Pressed Glass Pickup Truck Caps Alpaca Yarn Utility Knives
Today on "how it's made"... Pressed glass originated in 19th century america and england, and it revolutionized glassware. It offered the look of crystal on a budget, adding elegance to a humble meal. It became known as "poor man's crystal". Today, this affordable glass still has class. Pressed glass or cut crystal... Invented in the 18th century, pressed glass can still impress company and keep them guessing. Pressed-glass ingredients include lime, sodium nitrate, soda ash, silica sand, mineral or chemical colorants, and leftover or rejected glass from the factory. They melt the ingredients in a furnace heated at over 2,900 degrees fahrenheit. A worker twirls a rod with a ceramic bowl on the end into it, and the hot liquid glass clings to it. Then it's ready for transfer to the iron mold. When the mold is partly full, a worker snips the liquid glass with scissors to cut the flow. He places a ring with pegs on the rim to align the mold with a plunger. He lowers the plunger and applies physical pressure to a lever to squeeze the glass into every crevice. This transforms the glass blob into a berry bowl with elaborate impressions on the outside. As it cools, the bowl hardens just enough to be extracted, but it's still quite soft. Careful to not distort the shape, he transfers the bowl to two bricks. A hose below the bricks pumps air to cool the glass further. Over a period of four hours, the team makes 250 berry bowls. Some of the bowls will be flattened to turn them into dessert plates, while others will be worked into the shape of candy baskets. Once the glass has firmed up enough, the bowls take a couple of trips through the glazer, first upside down, and then right side up. A gas flame melts the outer layer of the glass to make it shine both inside and out. He clamps the bowl onto the end of a rod called a snap, and places into a second smaller furnace briefly. This softens the glass to prepare it for another transformation. Still clamped on the rod, a worker spins the bowl. With a stick of wood, he applies pressure to the upper part to flatten and flare it out. He then draws the piece between two pipes to bend the sides upward. The pressed-glass berry bowl has now become a candy basket, but baskets need handles, so it's back to the furnace to gather more glass. He collects a little less this time. He moves the molten glass around on a metal table to roll it longer. He inserts it in a mold that gives the glass a rib pattern. He heats the glass in the furnace one more time. Soft and sticky, the glass handle adheres to the basket. He pulls the handle longer as he twirls the basket, and then attaches the other end of the handle to it. The handle is a bit saggy, so before it cools, he improves the shape using an iron roller. As he works the glass, he pulls the handle up and makes it more well-rounded. Unclamped from the gathering rod now, he smoothes the outer surface of the handle and tweaks its shape until satisfied. Using a torch, he melts the glass a bit where the handle meets the basket to improve the adhesion. And now it's over to the oven. Here, the pressed glass is heated and then cooled to room temperature over a period of three and a half hours. This gradual heating and cooling is critical. It releases stress in the pressed glass to make it less likely to shatter. For generations, molds have been used to mass produce pressed-glass pieces that can look like expensive crystal. With all that practice, they have this down to a fine art. Some works are reproductions of vintage pieces, others are new patterns. The appeal is timeless. Pickup trucks are ideal for transporting tools and materials, but often these items have to be covered and locked away to protect them from the elements and theft. That's why many pickup owners install caps, hard top covers typically made of fiberglass or aluminum with optional built-in storage. This truck cap is made of durable fiberglass and is designed to fit every full-sized pickup on the market. A truck cap has to be both practical and attractive, so it first takes shape on a car designer's sketch pad. Engineers use computer software to translate the design sketches into technical drawings for producing several molds, one for each of the various parts of the truck cap. The first step is to wax the mold's surface, so that the truck cap part will extra easily. The mold is made of colored fiber glass to contrast the white materials they'll apply to it. The first of those materials is gel coat, a polyester resin that produces a smooth and shiny finish on fiberglass. They spray on a half millimeter thick coat. The beauty of gel coat is that a nick or crack can be easily repaired with a bit of grinding and filling. So the truck cap's surface can always be restored to an impeccable state. The gel coat cures in about 45 minutes, at which point they begin shooting chopped up fiberglass that's impregnated with resin. They compress this