Decorative Sombreros
Salad Dressings & Marinades
Cap Guns
Regenerative Medicine

The sombrero is a traditional mexican hat with a large brim that's designed to cast a wide shadow over the face and shoulders.

Everyday sombreros are made of straw, but mariachi bands and other folkloric performers wear fancier ones made of velvet, wool, or felt, with elaborate decorations.

These fancy sombreros are produced primarily as decorative tourist souvenirs.

Artisans construct and decorate each one entirely by hand.

They start by positioning a sun-shaped cutting die at the center of a large sheet of thick paper.

As the press closes, the die slices through, making a hole.

Next, they sandwich the sheet between two fiery hot sombrero-shaped forms.

These mold the paper to the shape of the hat's brim.

Then they trim off the excess and stitch the perimeter to reinforce the edge.

Now they soak the brim in a gelatin solution and lay it out in the sun to dry to stiffen the paper.

Next, they fold a sheet of paper and die-cut another shape.

They sew the far ends together to form a circle.

This will form the top of the sombrero, called the cup.

They spread glue along the base, where it attaches to the brim.

They also apply glue to a paper circle.

Then they place the cup on the same hot form they use to mold the brim.

After shaping the cup, they reinforce the top with the paper circle.

The sombrero is now fully constructed.

The next step is to cover it in fabric.

They coat the surface with glue, then, section by section, adhere pieces of velvet or felt.

They start with the cup.

The fabric has been pre-cut and sewn to the correct shape.

The next section is the brim's underside.

They trim off the excess fabric with a razor blade...

And cut away the fabric over the cup.

Next, a piece to cover the top of the brim.

Throughout the fabric-application process, he's careful to pull the material taut and smooth it down.

A final trimming, and the sombrero is fully covered.

Elsewhere in the factory, automated machines weave spools of polypropylene string and metallic plastic string into colorful trim.

Artisans in the decoration department cut out paper motifs and cover them in trim.

Then, they make colorful appliqués by sewing the motifs and sequins onto velvet-covered paper shapes.

They glue these appliqués onto the sombrero.

Finally, they glue trim where the appliqué edges and hat surface meet.

This holds the edges down and finishes them off nicely.

On pricier sombreros, all the decorations are sewn by hand-- no glued-on appliqués.

The artisans complete every sombrero with the fabric lining in the cup, then an under-the-chin drawstring, handy for wearing or hanging this mexican memento.

Supermarket shelves are stocked with a vast selection of tasty, ready-made salad dressings and marinades.

Dressing adds instant pizzazz to the salad, whereas marinade flavors and tenderizes raw food by slow penetration over a few hours prior to cooking.

Salad dressings can be cream- or mayonnaise-based or oil-and-vinegar-based.

This particular line of dressings and marinades is made entirely of certified organic ingredients.

It's also gluten-free and sugar-free for those with celiac disease or diabetes.

While the salad dressing's base stays much the same, the seasoning ingredients vary to create different flavors, such as the one we're about to see being made-- sun-dried tomato and garlic vinaigrette.

On the production floor, they start by heating water, then adding tomato paste.

Next, they add dried basil.

They pour all ingredients directly into the vortex created by the mixing blade to ensure thorough blending.

Next, they add sun-dried tomatoes...

Minced garlic...

And salt.

After 15 more minutes of mixing, they add soybean oil and extra virgin olive oil, both expeller-pressed, meaning extracted from the source naturally using a mechanical press and not the conventional chemical process.

The last ingredient is gluten-free red wine vinegar.

Whereas the oils provide both taste and texture, this vinegar produces a full-bodied flavor.

Cooking another 20 minutes or so on high heat stabilizes the product, giving unopened dressing a shelf life of up to a year.

On the bottling line, a machine called the inverter flips the empty glass bottles upside down.

Then, from underneath, an air nozzle shoots in a blast of filtered air.

This loosens any dust or dirt particles inside the bottle, enabling a vacuum to then suction them out.

Another inverter flips the bottles right side up again as they enter the filling machine.

Exiting the filler, the bottles pass through a machine which dispenses plastic caps, then, with a row of spinning disks, twists them on.

Finally, a tamper-proof seal and labels.

The marinade-production process is much the same, but with different ingredients, of course.

This batch is sesame teriyaki flavor, of which a key component is gluten-free tamari, a japanese soy sauce made without wheat.

Again, the process begins by heating water in a cook kettle.

They pump in tamari...

Pour in salt...

Then powdered ginger.

Next, minced garlic and sesame seeds.

Then, agave nectar, a natural sweetener that's low-glycemic.

They add pureed ginger...

Then, expeller-press soybean oil mixed with xanthan gum, a natural thickener.

About 20 minutes' cooking on high heat, and this sesame teriyaki marinade is ready for bottling.

Like before, the glass bottles undergo a vacuum cleaning en route to the filler.

There, pistons suck up the marinade like a syringe, then inject it into the bottles.

The filled bottles go through the capper, then travel on a conveyor belt to the next machine, which slips a plastic neckband over each cap.

A shot of hot steam shrinks the neckband tightly around the cap, creating a tamper seal.

Finally, the labeling machine applies glue to the back of a paper label, then wraps it around the passing bottle.

Besides flavoring and tenderizing raw food before cooking, you can also pour marinade over meat, fish, or vegetables while cooking, a surefire way to let the gourmet out of the bottle.

A cap gun is a toy revolver which, when you pull its trigger, makes an explosive sound like a gunshot and emits a small puff of smoke.

The caps--  tiny dots of gunpowder on either a plastic ring or a strip of paper inserted in the gun-- produce these realistic effects.

Cowboy-style cap guns were the rage in the 1950s and '60s during the golden age of westerns.

This small american factory uses the molds the major toy companies of the day discarded when they stopped making cap guns long ago.

Caps are little dots of gunpowder about 1/16 of an inch in diameter, sandwiched between two strips of paper.

Pulling the trigger releases a hammer, which strikes the cap, exploding it.

This injection-molding machine makes the grips, the faces of the gun handle.

It shoots hot liquid plastic into 10 grip molds simultaneously.

The plastic cools and solidifies in just seconds.

The color and design of grips vary by model.

The ones on this rancher-style cap gun feature a steer's head.

The rest of the gun is made of cast zinc.

Workers load a zinc bar into a smelting pot heated to about 750 degrees fahrenheit.

The bar melts within a couple of minutes.

The molten zinc travels through heated pipes to a plunger, which injects the zinc into a gun-parts mold.

The zinc takes just 10 seconds to cool and harden.

Then it's just a matter of separating the parts.

The gun's main body, which contains the right side of the barrel...

The loading gate, which covers the cap box...

The cylinder...

The left side of the barrel...

And toy bullets which load into the cartridge but don't shoot out of the gun.

The trigger and hammer are cast in a separate mold.

Every piece has flashing, excess metal that forms in the gap between the two halves of the mold.

After removing as much as they can with pliers, workers file down the rest.

Some flashing is quite thick, so they use a sander to remove it.

Workers rinse the smooth parts in acid to clean the surface, then electroplate them with zinc.

They dip the parts in a clear liquid coating to make the mat surface shiny.

Now assembly can begin.

First, they install the spring which opens the loading gate.

They take the left side of the barrel, add the latch that holds the loading gate closed and the spring which puts tension on that latch.

Then the cylinder, and, finally, the guiding disk which turns the cylinder when you squeeze the trigger.

They screw all that to the main body, which contains the right side of the barrel.

Next, they insert an orange plastic safety tip into the end of the barrel.

Laws require this to prevent cap guns from being mistaken for real firearms.

They hook the loading-gate spring to the gate's latch to hold it closed.

Then, they install the hammer spring...

And hammer.

Two brass grommets secure the cylinder-turning arm and the pusher which feeds the caps one by one out of the cap box into striking position.

The trigger spring keeps tension on both the cap pusher and the trigger.

Next, they install the loading gate.

After hooking up additional springs, workers attach the top part of the hammer spring to the holding pin on the hammer...

Then, the bottom part of the hammer spring to the holding pin on the frame.

Finally, the plastic grips--  one for each side of the handle.

Being cast from vintage molds, these cap guns feature intricate scrollwork, a degree of craftsmanship rarely seen in toys nowadays-- something perhaps better appreciated by the parents of the wild west cowboys than by the pint-sized gunslingers themselves.

When parts of the human body break down or are damaged, options are limited.

Scientists are working on providing replacement parts on demand, like fingers, ears, and bladders.

Laboratory-engineered bladders have already been successfully implanted in humans.

The stuff of science fiction may soon be a reality.

They begin with a mold, a finger mold on the right and an ear on the left.

These molds could be made of synthetic polymers or natural materials such as collagen.

Scientists will grow real cells on the molds.

To obtain those cells, a scientists first extracts a small piece of cartilage, which is a type of connective tissue in the body.

She chops it into little bits.

She transfers the minced cartilage to a test tube partially filled with a special enzyme.

This enzyme dissolves tissue, leaving only the cartilage cells.

She then places the test tube in a centrifuge for a high-speed spin.

This causes the cartilage cells to separate from the enzyme solution and settle on the bottom.

She siphons off the liquid, and the tiny cells remain in the test tube.

Next, she adds a red liquid.

It's a culture medium.

It will act as a fertilizer to stimulate cell growth.

Transferred to a petri dish, she swishes the mix to dispense the cells.

Then it's into an incubator warmed to 98.6 degrees fahrenheit, body temperature.

It's the perfect environment to spur more cell growth.

Meanwhile, a computer-controlled machine builds the mold of the ear.

It layers synthetic polymer to produce an authentic-looking shape.

This process takes about five hours.

In the meantime, the microscopic cells have multiplied 20 times.

The scientist drips them onto the completed mold, where they continue to grow.

In the future, cell-covered ear molds could be implanted under a patient's skin.

Cartilage would form, and the body would accept the part as its own.

Other scientists are working on growing blood vessels and heart valves.

They start by extracting a type of stem cell from human blood.

The researcher first fills a test tube with the clear, high-density solution.

