Personal Watercraft Wine Office Furniture Ice Skates
Today on "how it's made"... Personal watercraft... Wine... Particleboard office furniture... And ice skates. They're to water what snowmobiles are to snow, what motorcycles are to road. The proper term for these adrenaline-pumping, wind-in-your-face vehicles is personal watercraft, but most people call them sea-doos. The fiberglass shell that's the body of the craft is molded at another factory. It arrives here ready-made. Workers use a template to position decorative decals on the upper shell, called the deck. Next, they install rubber footpads on the steps. A robot drills holes in the lower shell, called the hull, first for the drainage system... Then for the exhaust system. Next, workers install the straps that will hold the internal components in place. Then they install the rubber pad that goes under the motor. Next comes the motor mount to hold the motor in place. Finally, the motor itself. This 130-horsepower engine arrives at the factory fully assembled. It's a matter of putting it in place. Next, they install the jet pump-- that's what gives the watercraft its jet power-- then the battery, then the driveline-- that's what links the motor and the jet pump. The 14-gallon gas tank goes in next. They connect the driveline... Then install the jet housing. That's the protective casing around the jet pump. Meanwhile, a robot works on the deck. It applies globs of glue in key locations. Workers stick on various straps that will hold internal components in place. Then the robot glues the circumference of both the hull and deck. They heat the hull to activate the glue... Then clamp the deck to the hull. The glue takes about 15 minutes to dry. Using an ultrasound machine, they inspect the seal to make sure it's watertight. Next, they install the hood and the steering column. Now it's time to run an engine test. The last step is to install a plastic bumper. A roller presses it securely into place. Researchers invented a way to identify faraway objects, even in thick fog or complete darkness. They use a laser combined with military night vision technology to locate objects or people up to miles away. The system is so precise, it can read the name of a boat in the dead of night. The next time you enjoy a glass of wine, think about your place in history. Wine may date back to 6000 b.c. nowadays, wine comes in bottles, not animal skins, but the basic principles of winemaking remain the same. Wine grapes grow best in temperate climates. The riper the grapes, the sweeter the wine, so growers wait as long as possible before harvesting their crop. Pickers gather grapes by hand, cutting off the bunches with shears to avoid tearing the plant. For red wine, winemakers use the entire red grape-- juice, skin, pulp, and even seeds. For white wine, they use just the juice of white grapes. While the winemaking process itself is certainly a factor, the quality of the grapes is what ultimately determines the quality of the wine. Grapes are affected by weather, by soil conditions, and by how the vines are pruned during and between seasons. The grapes go into the crusher, then into the presser, which squeezes out the juice. Inside the winery, the result of all that crushing and pressing ends up in large stainless steel tanks. The winemaker adds yeast to convert the sugar in the grape juice to alcohol. That's called fermentation. Winemakers constantly experiment with fermentation to try to improve the quality of their wine. They take samples of grape juice and mix them with different types of yeast. Yeast is found throughout the environment, in wild berries, for instance. They hydrate the yeast with a bit of grape juice, then pour the mix into the grape juice sample, let it ferment, and then see how it turns out. The big fermentation tanks are refrigerated, and monitoring their temperature is critical. White wine must be fermented at around 63 degrees, red wine at 86 to 95 degrees. The fermentation period depends on the type of wine. White wine has to ferment for three weeks, red wine for just 10 days. Rosé wine is somewhat of a half-breed... Made with red grapes, but fermented slowly, like white wine. It comes out pink. There's an extra step in making red wine. During fermentation, they drain the tank to aerate the wine. The oxygen helps the yeast work faster over the short 10-day fermentation period. Then they pump the wine back in through the top of the tank to mix everything thoroughly. During fermentation, they not only monitor temperature, but also the sugar level. As the juice becomes wine, the sugar level drops, and the alcohol level increases. Except for very sweet wines, fermentation is finished when the sugar's gone and the alcohol content is 11% to 13% for red wine, or 11% to 11 1/2% for white and rosé. The wine is stored for a few months, then it's run through several pressure filters to remove any particles. Then it's time to bottle the wine. Large wineries have fully automated bottling plants. Smaller operations have semi-automated systems like this one. The key in bottling wine is to avoid getting air inside because oxygen turns wine sour. The colored wine bottles protect the wine from light, which can also affect the taste. People have used cork to plug wine bottles since ancient times because it creates a tight seal that keeps the air out. Cork, incidentally, is a type of tree bark. Inside the bottle, the wine continues to undergo subtle organic changes as it ages. Nowadays, you have to be pretty high up in a company to have a solid wood desk. Your desk is more likely made of pressed wood-- an inexpensive alternative made from lumber by-products. Particleboard is a common type of pressed wood. Lumber mill leftovers provide the raw materials for particleboard. The process starts with truckloads of sawdust. The next ingredients are wood shavings and wood chips from all types of lumber. They feed those chips and shavings into a large mill that works like a giant food processor, chopping them up into little bits. When the milling's done, the particles are between . 008 and . 5 inches in size and less than . 