new layer with rollers to about five millimeters thick. Roughly two hours later, the resin has hardened and it's time to use special extraction jacks to remove the now solid roof from the mold. They repeat this same molding process for all the other parts. Because this particular truck cap model has double doors on both the back and side, there are 10 different parts to mold. A robotic circular saw trims each molded part. This is the truck cap's air deflector. The saw blade has diamond particles affixed to its edge, enabling it to cut the fiberglass without shredding it. By the time the robot finishes trimming, the part meets exact specifications and has neat, smooth edges. With all the parts ready now, it's time to assemble the truck cap. First, they unite the roof and the universal fit base. Both slide into an aluminum trim. Workers clamp them in position from the inside. Next, as required by motor vehicle regulations, they install brake lights at the top of the rear doors. Then, on the right-side rear door, they mount a chrome-plated door handle. The plating has been treated with an anti-corrosion coating. For the sake of convenience, the door handle lock is designed to work with the truck's ignition key so the driver doesn't have to carry around a separate key for the cap. The doors mount with sturdy hinges is made of stainless steel, which is rust resistant. Next, using a template to get the positioning just right, they glue the company and model name logos to the right rear door. For aesthetics, these plastic logos are chrome plated to match the door handle. After mounting the doors, they install gas struts on each door to provide resistance to control the door swing. Workers also install a pair of three-foot-long l.e.d. lights. They're on a magnetic switch, turning them on and off when the doors open and close. Once it's fully assembled, it undergoes a thorough inspection. A truck cap weighs about 660 pounds, so you need a mechanical lift to mount it on a pickup. It affixes with four tie-down levers that hook under the rails, running down the interior sides of the truck so there's no chance of the cap lifting off. Before shipping out to the customer, every truck cap goes through a water test, subjected to a torrent for three minutes straight to make sure no water leaks inside. Truck caps can be ordered with a pull-out cargo bed, shelving, storage bins, and other features, transforming an ordinary pickup truck into a workshop on wheels. What's warm, soft, water repellent, and, as an added bonus, hypoallergenic? Something made of alpaca yarn. Similar to sheep's wool, it's smoother due to the scale structure of the individual fibers. And it doesn't contain lanolin, a natural wax in sheep's wool to which some people are allergic. Alpacas come in 22 different colors, ranging from pure white through various shades of beiges, browns, and grays, to pure black. Breeders shear their alpacas and sell the fleece or send it to mills for processing into yarn. White fleece is in greatest demand, and it can be dyed any number of colors. Before sending out the fleece, the breeders pull off hay, leaves, and other stuck-on vegetation. When the fleece arrives at the mill, it undergoes repeated washes with natural soaps until it's pristine. After the fleece air dries, a conveyer belt feeds it into the picker. The machine's tooth drum pulls apart the clumps, a process called "opening the fibers". The drum then shoots those fibers into a compartment called the picker closet. Once all the fleece has been opened, they turn off the machine and spray the fluffy fibers thoroughly with a blend of conditioners. These conditioners are left to absorb overnight to reduce static electricity the next step generates. The fiber separator combs the fibers with a series of fine tooth rollers. This simultaneously straightens the fibers and separates them by grade. The first set of rollers removes any remaining bits of vegetation, while the second set removes coarse fibers so that only very fine fibers exit the machine. The next step is to divide these fine fibers into bundles of equal weight. The set weight varies according to the grade of fiber that the next machine, the carder, will be processing. A fine fiber requires heavier bundles. The conveyer belt feeding the carder is marked in sections. They place one bundle in each section. This steady, even input ensures that the machine produces a consistent output. Inside the carder, a series of combs spreads the fibers over a drum, aligning them parallel to each other. This produces a thin, flat layer of fine fiber called web. Web can be stacked in several layers to make batting, the stuffing material in quilts and duvets. Batting can be further processed into felt. Web can also be processed into roving, a long thick stream of fiber which crafts people hand spin into yarn, or which high-speed machines here at the mill spin into store-bought yarn. The roving deck on the carder compresses the web into a