He adds diluted blood to the clear solution.

Almost instantly, the different components of the blood begin to separate.

The heavier red blood cells plummet and the lighter stem cells rise to the top of the test tube.

A spin in the centrifuge leaves the components visibly separated, allowing scientists to retrieve the desired cells.

They'll convert them to endothelial cells, which line the inside of blood vessels and heart valves.

In the meantime, they construct the blood-vessel mold.

The scientist adds solvent to liquid collagen, causing it to instantly dissolve.

He adds little white beads.

They're synthetic polymers.

And they liquefy over a period of about an hour.

They spray the collagen concoction onto a rod that spins as a carriage moves it to and fro for even coverage.

The collagen-and-polymer mixture quickly solidifies around the rod.

The scientist slides off the now-hardened biomaterial.

He now has a mold for shaping a human blood vessel.

He coats the mold with the microscopic endothelial cells, which, by now, have grown and multiplied.

He then pumps fluid through it to simulate blood flow.

This conditions the cells to go with the flow and collectively operate as a real blood vessel.

To grow a heart valve, they don't actually build a mold-- they use a real valve from a pig.

The scientist plunges the pig valve into a container filled with a mild detergent.

It goes into a machine that shakes it up.

The agitation helps scrub off the cells, leaving only the valve skeleton.

He saturates the valve skeleton with human cells, where they grow and thrive.

The research team then pumps fluid through the valve, just like they did with the blood vessel.

This trains the cells to do the work they would need to do in the human body.

Even dr.

Frankenstein would be impressed.


Retractable Ballpoint Pens
Solar Salt
Tubas

The ballpoint pen was designed as the answer to the fountain pen's many annoyances-- the hassle of having to manually refill the barrel with ink that dried slowly and often smudged.

The ballpoint has a tiny steel ball in its tip that applies quick-drying ink from a ready-made cartridge.

When the ink cartridge inside these retractable pens runs out, you simply replace it with a new one.

Working from the initial design, the pen factory makes molds for all the pens' plastic components.

The injection molder first shoots hot liquid plastic into molds for the barrel's rigid core, then into other molds for its soft rubber grip.

The tubes for the ink cartridges are also made of plastic.

Machinery aligns them in the same direction, then prints on the company name, model number, and tip size.

Here, a filling machine injects 0.8 grams of ink through the tip.

To prevent the ink from evaporating, it plugs the other end with 0.1 grams of silicone paste.

Meanwhile, high-precision machines progressively shape the pen's tip out of stainless-steel blanks.

The equipment drills a 1-millimeter channel through the blank, then, in quick succession, fashions the tip into a cone, cuts five tiny ink-flow channels in the ball socket, and seats a 1-millimeter-diameter stainless-steel ball in the center.

Another machine then inserts a finished tip in each ink-filled tube.

A scanner then checks the length and the ball of each cartridge.

This magnification shows the width of the five ink-flow channels next to a human hair.

Random samples undergo an air-pressure test to check the ball's position and movement.

Anything less than perfect will clog the pen.

They close off the end of the cartridge with a plastic cap.

The cartridge is now going to a centrifuge, which forces the ink to the tip, eliminating any air bubbles that would obstruct ink flow.

Every cartridge passes through this writing-test machine.

That blue light is a sensor that triggers the machine to reject any defective cartridge.

The components now come together in the assembly department.

The machine assembles the clip, sleeve, and barrel.

The clip is made of chrome-plated spring steel, a strong metal that regains its shape when flexed.

The machine then flips the assembly over to receive the internal components.

First, the pen's two-part push-button mechanism.

Part one--  the plastic push button.

Part two--  a device called a rotor.

Which each click, it rotates the refill 45 degrees so the tip wears evenly.

The ink cartridge goes in tip-side up, the plug on the back fitting into the rotor.

This device forces spring-steel wire through a coiling block.

This produces a tiny spring that provides resistance to the push-button mechanism.

A grabber places the spring over the cartridge tip.

Now they close up the pen by adjoining the barrel's bottom part.

The machine screws the two parts together to a specific tightness.

The final assembly machine tests the push-button mechanism to ensure it retracts the tip properly.

This also prepares the pens for packaging, as they go into the boxes with tips retracted.

The factory subjects random samples to endurance testing.

This device clicks the push button 100,000 times.

Only then does a printer put the logo on the barrel.

This company's engineering of its ink-flow channels and tip delivers on average 2.5 miles of writing per cartridge.

Salt comes from three sources-- salt mines, land that at one time was seabed, and from oceans and saltwater lakes.

Factories extract salt from water by evaporation, either mechanically or naturally by letting the sun work its magic and produce what's called solar salt.

This large hunk of salt crystals comes from great salt lake in utah.

At full water level, the lake is seven times saltier than the ocean.

Harvesters scoop up salt from shallow crystallization ponds and load it into trucks.

It's the end result of a two-year evaporation cycle, which has seen the lake water, called brine, slowly give off its moisture in a series of concentrating ponds.

What remains is a bed of salt crystals about 12 inches deep.

The truck dumps its cargo onto the factory's conveyor system.

First stop is a rinsing station to remove contaminants such as algae and dust.

Using freshwater would dissolve the salt, so they flush the crystals with lake brine.

Next, hot-air dryers remove the moisture and salt dust within about 3.5 minutes.

The salt crystals then roll across a series of sorting screens with progressively smaller openings.

This classifies the salt crystals into three grades-- coarse, medium, and fine.

Each grade goes onto a separate conveyor that transports it to a designated storage bin.

The factory uses medium-grade salt to make pellets for water-softening equipment.

This press compresses the crystals into pellet shapes along with certain additives to help the water-softening equipment perform better.

Some municipal water supplies have a high mineral content.

This hard water makes soap difficult to lather and leaves stains on sinks, bathtubs, and toilets.

Salt triggers a chemical reaction that dissolves the problem minerals.

The factory packages water-softening solar salt in bags, as well.

It also produces a variety of other solar-salt products such as swimming-pool salt, road salt for melting ice in the winter, and, of course, culinary salt.

The factory's automated packaging equipment fills both paper and plastic bags.

This company also sells solar salt to several industries for use as an ingredient in products such as detergent.

There's also the agricultural market.

Farmers buy blocks of solar salt plain or enriched with minerals as a nutrient for their cattle.

The factory produces different salt and mineral formulations, each dyed a different color for easy identification.

To produce salt for cattle, the machinery drops 50 pounds at a time into a block-shaped mold.

A press applies 750 tons of pressure, binding the crystals into a block.

The farmer simply sets out blocks among the cattle, and the animals lick away to get their dose of sodium.

A label identifies the type of salt block.

This one contains iodine to prevent a thyroid disorder called goiter, a tasty and therapeutic bovine snack courtesy of a saltwater lake and sunshine.

The tuba is the largest instrument in the brass family and the one with the lowest pitch.

Famous orchestral composers from stravinsky to gershwin have included significant parts for tuba in some of their best-known works.

Some composers have even written full concertos for tuba.

Tubas are made of brass, sometimes silver- or gold-plated.

The instrument consists of valves and tubing, ending in a flared bell.

The bell flare begins as a brass disk 22 inches in diameter.

They use a range of tools and various mandrels to work the brass into a preliminary bell-flare shape.

They use sandpaper to remove any marks left by the tools, then cut a hole in the center.

To make the conical tail that leads to the bell flare, they bend and hammer a thin brass sheet around a tail-shaped mandrel.

To join the seam, they cut notches along one edge, then hammer them over the other edge.

The artisan then melts filler metal over the seam with a high-temperature gas torch, a process known as braising.

Then they use a wooden mallet to round out the shape.

They use a pressure roller to flatten out the mallet dents and further refine the surface.

After notching the wider end of the tail, they assemble it to the bell flare.

They dab on flux, a chemical that prepares the surface for braising, then tack the parts together.

They hammer down the notches and braise the seam all around.

This assembly, now called the bell, goes back on the lathe.

Using a belt sander, they flatten all the seams flush with the surface.

On another mandrel, with lubricant assisting the process, they finalize the bell's shape.

Now they trim the edge to the correct diameter...

Bend it back a bit...

Polish the perimeter with the sanding head, then use a special tool to roll the edge over itself.

This forms what's called the bell bead, a lip that reinforces the bell and gives this end of the instrument a finished look.

A computer-guided engraving machine puts the company logo and model number on the bell.

Each of the tuba's 100 or so tubes must be bent into a specific shape.

The first step is to fill them with hot liquid pitch, which hardens as it cools.

This keeps the tubes from collapsing as they're bent.

After bending, the tubes go into an oven to melt out the pitch.

Certain bent tubes are enlarged in a machine called a hydraulic blowout press.

It pumps oil into it at high pressure.

This blows the tube walls outward against the dye, forcing it to assume the new shape.

Certain bent tubes are conical, others, cylindrical.

The cylindrical ones go through what's called a ball-out operation.

This machine forces steel balls of the proper diameter through the tube.

This enlarges any spots that are too narrow.

Before bending, certain tubes have to go through a drawing machine for resizing.

With lubricant easing the way, it draws the tube between an inner mandrel and an outer washer.

This forms the tube to the correct diameters and wall thickness, while also stretching it lengthwise.

Coming up next, we'll see where this tube fits in the finished instrument.

Tubas come in different versions.

A b-flat tuba, for example, is nearly 18 feet long, whereas an f tuba is about 11.5 feet long.

Tubas have anywhere from three to six valves.

Pressing different valve combinations produces different notes.

To build the valve section, they insert parts called knuckles into the valve cases.

Spacers hold the valve cases the proper distance apart, while this alignment plate positions the cases in the correct configuration.

Next, they insert connectors to later link the valve section to the rest of the instrument.

After braising the parts together, they run a cutter through the valve cases to hollow them out.

Here, you can see what the case interiors look like before cutting and after.

Now they begin soldering on the valve section's tubing, working from the valve cases outward.

The tuba's frame section is made up of several u-shaped parts.

Workers assemble them with connecting rings.

