Turntables Steam Engines Playground Equipment Non
As the music industry went digital, the turntable seemed destined for the scrap heap. But this analog technology defied predictions and survived. With a sound that's arguably fuller and more natural than compressed digital formats, this retro technology is attracting new fans. In an age when media players are digitized and pocket-sized, the turntable plays on. The use of high-tech composites like carbon fiber puts a modern spin on this technology, bringing the record player into the 21st century. [ classical music plays] production starts with a thick square of cast acrylic. The technician drills a hole in the center. It will be a reference point as he transforms this square into the turntable platter. A computerized tool cuts a circle shape out of the square. The disc then spins while another computer-guided tool enlarges the center hole to size it for the platter's main bearing. The next tool precisely cuts the surface of the disc to give it the correct angle. Computerized tools transform this small aluminum disc into the counterweight's main component. The counterweight balances the tone arm to keep the stylus in the groove of an l.p. they slope the surface and cut holes for attachments and for installing the part. Finally, they cut a triangle out of the circle. This takes the part to its final shape and weight... From a flat disc to a precisely crafted counterweight. Next, the platform for the tone arm takes shape. It's designed to cradle all the parts at the end of the tone arm, including a cylindrical housing for a spring mechanism and an egg-shaped housing containing a bearing. A technician now assembles the tone arm, beginning with a tapered tube made of carbon fiber. It's a high-tech composite that's extremely stiff, so there should be no structural weakness in this crucial part. The technician threads a preassembled wiring loom through the arm tube. It's special wire for high-frequency transfer. These wires have been encased in copper to keep out ambient radiation that would interfere with the tone arm's operation. The carbon-fiber tube also acts as a radiation shield. He mixes epoxy resin that he then dabs around the inner rim of the bearing housing, which has by now been equipped with the bearing. He inserts the tone arm tube into the housing. The tube adheres to the glue-coated rim, but before it totally bonds, the technician scrutinizes the alignment. He makes adjustments if needed, and then he'll clamp the assembly to allow the glue to cure. With the turntable tone arm now upright, he solders the wires that are protruding from the joint to external wiring for the amplifier. And once all the connections have been made, he inserts the wires into the metal joint. Ensconced in this joint, the connections are well-protected and can't be pulled apart. He equips the main counterweight component with two thick steel beams for balance. He slides the counterweight onto a third beam, which has been installed in the egg-shaped housing. This completes the turntable tone arm. Next, they encase the electric motor in its metal housing. And they build the record deck. They mount the motor to the two-tiered deck, designed to absorb any vibration. The aluminum sub-chassis is next. They link it to the motor with a drive belt, then they give the belt-drive system a test spin to confirm that it runs smoothly. They now install the acrylic platter, felt mat, and tone arm. With this turntable now fully assembled, it's time for the vinyl test. The record spins, and the stylus traces the grooves. The analog sound fills the room... Proving this technology stands the test of time. [ classical music plays] the first modern steam engine was invented in england in the early 1700s, helping launch the industrial revolution. Today there's a return to steam power. Due to its different configuration and combustion process, a steam engine produces less pollution than a regular internal-combustion engine. This steam engine burns fuel in an external combustion chamber. The resulting heat turns water into pressurized steam that enters the cylinders, pushing pistons, turning a crankshaft that powers the drive train. Because this engine doesn't burn fuel inside the cylinders like a traditional car engine, it can run on any type or mixture of fuels with fewer emissions. The circular engine block is made of aluminum. Technicians install studs to hold six stainless-steel cylinders. Due to the constant exposure to steam, all engine parts are made of rustproof materials. The technicians insert a piston into each cylinder. The piston is aluminum with a heat-resistant carbon cap and glider to isolate it from the cylinder wall. They connect the piston rods to the crankshaft in the center with a specially designed component called a spider bearing. This bearing is designed to modify the piston stroke, producing a smoother rotation of the crankshaft and more power to the engine. Unlike a traditional car engine, with cylinders arranged in line, these cylinders