03 inches thick. To make the humidity level uniform, they put the particles into giant dryers whose combustion chambers are fueled by leftover dust from the chopping mill. After 15 to 25 minutes, the humidity level drops to 1.5%. From here, they'll send the dried-out particles to a screening machine, which will separate them by size. Pieces too big for particleboard are fed through the mill again. Sawdust will become fuel for the dryers. Larger particles go into the rougher core layer of the particleboard, smaller pieces into the smoother surface layer. Meanwhile, the factory's glue department gets to work mixing resin, water, wax, and chemical hardeners. Machines mix the glue and the particles, then push out a long, continuous mat. A cold compressor forces the air out of the mat. Then a hot press activates the glue and forces it all together. Next, a saw cuts the continuous mat into large sheets called master boards. They're still hot from the hot press, so they're put aside to cool for about a half-hour. Once the master boards are cool, they're sanded. Then a stacking machine piles them about 80 sheets high. A saw cuts them into a smaller, more manageable size to be sent off to a furniture factory. At the furniture factory, the first step is to laminate the particleboard panels with a decorative covering. First, the glue spreader covers the board's surface with glue. Then another machine sticks on a 4- to 5-foot strip of decorative paper fortified with resin, varnish, and other chemicals. This covering comes in many different colors and designs, from solids to imitation granite or wood. A blade cuts the paper between each board. Then a machine stacks the boards to prepare them for cutting. The saw cuts through six to eight boards at a time, depending on their thickness. The next step is to cover the edges of the particleboard. They take a strip made of pvc plastic that matches the laminate. They glue it over the edges, then trim it for a neat finish. Next, they prepare the pieces for assembly. A multiple-head drill makes screw holes in the panels. Meanwhile, they prepare the bag of hardware. There's a separate bin for each screw, nut, bolt, and connector. The machines count out the exact number of hardware each piece of furniture requires. Then the hardware is automatically bagged and weighed to make sure nothing's missing. Every so often, a worker assembles a sample to make sure everything fits together properly. If it does, production continues, and they can proceed to packaging. They put together the particleboards for each piece of furniture, add the hardware bag and instruction booklet, then seal everything in plastic film. From here, it goes into a box to be shipped to the store. Getting your first pair of ice skates is like getting your first bicycle. It's a childhood rite of passage, and one that leads to another well-known ritual-- landing on your backside the first time you try them out. How long have we been ice-skating? An iron skate found in scandinavia dates to 200 a.d., but people likely put blades made of bone under their shoes even earlier than that. Skaters tied on their blades with straps until the advent of the skate boot in the early 1900s. Today, skates are lightweight and high-tech and are designed for specific sports-- figure skating, speed skating, and hockey. It takes 145 steps to make this high-end hockey skate. The skate boot is made of a synthetic material that looks and feels like leather. Once they've cut the pieces that will make up the boot, they shave the edges, thinning them out so the boot won't be bulky, particularly where there's overlap at the seams. They position a reinforcement piece onto what's called the quarter-- the main structural piece that will form the sides and back of the skate boot. They glue it on with a hot press. The boot pieces now go to the sewing department. They stitch together the tongue piece, then, using a sturdy zigzag stitch, they attach the quarter and the heel piece. They spray glue on the quarter... And on the ankle support... Then stick on a foam ankle pad designed to mold to the contours of the skater's ankles. Next comes the lining. They must center it perfectly for the skate to be properly aligned and balanced. The eyelet machine works like a hole punch, punching out eyelets in the quarter. They reinforce each eyelet with an aluminum washer. The last step in the sewing department is called forming. They place the boot over a metal foot form. A hot press laminates the boot to give the back and sides of the quarter their shape. In the assembly department, they put the parts together using a foot form. They tack on a white plastic insole and a black plastic toe cap. They brush on a layer of glue... And attach the boot. They sand the bottom of the boot to roughen up the surface for better adhesion. An automated machine applies a layer of glue along the contours of the boot's underside. The boot then goes through a heat machine for a couple of seconds to evaporate the solvent in the glue, making it tackier. As with the lining, they must position the sole perfectly, or they'll throw the skate off-balance. An 8-ton press presses it onto the boot. The sole is made of strong carbon or carbon composite depending on the skate model. Once the glue is dry, they drill two holes through the sole for attaching the skate blade. The blade sits in a plastic holder. They screw it in place through the holes, then secure it with five steel rivets and four more resistant copper rivets. Like the lining in the sole, the blade's alignment is crucial. Roller hockey skates are made almost the same way as ice hockey skates, just instead of a blade, they attach an aluminum chassis with rollers. In the finishing department, they inspect the inside of the skate, checking the blade holes and rivets in particular. They plug the blade holes. Then they lace up the first three sets of eyelets. Finally, they install what's called the footbed-- the high-density foam padding that lies under the foot. Last, but not least, they clean the skate, trimming excess threads and removing any glue residue.