They insert a support brace inside this frame piece...

Then position tabs onto which they'll later mount the valve section.

They clamp the tabs in place, then solder them on.

Then they attach the bell section to the frame.

Before adding the valve section, they give a preliminary buffing to what they've assembled so far.

They brush some liquid polishing compound into the places that they couldn't access with the wheel and buff those areas with a rag.

Then a final overall buffing until the brass reflects like a mirror.

Meanwhile, the valve-section assembly continues.

First, they close off the bottom of each valve case with a screw-on cap...

Then drop in a spring to provide resistance for the valve piston.

Then the piston.

A felt to cushion it, a top cap, another cushioning felt, and, finally, the finger button.

A little oil ensures all the buttons move smoothly.

The felts inside prevent the pistons from making a clanging sound as they move up and down.

Now for the tuba's tuning slides.

A coat of grease helps them move in and out to increase or decrease the overall length of the tubing.

Shortening tunes the instrument higher.

Lengthening tunes it lower.

Now they screw the finished valve section to the assembled frame and bell sections and insert the main tuning slide.

Finally, the tuba's mouthpipe, made not of brass like the rest, but of nickel silver.

They spray the entire instrument with cleaning solution to remove any grease residue and fingerprints.

Prior to assembly, each section was cleaned and coated with a clear lacquer to ensure the tuba will always look as good as it sounds.


Sulkies
Bagpipes
Yule Logs
Fishing Lures

Today on "how it's made"...

Sulkies...

Bagpipes...

Yule logs...

And fishing lures.

In the sport of harness racing, the horse, known as a standardbred, pulls its driver in a sulky.

A sulky is a cart on two wheels that attaches to each side of the horse's harness.

It has to be sturdy enough to withstand the rough ride, but it also has to be lightweight so that it won't slow the horse down.

Step one in sulky production is to cut an aluminum tube 1 1/2 inches in diameter for the frame.

Most of the parts are aluminum because it's a lightweight metal.

Using a manually operated tube bender, workers shape the angles of the sulky's shaft, the piece that attaches to the harness.

Now they weld together the eight aluminum parts that make up the sulky's frame.

All this welding takes approximately 2 1/2 hours.

Once that's done, they insert the shaft into the bridge on which the driver sits, making sure they align with each other.

Next come the clamps-- 3-inch-long steel pieces with a hole on each end.

They fasten certain non-welded parts of the sulky together.

Each clamp starts off straight.

A worker mounts it on a machine called the bender, then pulls the lever almost 360 degrees to curve it.

Next a tool called a multipress drill fashions the aluminum flange-- the part of the wheel hub to which the spokes attach.

The multipress has six bits.

It rotates three times to drill a total of 18 holes.

The flange has another nine holes to remove weight and six smaller holes to which a plastic wheel protector will later attach.

Now they position the flange on the aluminum hub and hammer it on snugly.

They do this using a tool called a punch to avoid leaving impact marks.

Next, a sleeve goes inside the hub, and the bearing goes in between the two.

Again, with the help of a punch, they knock on the bearing snugly.

Finally, they install a cap to prevent dust from getting in and causing damage.

The hub is now complete, and it took only about five minutes to assemble.

Now they attach aluminum spokes, 18 of them on each side of the wheel.

Every spoke attaches to the flange on one end and to an aluminum rim on the other.

Workers hand-tighten a nipple on the rim end of each spoke.

The nipples are made of brass because it resists rust quite well.

It's essential to tighten all the nipples equally to ensure the wheel will be properly aligned.

After tightening them further with the screwdriver, on goes some rim tape, then the tube and tire.

They pump up the tube with up to 78 pounds of air.

Then they install a plastic protector disc.

This prevents competing horses from putting their hooves through the spokes.

Meanwhile, the sulky has been sandblasted, painted, and decorated.

Now it's time to put stirrups on the shafts.

These aluminum and stainless-steel fittings on the end of the shafts are what attach the sulky to the horse's harness.

Should the harness break, a backup safety strap on each shaft keeps the sulky attached to the horse.

Now they fasten a padded leather seat to an aluminum plate mounted on the bridge.

On each side, they attach the wheel to the bridge with a simple axle.

Even though these look like bicycle wheels, they're stronger and far more durable.

Next, they assemble what's called the tree-- the rigid stainless-steel structure that goes on the horse's back.

The outer part is made of plastic.

They stitch velcro to the underside.

To that, they attach a nylon-covered foam padding that protects the horse's back from irritation.

The finished harness with all its hooks and turrets weighs 10 pounds.

It's taken 20 hours to make.

This is what's called a quick-hitch fitting.

It hooks on to the fitting on the end of each shaft, tying the sulky to the horse's harness.

A sulky takes 40 hours to assemble.

It weighs between just 50 and 60 pounds.

Harness racing is one of the few sports where being a lightweight is key to a good track record.

The bagpipe is one of the oldest instruments.

To play it, you blow into a pipe attached to a leather or synthetic bag, then press on the bag to force the air out through other pipes to create sound.

You transform this sound into a melody using finger holes on a reeded pipe called a chanter.

they start by carving an 8-inch-long block of wood, rounding it to a diameter of a little more than 1 1/2 inches.

It's part of a drone-- one of three on the bagpipe that create bass and tenor harmonies.

They drill a hole that will later become an air channel.

Using a lathe and a plastic template as a guide, a craftsman spins the wood to carve it, a process called turning.

The lathe has a stationary carbide-tip cutter strong and precise enough to cut this hard african blackwood.

It's a very heavy and dry wood, perfect for turning.

For more intricate, decorative cuts, he uses a handheld device called a combing tool.

Next, he uses what's called a parting-off tool to make additional decorative grooves.

He measures these grooves using a caliper to ensure they meet the specifications of the design.

The craftsman drills a hole to create what's called a projecting mount.

It's made of imitation ivory, and at 2 inches in diameter, it fits on the drone like a washer.

But it's just for decoration--  one of seven on the bagpipe.

He adds a metal component called a slide, also for decoration.

Next, he turns what's called a blowpipe.

This one's made of plastic to withstand moisture from saliva.

Traditionalists prefer blowpipes made of wood.

He adds a mouthpiece.

It retracts by almost eight inches, depending on the player's height.

The player blows into the mouthpiece to inflate the bag.

A small metal tube between two plastic blades forms the chanter reed.

When air strikes it, the reed vibrates inside the chanter-- a pipe at the bottom of the instrument that has eight finger holes for notes and two for pitch adjustment.

To secure it, the craftsman wraps the reed with hemp string and winds teflon tape over the string for an airtight seal.

Then a brass wire called a bridle to control the shape of the reed.

Narrowing the opening produces a higher-pitched sound.

The craftsman ties hemp string to create traction between the drone segments, holding them together.

Hemp string is especially durable, yet easily replaced if damaged.

Here's the completed tenor drone.

Next, the craftsman inserts what's called a stock through the zippered opening of the pipe bag.

The pipe bag's made of a synthetic, breathable material.

The five stocks fit through a rubber collar in the bag, attaching to the three drones, the chanter, and the blowpipe.

The craftsman inserts the chanter through a sleeve in the bottom of the pipe bag.

He secures it with string, tightening it around the bag.

He closes the zipper to form an airtight seal.

Next, he places the pipe bag into a decorative velveteen bag cover.

He inserts the stocks through holes trimmed with wool or silk fringe.

A rubber valve prevents the player's air from coming back up through the blowpipe, channeling it through the chanter instead.

Another part, called a drone reed, acts like a plastic tongue.

It vibrates over a long hole to create the bagpipe's humming sound.

The craftsman inserts the drone reed into the drone and then into its stock.

Wool cords keep the drones in place while the player plays.

Finally, the craftsman fits the chanter reed into the chanter, then slides it into its stock.

A bagpiper must have a strong set of lungs because some songs can run for 20 minutes.

Now that'slong-winded.

a yule log is a traditional dessert for reveillant, the christmas-eve meal that follows midnight mass in france and other french-speaking countries.

It's a rolled sponge cake covered in chocolate frosting and decorated to look like a tree log.

It's supposed to represent a real yule log, the burning of which was once a popular christmas ritual.

This company uses vanilla or chocolate ice cream instead of frosting.

The cake itself is chocolate sponge cake.

Workers start by making chocolate cake batter in a machine called a liquefier.

They add flavoring, exactly what is a trade secret, and liquid eggs...

Binding agents...

Butter oil...

Sugar...

Flour...

And cocoa.

After mixing the batter for 20 minutes, a machine called the cake depositor pumps it into a 13-gallon vat.

The cake depositor distributes the batter evenly through nozzles spaced 3 1/2 inches apart.

Then it spreads the batter onto brown craft paper that's a little more than three feet wide.

The paper's waxed so the cake won't stick after baking.

The machine funnels the batter into an even layer that's 1/4 of an inch thick and 36 inches wide.

Workers make between 8,000 to 10,000 yule logs daily, depending on the size.

After baking for seven minutes at 500 degrees fahrenheit, a conveyor moves the cake out of the oven at six feet per minute.

Next, a circular saw separates the cake right down the middle.

Every 17 seconds, another blade, appropriately called a guillotine, drops down, slicing the cake into smaller segments.

A machine pours strawberry jam onto a thick layer of ice cream.

This creates three layers, including the cake slab underneath.

The factory goes through more than 4,000 pounds of jam and 3,000 gallons of ice cream per 8-hour shift.

A worker gently separates the cake slabs, leaving about three inches of excess ice cream and jam, which is thrown away.

She then separates the cake from the craft paper by folding the cake onto itself once, then rolling the cake, ice cream, and jam layers together.

Watch closely and you'll see that she doesn't touch the cake, only the paper.

She wears rubber gloves to prevent her hands from sticking to the paper.

The worker rolls the cake into a machine called a slicer.

It cuts the cake into three 8-inch-long segments called logs.

The slicer deposits the logs into plastic trays.

Another machine now decorates with ice cream.

It covers the surface as well as the ends.

