. I'd like to see the thing
grow to the point where I can spend most of my time selling, but at the same
time I don't want to lose the quality. I think there's a market for mops like
mine because people now are looking for natural products and well-made
products. I think people are pretty tired of buying something and having to
take it back to the store because it's a piece of junk."
So, in 1977, despite the popularity of wall to wall carpeting, Tom Slack
finds demand for his handmade wool dust-mops consistent enough to continue to
make them in the same old way. And Sla-Dust Mop Company continues to prosper.
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