stream while rotating it to hold the aligned fibers in a snake like shape. To make what's known as woolen yarn, the roving goes directly to the spinner. However, to make what's called semi-worsted yarn, this machine, called a draw frame, must first combine two or more rovings into a consistent stream called a sliver. The thinner the yarn, the more often the rovings pass through the draw frame. Finally, several slivers simultaneously enter the spinner, which twists each one separately through a combination of pressure and speed. The next machine, called the plyer, then forms the yarn by twisting multiple singles together in the opposite direction. Twisting two singles, for example, makes a two-ply yarn. The mill produces different weights of yarn from lace to bulky, by varying the volume of fiber per ply, as well as the spinning speed. They mount the spools of finished yarn on the skein winder. A skein is a bundle of yarn that's first wound then twisted. They set the machine to wind a specific length of yarn. When it stops, they tie the skein on two ends and remove it. Then they dye the yarn or leave it its natural color. Some mills dye their fleece after washing, prior to processing it into yarn. The final step is to hand-twist the skein. They also wind yarn into balls and cones. Warm and water repellent, this silky, smooth alpaca yarn is all set to be knit or woven into a cozy woolen. The utility knife is known by many other names-- carpet knife, box cutter, sheet-rock knife, and craft knife are just a few. All those names reflect the many uses for this retractable knife and its incredible versatility. It comes in handy every time. In 70 years, the design of this retractable utility knife hasn't really changed much. Why mess with a concept that works? A hollow case with an interlocking nose for the blade, held together by a single screw. It can be easily unscrewed to access spare blades inside. To make the blades, carbon steel uncoils into a die press. A roller takes up the slack as the steel inches forward for each forming. The press scores the steel to rough out the shape of the blades, punches notches for attaching them to the handle, and stamps product information onto them. At this point, the steel is just a little stiffer than tin foil. A trip through a 25-foot-long furnace toughens it up. Exposed to scorching heat and then quenched by water, the steel hardens significantly. After the brand name has been printed on the steel, the ribbon of blades rides through a grinding station with different stone-grinding wheels. They sharpen the steel edge. The steel now passes under an induction coil that radiates heat to further harden the cutting edge. A machine called the breaker snaps the steel along the score lines. It spits out the unwanted triangular bits between the blades for recycling. The blades flow out of the breaker and into a steel channel. A pusher moves them down the channel into a tray. This system snaps and packs 250 blades a minute. They insert one blade from every production run into this tester. The tester moves the blade back and forth repeatedly to slice through thick stacks of paper strips. This gives them a measure of the blade's sharpness and durability. The transformation from blunt metal to razor sharp blade is complete, and the utility knife blades are ready for the gripping part-- the zinc case. They cast the back and front of the case in a die. The parts then bounce around in a vibratory bowl along with pyramid-shaped ceramic rocks. The friction smoothes the rough edges. After about a half hour in the vibratory bowl, the casing parts are blemish free. They head into the next station. Here, workers collect them and examine them for defects as they hang them on moving racks. The racks will take the utility knife parts through a wash station to get rid of a dusting of zinc and ceramic residue. It's kind of a power wash for the knife case parts. They ride by a high-pressure sprayer for a thorough cleaning. After that, they take a trip through a dryer to prepare them for a powder coat finish. Once the powder coat is baked on, it will protect the zinc utility knife from corrosion. The powder coat gives the utility knives a finish that's tougher than conventional paint. Heading into the unload station now, a blast from an air gun knocks the parts off the rack. Thanks to the tough finish, they land without a scratch. The utility-knife parts are ready for assembly, and the worker uses a special fixture for that. She places the bottom half of the knife in a recess in the fixture. Handling the blunt side of the blades, she inserts three of them into the case's storage compartment. She also tucks the tab of an information card into it. Next, she installs the retractable mechanism for the utility knife blades. She places the other half of the case on the assembly and then actuates an auto-screw gun to close the knife. They assemble over 40,000 utility knives per day at this factory. Now, that's cutting edge.