The ice cream decorations are lace and floral designs.

Now for the embellishments.

Workers place two candied maraschino cherries on each log.

Then a machine drizzles on bits of maple sugar as another worker cuts the connecting ice cream, separating the logs.

This factory uses maple sugar bits instead of nuts on its logs out of concern for allergies.

Next, a plastic poinsettia on each log.

Then, a plastic "joyeuses fêtes," which is french for "happy holidays".

A conveyor belt moves the logs through a machine called a co2 tunnel.

Inside, sprayers blast the logs with a mist that instantly freezes them.

This mist is carbon dioxide refrigerated to minus 185 degrees fahrenheit.

Five minutes in the co2 tunnel superfreezes the outer layer so workers can handle it easily.

A wrapping machine covers the logs in a clear plastic film.

Then another machine simultaneously cuts and heat-seals the plastic, enclosing the logs in bags.

Finally, a worker packs the bags into boxes for shipping.

The factory stores the boxes in its warehouse freezers at minus 95 degrees fahrenheit.

Then, as christmas approaches, these holiday desserts go out to the stores, where they sell for $5 to $8 each.

If you take your fishing seriously, chances are you're hooked on lures.

If worm bait is like hamburger, then lures are like filet mignon.

They attract fish by either mimicking the food they like-- impersonating a minnow, for example-- or by reflecting light.

Lures come in many shapes and sizes.

They can measure up to a foot long and weigh as much as 3/4 of a pound.

They're usually made of brass.

This model is from a brass sheet that's less than 3/100 of an inch thick.

It goes into a press that's outfitted with a series of dies to progressively cut and shape the lures, turning out 2,000 of them per hour.

This looks like one fast operation, but it's really four consecutive steps.

The first die stamps the company name and lure model number, punches a slot down the middle, and punctures a hole on each end.

The second die scores the outline.

The third cuts it out.

The fourth and final die forms the piece into a spoon shape, which is why this type of lure is called a spoon.

This shape makes it move in the water like a small fish.

That blue object at the bottom right is an air jet.

It blows the lures coming off the press into a collection bin.

Lures vary in size, shape, and texture, and plating them in different metals creates reflective effects in the water.

All these factors determine the type of fish the lures attract.

The metal-plating process is called electroplating because electricity is the key to it all.

Workers wire up the lures, submerge them in an acid solution, then run a negative current through them.

They run a positive current to the plating metal, in this case, copper nuggets.

The acid dissolves the copper into particles laced with a positive charge.

This draws them to the negative-charged lures, which they coat in an even layer of copper.

After a thorough rinse, the racks go into the next tank for nickel-plating, then another rinse and into another tank for silver-plating--  the final finish.

Silver-plating requires undercoats of copper and nickel.

To prevent the silver from tarnishing, workers coat the lures in clear lacquer, using the same plating process.

Lures plated in 24-karat gold don't need lacquering because gold doesn't tarnish.

Now for the cosmetics.

One way to decorate the lure is by what's called pad printing.

An automated machine applies ink to a metal plate with a design etched into it.

A silicone pad stamps the plate, picking up the design, then stamps the lure, transferring it.

This is a 2-color design, so there are two pads at work.

It's quick-dry ink, so the colors don't smudge.

Another way to decorate lures is to apply decals.

They adhere with waterproof glue that's specially designed for the fishing industry.

After decorating, workers attach a 3-pronged hook-- a treble hook--  to a split ring.

That's the ring at both ends of the lure to which the fishing line and the hook will be attached.

Some models have decorated hooks, known as dressed hooks.

The idea is to add a color accent to make the lure look more like the fishes' prey.

To do this, they first wind a nylon thread around the shaft of the hook, then trim off the loose end.

Next, they lay together two different-colored hackles.

Hackles are the filaments of a rooster's neck feathers.

They wrap them around the shaft of the hook on top of the nylon thread.

The different-colored feathers blend together.

The filaments project from the head of the hook to disguise it.

Workers wrap them with more nylon thread to secure them in place.

Here, a decal is applied to a different style of lure called a spinner because it spins like a disco ball, reflecting light to attract a fish.

The final step is to attach the hook to the lure.

Depending on its complexity and number of platings, a lure takes between 45 minutes and two hours to make.

That's a lot of specialized time and effort for fish bait that's nothing short of alluring.


Metal Golf Clubs
Waffles
Custom Wires and Cables
Train Wheels

Golfers use different types of clubs for different types of shots-- woods for long-distance shots off a tee, putters to gently roll the ball into the cup, and irons for everything in between.

That's why in golf, choosing the right club for the shot is a key part of game strategy.

The heads of these golf clubs are made from aerospace-grade stainless steel.

To produce them, the factory begins with a wax replica of the clubhead.

To make this wax pattern, as it's called, they inject hot wax into a mold.

They extract the pattern and snip off the bulk of the excess wax.

Using hot wax as an adhesive, a robot joins several patterns to other wax parts in the shape of gates and runners, the term for the channels that guide molten metal into the casting mold.

Then the robot dips these patterns into liquid ceramic material four times, with a shower of silica sand in between each coat.

The ceramic and sand harden, forming a shell around the wax patterns.

Then the factory melts out the wax.

The shell is now a mold with which to cast the metal clubheads.

On the casting floor, a furnace heats steel bars to 3,000 degrees fahrenheit-- well beyond the melting point.

Meanwhile, another furnace heats the molds to 1,800 degrees fahrenheit.

This burns out any remaining wax.

It also fires the ceramic, making it strong enough to withstand molten metal.

The pouring technique is critical.

The metal must flow at a consistent rate to prevent the formation of air bubbles.

After five hours, a pneumatic hammer breaks apart the mold.

Workers saw off the gates and runners, separating the clubheads.

Then they grind off the last remnants of the gates and runners.

A turntable runs the clubheads through a sandblaster, which gives the metal a particular finish.

Next, they stick on a metal badge bearing the club's model name.

They apply a dot of automotive paint.

The color identifies the angle of the club.

There are 12 different angles.

Now they line the neck of the clubhead with epoxy, then coat the end of the shaft with epoxy and slip it into the neck.

A pneumatic hammer pushes the shaft in as as far as it can go.

The shaft is made of either extruded steel or carbon fiber.

Now it's time to work on the shaft.

First, they cut it to the right length, depending on the model.

Then they put the shaft on a spindle and wrap the top 10 inches in double-sided tape to hold the club's rubber grip.

They lubricate the tape and the inside of the grip before sliding the grip over the shaft.

A laser line helps them align the grip in the right position.

This is critical, because the grip is the golfer's guide to correct hand positioning, which is essential to a good swing.

Next, a computer reads the lie, the term for the clubhead's angle relative to the ground.

Then it reads the loft-- the term for the angle of the clubhead's face.

The computer then tells the technician what adjustments to make.

Once he's made the adjustments, the computer reanalyzes the new loft and lie to ensure they're perfect.

Finally, the golf club goes for a weigh-in.

The scale shows that this club needs another 18 grams to bring it up to spec, so they affix an 18-gram weight made of thermoplastic and metal.

Actually, it weighs slightly less than 18 grams, because they factor in the weight of the epoxy glue.

It's this type of precision that ensure these golf clubs fit the quality specifications to a "t".

The waffle started out in the middle ages as a flat wafer made not from wheat flour, but from oats or barley.

As its popularity spread throughout europe, many variations of shape and recipe developed.

The introduction of leavening ingredients gave rise to the fluffy honeycomb breakfast cake we know today.

The introduction of frozen waffles in the 1950s marked the dawn of a new era for these breakfast batter cakes.

Making your morning waffles was suddenly a snap.

All the big prep work takes place at the big factory.

They add flavorings like berries to a flour-based waffle mix, and then turn to the liquid ingredients-- water, canola oil, and liquid cane sugar.

They pour them into a big tank and mix thoroughly.

Then they're ready to thicken it into a batter with a flour-based waffle premix.

It also includes baking powder, which reacts with water to cause pockets of carbon dioxide to form for a leavening affect that will continue during baking.

After adding more berries, this batter is complete, and there's enough in this one tank to produce 3,600 waffles.

Hot waffle irons move past a sprayer for a misting with a nonstick coating.

Down the line, an automated pump deposits measured amounts of batter onto each grid plate.

The top grid plates encase the batter.

This production line is computerized, which ensures the plates are filled quickly and without any spills.

As they move towards the oven, the waffle irons rotate, allowing the batter to reach all the crevices inside.

They now move through a long gas oven.

It takes about two minutes for them to cook.

They emerge from the oven piping-hot, where a machine called a picking drum removes them from the irons.

As the picking drum revolves, needles grab the waffles and pull them off the hot grid plates.

The picking drum transports the waffles up to another level.

The needles retract, transferring to a series of conveyors.

At the other side of the factory, the waffles enter a blast freezer.

The temperature inside is minus 19 degrees fahrenheit.

Fans blow frigid air onto the waffles as they spiral through the freezer.

It takes just 20 minutes to freeze and preserve these freshly baked waffles.

The frozen waffles now merge into lanes to be sorted for stacking.

A kind of trap-door system releases them three at a time to grippers that move them onto a conveyor.

The conveyor lane narrows, which forces the waffle stacks into a single row.

A sensor-activated gate releases the stacks two at a time to the packaging station.

It takes just a second for the two stacks of frozen waffles to be wrapped and sealed in a tight cellophane package.

Then it's into a metal detector.

To demonstrate how it works, we place a quarter on one of the packages.

The system senses it immediately, and a blower blasts the package off the conveyor.

Suctioning fingers now pick up the outer paperboard box and open it as they place it on the conveyor.

A ram then shoves the wrapped waffles into the box.

Incredibly, they churn out more than 8,600 waffles an hour at this factory, catering to different tastes and dietary requirements, and that merits a toast.

Much of today's high-tech equipment requires specialty wires and cables, from stage lighting to medical devices to robotics.

Wires and cables have to be custom designed and expertly manufactured to perform in a specific way and withstand various environmental conditions.