are in a radial configuration and therefore equidistant from the center. This prevents the engine from warping under high temperatures. They place a counterbalance over their spider bearing to further smooth the motion of the crankshaft. Now they install a pushrod over each cylinder. It operates a valve, which lets steam enter the cylinder and move the piston. They insert the base of each pushrod into a guide ring... Then attach the cylinder heads, each of which houses a steam-entry valve. They insert the pushrod into the valve. Then, to complete the engine assembly, they install the cam, which pushes the pushrods as the shaft spins. The factory hooks up every completed engine for a couple of rounds of performance testing. First, a trial run using air pressure to check for leaks and to verify that all components operate correctly. If everything's fine, then they repeat the process with steam pressure. This type of steam engine can power many types of machines, from cars, trucks, and boats, to electric generators as we see here. In a vehicle, it doesn't require a transmission because it produces so much rotational power. Now for the heat exchanger, the component which turns water into engine-powering steam. Technicians use a motorized wheel to wind 20 feet of stainless-steel tubing into a coil. They bind the coil with steel thread, putting a stitch in between each tube to create a minute gap. That way, when fuel burns in the combustion chamber, the heat can travel over and in between the tubes, heating the water inside faster and more efficiently than if the heat would contact only the coils' top and bottom surfaces. The result-- superheated steam in just five seconds. They stack six of these coils, one to feed steam to each cylinder. This nest of tubes form the engine's primary heat exchanger. They test it using any number of fuels, even waste fuels which would otherwise be discarded, such as used motor oil and used vegetable oil from restaurant fryers. Virtually anything that burns will do the job. The fuel combusts at low pressure, not at high pressure as in a gas or diesel engine. That means burning fossil fuels to make steam produces far fewer greenhouse gases, and most hydrocarbons burn off completely within the sealed combustion chamber. You never have to refill or top off the water because a condenser cools the steam back into water, which then recirculates. Water is not only the working fluid-- it also acts as the engine lubricant, so the steam engine doesn't require motor oil. Besides fuel combustion, this modern steam engine can run off other heat sources, such as solar heat and exhaust heat from furnaces or engines. There was a time when the playground equipment in the local park or schoolyard was pretty basic stuff-- a set of swings, a slide, maybe a see-saw or two. Today's playground equipment is far more varied, imaginative, and colorful, designed to stimulate children's minds as well as exercise their bodies. Slide down, climb on, wriggle through. There's no end to how kids can frolic on modular play structures or on this bubble-belly dinosaur. To make the dinosaur's neck and legs, an automated band saw cuts long steel tubes to specific lengths. The tube for the neck is 5 1/2 feet long. Workers curve it in a bending press. A level helps them get it just right. Next, they weld on two steel plates. These will support plastic seats on which kiddies can sit. Workers also weld on bars for attaching the neck to the body. They weld anchoring tabs and supporting bars to the four steel-tube legs. Workers sandblast the legs and neck with stainless-steel grit. The sandblasting gun shoots the grit at a speed of 435 miles an hour. This roughens the surface, enabling paint to better adhere. After applying an undercoat of gray primer, workers spray on a coat of plastic-based paint. The paint is then baked on, which maximizes its durability. Meanwhile, a computer-guided engraving machine carves an educational design into a panel made of triple-layered polyethylene plastic. Panels like this block the open sides of playground equipment, preventing children from falling through. To construct the dinosaur's bubble-shaped body, workers bolt together two half-spheres made of molded polyethylene plastic. They position the bubble body on the legs... Then bolt them together from the inside. They bolt the neck to the body. The neck has since been outfitted with plastic seats and the dino's plastic head. They finish off the dinosaur with a metal label bearing product information. This factory produces several components for its modular play structures, such as a climbing net made of galvanized steel cable. The hard cable is padded in polyurethane. Workers use hydraulic scissors to cut the required lengths of cable... Then a cable stripper to slice off a little more than an inch of polyurethane from the ends of certain cables. Workers then cap each exposed end with a sleeved aluminum ring. They crimp the sleeve with a 44-ton press. The rings will be bolted to the play structure's frame