Cables can be designed to withstand high temperatures or perform special functions such as sensing ph levels or proximity to objects.

At the heart of a cable are electrical wires called conductors.

A conductor begins as a bare copper wire.

This extrusion machine coats it in plastic.

Chilled water solidifies the plastic around the wire as insulation.

This isolates each wire from its neighbors.

Every conductor passes through a machine called a spark tester.

It runs current through the conductor to ensure the insulation is flawless.

If there's even the smallest break in the insulation, the machine will sound the alarm and locate the spot.

The conductor then enters a machine called a cabler.

It unrolls spools of insulated conductors and unites them with other components to form the cable's inner workings.

At the center of this particular cable is a twisted pair of insulated conductors.

Around them go color-coated insulated conductors and fillers to fill in the gaps between the conductors, giving the cable a smooth, cylindrical shape.

Here the fillers are strands of polypropylene foam.

An orientation plate aligns the components in the proper configuration as they enter the cable-assembly die.

The components exit the die with the fillers wound around the insulated conductors, which wrap around the central wire.

The next machine, called a taping head, wraps binder tape around the cable.

This tape holds everything tightly in position so that the assembled components don't unravel.

This is a different type of cable assembly machine.

Like before, all the insulated conductors unroll from their reels and travel through the holes of an orientation plate.

Dies divide the six conductors of this cable into three groups of two, twisting the conductors of each pair together.

The machine then wraps each twisted pair in a shield made of aluminum-coated polyester.

Shielding eliminates what's known as cross talk-- signals interfering with each other.

The next die joins additional wires that don't need to be shielded to the shielded ones.

Then everything gets twisted into one cable.

Then a final twisting, seen here in slow motion.

The actual speed is 1,000 revolutions per minute.

The next machine wraps tissue paper around the cable.

Then an extruder applies a jacket made of a plastic and rubber compound.

The tissue paper acts as a separator, preventing the jacket from sticking to the cable inside.

Sometimes, instead of tissue paper, the cable runs through a bath of talc.

Talc is a mineral that absorbs heat, so just like tissue paper, it prevents the jacket from sticking.

Once again, as the cable exits the extruder, chilled water solidifies the molten material into a jacket.

A wheel with raised lettering imprints the manufacturer's name and technical specifications into the jacket.

Certain jacketed cables need a braided shield to eliminate electrical interference.

This machine has 48 carrier spools, each of which holds 10 wires made of tin-plated copper.

As they jacketed cable moves upward through the machine, the spools move in a programmed pattern, weaving the shield around the cable.

From there, a last trip through the extruder for a final thermoplastic jacket...

And the custom-made cable is ready to be connected and powered up.

Train wheels are used on railcars around the world.

Passenger trains rely on them to transport people.

Freight cars depend on them for hauling products.

And the locomotives that pull these trains and freight cars count on them to keep people and products moving smoothly.

This company has been making train wheels and axles for over 150 years.

To start, an electric furnace melts recycled steel at about 2,900 degrees fahrenheit.

A gigantic bucket then transfers the liquid metal into what's called a mold pit.

Inside the pit, the metal fills eight holes from the bottom up, creating steel ingots 20-feet-long.

A band saw cuts the cooled ingots into sections called wheel molts.

Each molt weighs about 1,000 pounds.

To prepare the molts for forming into train wheels, automated machinery loads them into one door of this rotary furnace...

And they exit the other side at around 2,400 degrees fahrenheit.

A machine then places the molts into a high-pressure water-descaling unit that removes the outermost layer of metal.

A press then squashes each molt like a marshmallow with 9,000 tons of pressure, forging it into the rough shape of a train wheel.

The train wheel is 30 inches in diameter when a robot removes it from the press and delivers it to a rolling mill.

The mill squeezes and shapes the wheel until it expands to 36 inches in diameter, a 20% increase.

The train wheel then enters a final shaping press that punches out the hole where the axle will go.

All excess material goes back to the melt shop for recycling.

After heat treatment, a machine sprays the outside of the wheel with cold water, which hardens the steel.

Next, they machine the rim of the wheel and the axle hole.

A worker then ensures they meet all specifications.

Identified and labeled, the wheels are now ready for the axles.

Axles start off as steel ingots that a manipulator feeds into a rotary forging machine.

The machine rotates and hammers the piece, gradually shaping the hot metal into an axle.

The manipulator and the forging machine work as a team, ultimately shaping the axle to the required diameter and length.

The axles then go through a heat-treating process.

Next, they machine the entire axle, removing all excess material, and prepare it to accept the train wheel.

Here, a wheel mounting press fits a wheel onto each end of the axle.

A worker lubricates the axle and attaches a bearing.

He then bolts on the end cap and secures it using a torque wrench.

A crimper tool locks the bolts in place.

Finally, the mounted wheel set rolls off the assembly line, ready to install under a rail car.


The lead inside a pencil isn't actually lead.

It's mostly graphite, which was discovered in england in the mid-1500s, giving birth to the pencil industry.

In 1795, a french chemist invented a new type of pencil lead, made of graphite powder and clay fired in an oven, making it possible to produce leads with different hardness.

For the pencil's body, you need a type of wood that's soft enough to sharpen, yet strong enough not to bend under the writer's hand pressure.

This german pencil factory uses cedar from california.

The wood is .

2 inches thick and arrives precut in slats of 7 x 2 1/2 inches.

One by one, the slats pass under a giant cutting wheel.

It carves grooves that will become the channel down the middle that holds the lead.

The next machine fills the grooves with glue, a special formulation that's slightly elastic.

This cushions the lead so that it's less likely to break inside the channel.

Every second slat moves onto another conveyor belt.

The ones that stay on this line head toward the machine that lays in the lead.

The lead is made of a graphite-and-clay mixture, baked in an oven at almost 1,500 degrees fahrenheit.

The lead-laying machine's wheel loads itself with leads, their spacing matching the grooves in the slats.

It's the same process for colored pencils, only the leads are made of wax, clay, and pigments with no baking required.

Now for the slats that move to that other conveyor belt.

An automated arm flips each one over, slides it across a glue applicator, then drops it onto a leaded slat on the other conveyor belt.

All the steps to this point have culminated in what is effectively a lead sandwich.

Now a plunger squeezes those sandwiches together with a full ton of pressure.

It compresses them for an hour while the glue dries.

After that, it's just a matter of slicing the sandwiches into pencils.

The shaping machine makes the hexagonal profile in two steps.

First, its upper cutter forms three sides on top, then its lower cutter shapes three sides on the bottom.

As soon as the bottom side is cut, the pencils separate.

A worker pulls a sample pencil from each batch coming off the line and manually sharpens it to spot-check lead quality.

Then he applies force to the tip until it breaks.

For a pencil to pass this strength test, it has to withstand at least 4 1/2 pounds of force.

Now it's time to dress that bare wood.

One at a time, the pencils shoot through a device called a lacquering head.

It coats the wood in paint, yellow in this case.

It takes four coats of paint to completely hide the wood grain.

A fifth lacquering head paints a black stripe, this company's trademark.

Then a sixth head seals the paint job with a transparent lacquer.

From the paint line, the pencils make their way to a stamping machine at an astounding rate of 500 pencils a minute.

The machine heat-transfers foil lettering from a plastic film to the painted wood.

Last stop-- the rubber-tip assembly machine.

First, it squeezes the top of the pencil to slide on an aluminum ferrule.

Then it inserts a rubber eraser into the ferrule's other end and squeezes that tight.

European-style pencils have a painted cap instead, the color indicating how hard the lead is.

After a coat of transparent sealer, the pencils take a series of dips in the first color, then, once that dries, in the second color.

The final coat is a high-gloss lacquer.

The pencils are finally ready to roll...

Across a grinding drum for sharpening.

By the time they roll off, they're pointed perfection.

Looking as good as they perform, today's pencils sure have the right stuff.

There are two types of scrap metal-- ferrous and nonferrous.

Ferrous scrap is scrap iron and steel that comes mainly from old cars.

Nonferrous scrap metal includes aluminum, copper, lead, and nickel.

And the best part is metals can be recycled indefinitely without losing any of their properties.

Each year, north american auto plants build millions of cars.

Eventually, they end up here, at a scrap-metal-recycling facility.

It takes about two days to process the raw material, mostly old cars and appliances.

Crane and bulldozer operators scan the raw material as they gather and stack it.

They're looking for anything they can't process-- propane tanks, glass, or heavy iron that will not shred and that could cause damage to the machinery.

An inspector goes into the stockpile to check the material more closely, then signals the crane operator that he can proceed with the next load.

The crane's grapple delivers load after load onto a conveyor belt that leads into a shredder.

The belt speeds up or slows down according to the weight of the material to feed just the right amount into the shredder.

Here's the feed box that contains the shredder laid open.

An inspector checks it daily for damage.

There's a lot of wear and tear on this machinery.

A 4,000-pound drum grabs the material as it comes off the conveyor and forces it into the shredder.

Its giant hammers pound away at the cars, mattresses, and other recyclable items, shredding them into fist-sized chunks.

An industrial vacuum sucks out bits of rubber or glass mixed in with the shredded steel.

The steel pieces stick to these magnetic drums.

Anything else falls through to a conveyor belt below.

Here, pickers remove any unwanted material caught on the steel pieces, and the clean shredded steel is ready for shipping to customers like steel mills and foundries.

The material the magnetic drums don't collect goes on for more processing.

There's precious nonferrous metals such as copper or brass mixed in with shredded debris.

It all goes into a machine called a trommel, where a rotating drum separates the material by size.

Any leftover residue is just trash.

But before it goes to a landfill, an inspector checks it to make sure no valuable material has slipped through.

The material from the trommel is evenly dispersed onto a conveyor that takes it to a machine called an eddy current separator.

Inside, a rotating magnetic drum creates a strong magnetic field that repels nonferrous metals right up and over a barrier into a storage bin.

Any material that doesn't make it over the barrier goes through the separator one more time, just in case there's still some valuable nonferrous metals mixed in.

A conveyor belt carries out the worthless residue to a trash heap.

A different conveyor belt carries the nonferrous metal out of the separator and loads it into a bin for sale.

It will go to another plant where they'll separate it by type of metal-- mainly copper, brass, and aluminum.

After all that shredding, sifting, and separating, here's what's left of the average used car.

Take away the rubber, plastic, and upholstery, and you have some shredded steel...

And some valuable nonferrous metals.

That's a lot of useful material thanks to some efficient recycling.

According to legend, a goat herder in ethiopia discovered coffee around 850 a.d. eventually, the beverage reached italy, where the first european coffeehouse opened in 1645.

Today, about 2 billion cups of coffee are drunk each day around the world, making coffee the second-most valuable trading commodity after oil.

Coffee's flavor depends on the region where it grows and the way coffee makers roast and blend the beans.

Here in costa rica, they grow coffee plants from sprouted seeds kept in containers for a full year before they transplant them into the field.

From seed to first harvest takes about two years.

Coffee plants flower over the course of three days, covering the fields with fragrant jasmine-like blooms.

Over six months' time, the buds grow and ripen into red cherries that contain the coffee bean.

Pickers harvest the red cherries, leaving the green ones to ripen.

They'll return to pick the cherries from the same plant five times in three months as they ripen.

Pickers do their best to have no more than 2 green for every 100 red cherries they harvest.

They empty their bins into bags and load them into trucks.

Each bin produces about 4 1/2 pounds of coffee beans, enough to make about 200 cups of coffee.

The fresher the berry, the better the flavor.

Cherries picked in the morning are at the wet mill, ready for processing that afternoon.

At the wet mill, water channels wash the cherries and drop them off at a worm screw.

It loads them into a pulping machine to remove the outer skin and fruit.

A rotating drum presses the cherries against the wall of the pulper and squeezes out the bean.

From the pulping machine, the beans flow in water to two large rotating cylinders.

They sift the beans to separate them from any of the hard green cherries that pass through the pulping machine.

Next, the beans bathe in more water, which draws out a thick sugary substance known as miel, "honey" in spanish.

The coffee maker then feeds the washed beans to make sure they're no longer sticky.

The beans then drop into the drying bin below.

Workers now lay out the beans to dry in the traditional way-- outdoors on a cement patio.

For four days, they rake over the beans as they dry in the hot sun.

At night, they let the beans rest to extract the most flavor.

Once the beans are dry, they go into a milling machine.

Inside, large stones grind away the parchment-like hull from the bean.

Drying methods vary among coffee makers.

They're a closely guarded secret.

The beans can also dry mechanically in rotating drums that pump in heated air.

Workers closely monitor the process and empty the drums when the beans are dry.

A supervisor smells them to check for a vinegar-like odor.

That would mean the beans are fermenting, a result of improper drying.

The dry beans have their husks removed, then go on to an oscillating table that separates them by weight into three grades, the heaviest being the first-grade beans.

Workers pour out each grade into burlap bags.

Their contents must weigh in at 152 pounds per bag.

Finally, they stitch them up and stack them for shipping.

Next, we'll see the whole process that turns these green coffee beans into a steaming cup of gourmet coffee.

Coffee boasts more than 800 flavor characteristics, at least double those of wine.

Roasting reduces the amount of caffeine in the bean.

To achieve a dark-espresso roast, the beans remain in the roaster the longest, so they have the least caffeine.

It's the concentrated brew that packs espresso's punch.

These green coffee beans have just arrived from the wet mill.

Workers pour them out into a blending bin that feeds a roasting machine heated to 356 degrees fahrenheit.

At that temperature, the oils in the beans combust, and the beans roast in less than 20 minutes.

The master roaster must regularly check their progress.

When he determines they're ready, he sets off a light spray of water in the roaster to extinguish the beans.

Then they pour into a bin where they're cooled by forced air.

As they roast, the beans go from green to golden brown, then black.

Before roasting an entire shipment of beans, coffee makers first test a small batch.

They follow a standardized procedure at the plant's testing laboratory.

First, they roast a half-pound of beans in a small gas oven for a few minutes.

Then a professional taster measures out the beans and feeds them into an electric grinder.

She prepares four separate cups of coffee with the same coarse grind.

It takes 4 tastes to make sure all is well, 20 to detect the source of a problem roast.

She begins by pushing aside the foam at the surface to release the intense aromas, a technique known as breaking the cup.

She smells each cup in turn, a sure way to know if something is wrong with the roast.

Next, she skims the surface to remove the grounds.

She takes a sip, slipping the coffee over her tongue to get the full flavor before spitting it out.

Now she can determine how she will balance the blend of beans to create a recipe for the perfect cup of coffee.

Back on the factory floor, the various beans for the blend go into a grinder.

It will produce the desired grind-- coarse, medium, or a fine espresso like this.

Now the coffee is ready for packaging.

It's a fully-automated process thanks to this machine that forms, fills, and seals the bags.

Gourmet coffee must go piping hot from the grinder to the bag to ensure freshness.

As the machine seals each bag, it pumps in nitrogen to replace the oxygen that makes coffee stale.

The machine separates the bags, and they fall onto a custom-designed conveyor belt that weighs each one as it passes through.

Over at the espresso machine, the barista demonstrates the technique required for a perfect espresso.

She puts a quarter-ounce of ground coffee into the holder, tamps it down firmly, then wedges it in place.

The machine applies water pressure to extract the espresso.

The distinctive foam is a sign this coffee's first-rate.

The barista also demonstrates how to use a french press or cafetière.

She adds boiling water to the coffee grounds, then pushes them down to the base.

Again, she applies pressure, manually this time, to extract the coffee's aroma.

Finally, she demonstrates how costa ricans make a traditional cup of coffee.

She places a chorreador, a fine cotton sieve, over the cup, pressing on the ground coffee with a spoon as she pours in boiling water.

No matter which one you choose, with the right gourmet roast, all three methods will produce an outstanding cup of rich, flavorful coffee.


Combination Squares
Farmed Shrimp
Ball Valves
String Trimmers

A combination square is a measuring tool you use when building with wood, masonry or metal to make sure something's straight, even and level.

It's essentially a ruler with interchangeable sliding heads.

The most basic head, called a square, measures 90 and 45 degree angles.

This combination square comes with three heads.

They lock into a groove on one side of the blade.

The blade starts out grooved but blank.

So to etch the graduations into it, they first coat the surfaces with photoresist, a chemical that hardens when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Then they flash uv light on both sides of the blade through polyester film negatives of the graduations.

The light hardens only the photo resistant hits through the clear parts.

The rest remain soft.

After manually masking the groove, workers put the blade through a photochemical etching machine.

It washes off the soft photoresist that's in the pattern of the graduations, then hits that bared steel with a metal-eating salt solution, etching the graduations into the blade.

Everything else is masked by hardened photo resist, which they wash off afterward.

The blade measures in imperial units.

They set it in this machine, which registers the location of the 1-inch mark, then grinds down the end of the blade until it's precisely 1 inch from that line.

They run the blade through a sandblaster.

It shoots glass beads onto the steel surface to make it microscopically rough.

This will give the chrome plating a matte, rather than glossy finish, making the graduations easier to read.

Before plating, they clean the blade by dipping it in acid.

Then they submerge it in the electroplating tank for about 15 seconds.

Now, the steel blade, with its graduations on both sides, is plated in chrome.

The next step is called black filling.

They apply black enamel paint to both sides of the blade, then wipe the surface clean.

The black remains in the recessed graduations, making the numbers and lines easier to read.

Fifteen minutes in an oven to bake on the blackfill, then a quality control inspection and the blade is finished.

Meanwhile, in another part of the factory, this computer guided machine uses both milling and drilling tools to machine forged pieces of steel into heads.

This is the forged square head, before and after machining to its finished shape.

The next step is to harden the steel.

They place the head into the furnace for 3 minutes at more than 1,472 degrees fahrenheit.

The head comes out covered in black soot.

So they sandblast it clean.

The surface is now prepped for painting.

The apply powdered paint electrostatically, running a positive electrical charge to the head and a negative one to the paint.

This draws the paint to the part like a magnet, coating the entire service in an even layer.

A 45 minute trip through an oven bakes on the paint.

Then, they mount the head on a computer-guided machine that grinds that paint off the head's angle-measuring surfaces.

They install the head's bubble level.

First, they insert a white paper background, which makes it easier to see the air bubble.

Then they insert the glass vial containing the bubble floating in a glucose solution.

A dab of plaster at both ends holds the vial in its designated slot.

They assemble the lock bolt that holds the head in the blade's groove.

They mount it with a spring and a washer to prevent the lock from rotating and secure it with a nut.

Then they close up the bubble level slot with an endcap.

They run the unpainted angle measuring surfaces against the buffing wheel to polish the steel to a shine.

The last step, inserting a scribing awl into its slot.

You use the awl to make a scratch mark when you take a measurement.

Now, the final assembly, the square head, the protractor head and the center head.

All three come on the combination square.

But when using the tool, you install only one at a time.

By the late 1960s, fishermen just couldn't keep up with a growing global demand for shrimp.

This gave birth to commercial shrimp farming.

Most shrimp farms are located near the sea for access to salt water.

The greatest producer of farmed shrimp is asia, with thailand being the largest exporter.

Shrimp hatcheries raise the offspring of their breeding stock through three larval stages, then sell them to shrimp farms, which grow them to market size.

As this model demonstrates, the shrimp farm first purifies the seawater it uses, through a system of treatment ponds containing fish that feed on microorganisms.

Then the farm pumps the treated water to a culture pond, in which the juvenile shrimp grow to maturity.

This is what the shrimp look like at about 2 months old.

Shrimp farms are typically located on a coast for seawater access.

Workers spread organic fertilizer before filling the culture pond to restore the soil bottom to optimum conditions between harvests.

They pump seawater into the first treatment pond, where tilapia fish naturally purify the water by consuming floating microscopic organisms called plankton.

Plant matter in fish feces settle at the bottom of the pond.