and anchoring system. Finally, workers assemble the cables into a grid, locking each intersection with a plastic connector. To ensure they won't rust from exposure to the elements, the connectors' central screw and corner rivets are made of stainless steel. On the modular play structure, the children walk on a platform. It's constructed from thick steel sheets, perforated by a robotic laser cutter. After bending the sheet in a press to the required shape-- this is the corner section of the platform-- workers heat it in an oven... Then submerge it in a vat of polyvinyl, which instantly adheres to the hot metal. They build up a good coat--  about a 10th of an inch thick-- then let the excess drip off. They blast the entire piece with an airgun. This clears the holes and produces a textured, anti-slip surface. Since playground equipment remains outdoors, all the paints and plastics are u.v.-treated to resist fading. Besides being durable, the equipment is designed to meet all required safety standards so that parents can have peace of mind while their children have fun. Food just slides off nonstick cookware's remarkably slippery surface. In 1938, an american chemist was experimenting with refrigeration gases. A waxy substance formed. Years later, when bonded to cookware, it gained a nonstick reputation. When it's time to fry, using a nonstick pan averts a messy situation. The nonstick coating is one of the slipperiest solid materials on earth. Called polytetrafluoroethylene, the name is a bit of a mouthful, but the appeal is simple. Food won't get stuck on this nonstick surface. To make the aluminum pan, they use 70% raw material and 30% leftovers from prior production of pots and pans. They fire it to a molten state and filter it to remove contaminants. The liquid aluminum flows into vertical rectangular molds. A jacket of water around the molds cools the aluminum to take it from a liquid to a solid. A crane extracts the cast slabs. They're heading to a heating chamber to soften the slabs. This will allow the metal to be shaped and formed. A saw slices the slabs in two and trims the ends. More blades scrape the top and bottom to remove impurities. A conveyor repeatedly feeds the shorter slabs to heated rollers. Guides at the side maintain the width, while the rollers compress the aluminum, taking the thickness down to about . 2 of an inch. The rolling also elongates the slab substantially. It starts out at 6 1/2 feet long, and after a few minutes of rolling, it's been stretched to well over 100 yards. Pizza-cutter-style blades trim the edges of the aluminum sheet. Another roller winds the aluminum into a big coil. They then unwind it and squeeze the aluminum to flatten it. Machinery now pulls the long aluminum sheet forward to a 132-ton punch press. This powerful press forces the metal around a frying-pan-shaped die and then punches out the shape. The freshly formed aluminum frying pan falls onto a conveyor below. The leftover aluminum will be used to make new frying pans. The pans now ride a conveyor through a washing station, where they're cleaned and then treated with sodium hydroxide. This opens the pores of the metal to allow an enamel coating to stick to the outside and the nonstick finish to adhere to the inside. A worker inspects the pans and places them upside-down on spray fixtures. It's a tight fit to shield the inside from the enamel spray that comes next. The pans spin on the fixtures and twirl by the spray nozzles for an even application of enamel to the exterior of the pans. A clear, glossy coat follows. The frying pans transfer to a dryer conveyor. The hot air pulls out water from the enamel coating, and the color goes from gray to chalky white. An automated squeegee silk-screens the company's name and other information onto the pan bottoms. They now enter a long curing oven heated to 1,040 degrees fahrenheit. The cure toughens the enamel, deepens the color so it turns gray again, and it adds gloss. A suctioning device picks up the pan and turns it around for the inside coatings. A sprayer applies a special primer that will make the nonstick coating adhere to the pan. It then applies the nonstick coating. The pans receive two layers of this nonstick synthetic substance. The suctioning device releases the pan, and it lands upside down. Then the pans journey through the oven again to cure the nonstick finish at around 800 degrees fahrenheit. On exit, water rains down to cool the pans and rinse off any contaminants. Then they go through an infrared-light chamber to dry off. From a plain shell to a pan with an enamel finish on the outside and a nonstick coating on the inside, the transformation has taken just one hour. A worker now aims a laser and aligns it with lettering on the bottom, allowing him to punch holes in a precise location on the side of the pan. He slides pins into the holes and slots them through holes in the handle fitting. Using a ram, he flattens the pins to rivet the handle to the pan. Now, no matter what's cooking, cleanup should go smoothly.