A pump moves water from this first treatment pond to a second one.

For another round of this natural cleaning process.

Then a pump transfers the water from the second treatment pond to the cultural pond.

Once the pond is full, they release the juvenile shrimp purchased from the hatchery.

Workers regularly monitor the water's oxygen level and run aeration propellers when it drops too low.

The agitation also helps debris settle at the bottom of the pond.

Workers run a weekly water quality test on samples drawn from the treatment and culture ponds.

Regularly monitoring the cultural pond is particularly critical because shrimp feces and urine break down into ammonia, which is toxic at high level.

The test solution reacts to the concentration of ammonia in the water sample, turning a shade of yellow or green.

They consult a color chart to translate this into a milligrams of ammonia per meter reading.

Then they consult a table showing safe, dangerous and toxic levels.

If the reading is above the safe range, they dilute the ammonia by pumping more treated water into the culture pond.

Once a week, they also pull a few shrimp from the culture pond to extract their livers.

First, they examine the shape of the organ.

They examine it under a microscope to see how fatty it is.

A well-shaped liver with sufficient fat indicates the shrimp was in good health, and, therefore, the others back in the pond are too.

The growing shrimp are fed an all-natural diet, which includes probiotics, tamarind, which is soaked in water...

And garlic.

Workers add these three ingredients to the shrimp feed, which is a mixture of fish meal, fish oil, soy bean pulp and rice flour.

Tamarind maintains the right level of acidity in the shrimp's gut.

Garlic prevents bacteria buildup in the colon.

And the probiotic solution provides beneficial bacteria, which prevents infections and improves how the shrimp digests nutrients.

After blending and liquefying the three ingredients, they mix in 6 fluid ounces per 2 pounds of shrimp feed.

Four times a day, at 8 am, noon, 4 pm and 8 pm, workers pour food onto an automatic feeding machine, which distributes it evenly throughout the culture pond.

The shrimp feed over the entire 12 hour period, eating the equivalent of about 4% to 5% of their body weight.

After 4 to 5 months in the cultural pond, the shrimp mature to market size, which is 20 to 30 grams.

Once they're harvested, the farm drains the culture pond and starts the process all over again.

The ball valve came into large scale industrial use during the 20th century.

With a hollow and pivoting ball to control the flow of fluids, this valve is durable and resistant to contamination.

It's why many industries rely on ball valves to keep production flowing.

Ball valves control the flow of gases.

In machinery used to produce high-tech products like led lights.

It's just one way they contribute to the modern world.

Making ball valves for led manufacturing starts with an 11-foot long steel bar stock.

As coolant, a saw carves it up like salami, producing 50 or 60 steel pucks.

Computerized tooling then drills holes in the pucks, as it begins to transform them into the valve center parts.

The system changes tool bits automatically.

Cutters square up the pucks, so that they'll fit in the led chip making machinery.

A grinding tool mills the tops of the parts to a precise tolerance.

Once the final shape has been achieved, a worker gives the part a sanding.

He removes rough bits, known as burrs, and smoothes the entire surface.

With a narrow blade, he then scrapes off any burrs in the holes that could impede the valve's function.

With the deburring complete, he measures each valve body.

Ceramic bits that look like aquarium gravel will now be used to polish the steel valve parts.

The operator places the valve bodies in the cells of a drum tumbler.

He puts the lid on the tumbler and sets it in motion.

The friction polishes the steel, creating a smooth surface that won't block the movement of gas molecules.

Next, they assemble flanges to the endcaps.

After tack welding the two parts together, an operator places them in a revolving fixture.

He welds them together, creating a substantial inside seam that will hold up to vacuum conditions.

He scrubs off the heat stain inside the part, using a wire brush.

The stain has also spread around the seams on the outside of the parts.

So a worker rinses the outside of the seam with water.

He washes off the stain using an electrified carbon brush and an acid cleaning solution.

Then it's in to an ultrasonic cleaner, where soundwaves ripple through water to remove dust and cleaning solution residue.

To assemble the ball valve, the technician places two rubber o-rings on top of an endcap.

Next is a thick synthetic ring, which will secure the ball in the valve.

He seats the valve body over it.

He cleanses the hollow steel ball and inserts it in the valve body.

He stacks more rubber sealers, another synthetic sealer and another endcap on top.

He inserts long bolts into the four corners of the valve and secures them tightly with nuts to keep air from seeping into the valve.

He attaches a handle to the stem, protruding from the valve body.

He installs a stop pin to prevent the handle from opening beyond a quarter turn.

Finally, he tightens the nut that locks the handle to the valve stem.

He now secures the ball valve in a vise to hold it steady while he tests its function.

When the whole of the ball is aligned with flanges of the endcaps, the valve is open.

And when it's perpendicular to it, it's shut.

Satisfied with its function, he transfers the ball valve to the laser engraver.

The laser etches the serial number and other information onto the valve body.

And now, one final test, the technician connects the valve to a vacuum pumping system and activates a leak-detecting device.

While the pump draws a vacuum, he sprays helium gas onto the valve to detect any leaks.

This ensures the valve will operate properly in a high vacuum environment.

Some of these ball valves are manually operated.

And others are computerized.

Both versions are designed to hold up to high vacuum conditions and handle the flow.

If you have grass or weeds to cut, but can't access the spot with your lawn mower, you need a string trimmer for the job.

It's compact, letting you cut around and in between objects, and doesn't ride on the ground.

So you can easily use it on a steep terrain.

A string trimmer slices the vegetation in its path with a rotating nylon line.

The motor that turns the spool of line is protected by a two-part housing made of polymer.

The polymer pellets are pumped through pipes to the hopper, that feeds an injection molding machine.

The machine melts them, then shoots the liquid plastic into housing-shaped molds.

The machine then cools the molds to solidify the plastic and ejects the molded parts, which a robot grabs and places in a collection box.

To make other plastic parts of the string trimmer, they install different molds on the injection molding machine and hook up the feed line for whichever color pellets they're using.

To make the cutting line, an extrusion machine melts down plastic pellets, then forces the liquid plastic through a round die to form line.

A cold water bath cools and solidifies the shape.

Then, heated rollers stretch the line until its reduced to 3 millimeters in diameter.

The line is wound onto large spools, which feed the machines that wind the finished trimmer spools.

On the engine assembly line, an automated machine applies sealant to the magnesium engine pan.

They place the cylinder on an assembly fixture, apply a gasket, then insert the piston.

Already assembled to the crankcase, its up and down motion turns.

Then they mate the engine pan to the crankcase.

The sealant in between making that connection airtight.

An automated machine screws the components together, then closes off the exhaust ports and pulls a vacuum to test the seal.

If the engine assembly passes the test, it continues down the assembly line.

They install a gasket...

The carburetor...

Another gasket and the housing for the air filter.

Then they install a baffle, which distributes air so that it enters the air filter evenly.

They attach a gasket under the muffler and screw the muffler onto the cylinder.

The gasket and sealant on the screws ensure the only exhaust gases can escape through the muffler.

Next, the flywheel.

When it rotates, magnets inside produce an electromagnetic field the ignition uses to set off the spark plug that starts the engine combustion cycle.

After mounting the clutch on the flywheel, they install the spark plug on the cylinder.

This automated machine simultaneously tightens the spark plug, the clutch and the flywheel to specified torques.

By this point, workers have welded a fuel tank to the motor housing.

They've also installed a trigger, a trigger release, and a stop switch.

They place the assembled engine into the housing.

They also place the air filter into the filter housing.

At the next station, they attach the other half of the motor housing.

A robot tightens the screws to a specific torque.

Next, they screw a cover on to the filter housing.

Then they create the trimmer's powerhead by installing the starter cover.

It contains the cord you pull to start the engine.

Elsewhere in the factory, they build the shaft assembly, to which they'll later attach the powerhead.

First, they put together the handle in the gearhead that turns the spool of line.

Then they install the spool.

When the cutting line wears down from use, you tap the spool against the ground to automatically advance more line.

They insert the shaft assembly into the powerhead.

The other end of the drive shaft connects to the gearhead.

The last step is to attach the gearhead's deflector, which is designed to help prevent what you're trimming from flying up at you.

To use the string trimmer, you fill the fuel tank with a gas and oil mixture.

Then, just pull the cord to start her up.


Wood Watches
Steel Bicycles
Raw Pet Food
Replica Police Lanterns

Sure, your mobile phone will give you the time, but not nearly as conveniently or fashionably as a wristwatch does.

Watches come in a variety of materials, often combined with stainless steel.

But one of the more creative pairings is stainless steel with wood.

This company makes wristwatches which feature exotic hardwood accents.

This particular model is a limited-edition series designed for new york yankees baseball fans.

The blue-painted maple comes from wooden seats salvaged from the original yankee stadium, which opened in 1923.

At the watch factory, a worker first cuts a strip of wood just over a third of an inch thick, then cuts it into blocks measuring around three fourths of an inch by a third of an inch each.

Manufacturers will ultimately use these blocks to make the wood inlays in the links of the watch bracelet.

The worker then cuts another strip from a piece of wood, this one nearly a quarter of an inch thick.

The worker then cuts this strip into nearly 2-by-2-inch squares.

Each one will become a ring called a bezel that goes around the watch dial.

Another worker mounts one square at a time on a lathe and bores a hole through the middle.

She mounts several board squares onto a steel mandrill that attaches to the lathe along with the bezel template.

As the lathe turns, a steel roughing gouge rounds the squares to the diameter of the template.

She takes one bezel at a time and cuts it to the required thickness, about a tenth of an inch.

She then shaves wood from the underside so as not to remove the historic blue paint on top.

To make the watch case, which houses the dial and movement, the manufacturers cut a blank piece of extruded stainless steel, then place it in a computer-guided machine.

Under a continuous shower of lubricant, the machine's 12 different tools take turns shaping the piece into a watch case.

The first tools bore a hole in the middle for the movement and carve a groove around the hole for the wood bezel.

The next tools cut the outside profile of the case and the lugs for attaching the watch band.

Then, the final tool drills holes in the lugs for the spring-loaded pins that attach the watch band to the case.

Another computer-guided machine makes the watch band and links out of a bar of stainless steel.

This machine reduces the bar and width, carves out the links and bores holes for the connecting pins.

A process called ion plating puts a black finish on all the stainless-steel parts.

Then, a worker assembles two bands and connects one to the watch clasp.

Next, he attaches the watch case window.

It's made of sapphire glass, a crystal that's exceptionally durable.

He inserts the self-winding movement and dial.

The dial is a sheet of brass with cut-out numbers and indices over a base.

Coated in luminescent paint, the watch glows in the dark.

He secures the movement to the case with a retaining ring, then inserts the crown, which sets the dial's hands.

The worker screws on the stainless-steel case back.

The watch's window of sapphire glass allows you to see the working movement inside.

The case back is engraved with the name of the limited-edition collection and this watch's number in the series.

He attaches the watch band to the case with spring pins.

With the watch now fully assembled, it's time to inlay the yankee stadium wooden chair accents.

Using a toothpick, a worker applies epoxy glue to the rectangular recess in each link.

Then he places a wooden link piece in each recess.

He follows the same process for the dial's wooden bezel.

A worker sets the watch aside for 24 hours to let the adhesive set.

Then the worker buffs the entire surface on a cloth polishing wheel.

This process removes the fingerprints and dust and smoothes those historic wood accents.

The watch automatically winds with wrist movement to reliably tell the time while nostalgically going back in time.

If you're looking for an affordable bicycle that's durable and has great shock absorption capabilities, then a bike made of steel is for you.

It's a bit heavier than a high-end bicycle made of aluminum or carbon fiber, but this rugged material buys you a smoother ride at a significantly lower price.

This three-speed steel bicycle is sturdy and comfortable enough to ride recreationally or daily to school or work.

A cargo rack in the rear can hold your purse, backpack or briefcase.

The bike is made of chromoly steel, which is, pound-for-pound, stronger than standard steel.

To prepare the bike's tubular parts including the frame, a worker cuts steel tube with a horizontal band saw into specific-length pieces.

He then clamps certain frame pieces into a milling machine, which will cut a curve into one or both ends depending on the piece's location in the final assembly.

This notch, as it's called, will let the tube butt up against the side of an adjacent tube when the bike's frame is assembled.

The notched edge is ragged, so the worker smoothes it out with a small belt sander.

Certain frame parts are straight, others bent.

To make the bent ones, another worker places the piece of tube in a tube bender, a press that forces the tube against a curved dye.

Once all the frame parts are ready, a welder clamps them in a fixture, which correctly positions them for assembly.

He works with a welding torch in one hand and a rod of filler metal in the other.

The torch melts adjacent tubes at their meeting point so that they fuse together.

The welder also melts in some filler metal to strengthen the joint.

The bicycle frame is made up of nine major parts.

And the welder welds them to each other in two sections, forming the rear triangle and the front triangle.

This is the rear one, which alone requires nine meticulous welds.

Once each triangle is separately assembled, he welds them together.

Another worker sprays the frame with powder-coat primer, then color.

Powder coat is an industrial-grade, paint-like finish, which he bakes onto the metal at almost 400 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes.

When the frame comes out of the oven, another worker presses steel caps into what's called the head tube, that vertical tube at the front of the frame which holds the handlebars on top and the fork for the front wheel at the bottom.

Bearings inside the caps let the handlebars and fork turn left and right with ease.

To put the bicycle together, the worker suspends the frame in an assembly stand and then inserts the bottom bracket, which will ultimately support the bike's drivetrain system.

The bike's fenders are made of sheet steel that's shaped with pressure-applying rollers.

The rear fender attaches to the rear dropout and at fender mounts at two other locations on the frame's rear triangle.

He screws the cargo rack to middle and rear rack supports.

Then, he inserts and bolts the rear wheel into the rear dropout.

The wheel hub has three built-in gears.

The hub and rim are made of aluminum, which is lightweight and doesn't rust.

The wheel spokes are stainless steel.

Next, the worker installs the drivetrain system, inserting the crank arms, already mounted to the chain ring, onto the bottom bracket.

He tightens the bolt securely with a torque wrench.

Workers then insert the fork into the bottom of the head tube and chrome-plated steel handlebars into the top mount, the front fender and front wheel, then install the pedals, vinyl seat, chain and chain guard.

With the gear shifter and front brake lever on the handlebars, this steel bicycle is ready to hit the road.

For some pet owners, feeding raw food to fido is a natural choice.

It harkens back to the common ancestor of all dog breeds, the wolf.

In the wild, wolves eat raw meat and occasionally some greens, so the theory goes that dogs are genetically predisposed to thrive on a raw-meat diet.

Dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, but when it comes to their diet, they can still go a little wild.

Raw canine cuisine may be a foreign concept to some pet owners, but it's becoming more mainstream.

The makers of raw dog food often mix fruits and vegetables with meat to provide fiber and create a balanced meal.

The process starts with a lot of slicing and dicing.

A food worker chops the fruits and veggies into smaller pieces so they'll be able to go through a grinder more easily.

He also removes the seeds from the apples and the squash because the seeds aren't as easily digested as the rest of the fruit and provide no additional nutrition.

This raw pet food recipe calls for a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Though, in total, they will comprise just 5% of the meal.

The rest of the raw blend will consist of meat, bones, organs and fish.

Another food worker chops up the chicken, which has been organically raised and has even been approved for human consumption.

Except for the breasts, all the parts of the chicken will be used in the main recipe.

This includes the heart, liver, gizzards and the bones.

Raw, whole sardines, anchovies and mackerel will add essential fatty acids to the raw chicken blend.

All the ingredients have been prepared and are now ready for grinding.

A worker feeds the components to the grinder in small batches interspersing the meat, fish and the vegetables.

This ensures even distribution, as the grinder minces everything to a uniform particle size.

The result is a thick emulsion of finely ground chicken meat, bones, vegetables, fruits and fish.

She transfers the minced raw ingredients to a mixer.

The revolving paddles further blend the food.

After about 5 minutes in the mixer, all the ingredients have been combined into one homogeneous raw mass.

This chicken blend is now complete.

The worker divides it into 5-pound batches and scoops it into bags.

She vacuum seals the bag.

Removing all the air inside will allow the raw blend to stay fresh longer.

Refrigerated, it should last for up to 10 days and, if frozen, it should be good for several months.

For the furry members of the family, dinner is ready to be served.

To make some raw pet snacks, a worker de-shells new zealand green-lipped mussels, a species that is believed to have fast-acting anti-inflammatory properties.

After she cuts the mussels free from the shells, she places them on racks for air-drying.

She transfers the rack into a drying tent where fans keep air circulating 24 hours a day.

As the mussels dry, they shrink.

After 72 hours in the tent, the moisture content is substantially reduced.

Air drying has preserved the flesh of the mussels in the raw state while preventing damage to the nutrients and enzymes they contain.

Now preserved, she packs the mussels into plastic bags and adds an iron oxide packet to absorb oxygen and prevent spoilage.

This raw pet food is now ready to nourish the wolf in your dog.

Before the invention of electricity, criminal acts were hidden by darkness.

Police officers carried special lanterns as they pursued suspects.

Today, craftsmen replicate these lanterns for the movie and television industries.

These props are authentically replicated pieces of police history.

With a thick bull's-eye lens to magnify the light from the flame, the 19th-century police lantern helped find bad guys on shadowy streets.

To replicate a vintage police lantern, the craftsman starts with a piece of steel.

Using a scribe, he traces around a pattern to transfer the outline to the blank.

He marks notches for hinges and for the latch and etches the shape of the lens hole in the center.

He draws two diagonal lines in the lens hole area.

The point where the lines intersect determines the exact center.

He punches a divot into the steel at this cross point.

He scribes lines along the edges for bending into a reinforced border later on.

He cuts out the hinge and latch notches following the transferred pattern lines.

Next, he aligns the center divot with a punch and then activates the punch to cut out the hole for the lantern lens.

The craftsman now bends wire to match the profile of the lantern door.

He aligns the wire with the scribed lines on the edge of the door and folds the metal over it.

Bending the door to the correct curvature completes the part.

Following another pattern, the craftsman marks the location for vent holes in the blank that will become the lantern's main structure.

He cuts out the vent holes where he's made the marks using a hand-operated punch.

He then rolls the blank into a cylinder.

It takes a couple of passes to achieve the correct curvature.

Moving on to the lantern's lens holder, the craftsman crimps a bead around one end.

This bead helps to retain the bull's-eye lens in the holder.

Returning to the lantern body, he hammers the top rim around the cap.

He preps the surface for soldering with a chemical cleaning agent known as flux.

He then solders the joint to secure the top to the lantern.

He also solders a raised panel to the back.

This substantial panel serves as support for handles.

He then cleans the solder joints with acetone.

Next, he wraps metal hinges around the wire that runs through the notches in the door.

He crimps the hinges together at the ends and positions the door on the lantern body.

He adjusts the hinges so the ends sit level on the lantern.

He solders the hinges to the steel structure.

The craftsman inserts the bull's-eye lens assembly into the hole in the center of the lantern door, and he solders the joint.

He pins and solders the two tiers of a copper chimney.

He places the chimney over the hole in the top of the lantern and tucks more pins into holes in the chimney.

The craftsman installs a decorative part in the top, one that won't obstruct the chimney hole.

He assembles the handles to the raised panel at the back of the lantern.

Once the soldered seam hardens, he files it down.

The craftsman tests the latch on the door and confirms that it operates perfectly.

After taping up the lens and handles, he spray paints the lantern black.

Now it's time to assemble the oil-burning mechanism.

First, the craftsman melts solder onto a threaded brass collar and transfers it to the oil tank.

He reheats the solder to melt it into the joint.

He inserts the wick in the tank and screws the burner to the collar.

And that completes the lantern's light source.

This replica police lantern will be a working prop designed to shine on tv and the movies.