Macarons Pine Needle Baskets Micrometers
Today on "how it's made," macarons... Pine-needle baskets... And micrometers. Meringue cookies with a flavored filling, macarons were first produced in the eighth century in venetian monasteries. In 1533, the recipe came to france with the pastry chefs brought by the italian noblewoman who arrived to marry the king. Macarons have been considered french ever since. Macarons are as much a treat for the eyes as for the mouth, with colorful meringue shells sandwiching a flavorful filling. To prepare what's known as italian meringue for the shells, the bakers combine sugar and water. They heat the mixture to precisely 222 degrees fahrenheit, slightly above the boiling point. In a mixing bowl, the bakers combine egg whites with dehydrated egg whites. Using a combination of liquid and dried egg whites reduces the amount of moisture in the meringue mixture. When there's less moisture, it's easier to control the baking. Workers mix the egg whites for about 8 to 10 minutes to make an emulsion, then add the boiling water and sugar. The combination mixes until the temperature drops to 104 degrees fahrenheit. No thermometer is necessary. Bakers can tell by the stiff texture of what is now meringue. The next step is to flavor and color the meringue. Workers weigh very precise quantities of almond powder... Then icing sugar. They transfer these ingredients to the mixer... And blend them thoroughly. The baker adds the blended almond powder and icing sugar to a mixture of egg whites and, in this case, red food coloring because these will be raspberry macarons. They resume mixing for another two or three minutes until everything is thoroughly blended. Then the baker adds this mixture to the meringue to color and flavor it. Five more minutes of blending, and the meringue is ready. It's time to form the meringue shells. A worker pours the meringue into the feed vat of the depositer. The depositer dispenses 5-gram disks of meringue, 60 disks per lined baking sheet. Using a micrometer, a worker measures each disk to make sure it's between 1.69 and 1.77 inches in diameter. Meringue expands with baking, so this ensures each disk will bake into a shell that's the correct size. Then, fans blow air to dry out the tops. Evaporating the moisture prevents the top of the disks from rising as they bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes at 249 degrees fahrenheit. When they come out of the oven, the baked shells are set out to cool. Meanwhile, the bakers prepare the filling, mixing chocolate with piping-hot 35% cream. As the chocolate melts, they blend the ingredients thoroughly. Then the baker refrigerates the filling for 12 hours at 48 degrees fahrenheit. When the filling comes out of the fridge, it's firm but malleable enough to be scooped up and put in a pastry bag. With filling and shells now ready, the baker can begin assembling the macarons. They squeeze about 5 grams of filling onto each shell... Then place another shell on top, pressing gently to spread the filling outward. The macarons fit perfectly into the slots of plastic retail trays, thanks to the careful measuring of the meringue disks prior to baking. The trays pass through a machine which seals them in a pocket of plastic film to keep out moisture. Then, each tray is packaged in a retail box. This colorful selection features five flavors of macarons-- raspberry, blueberry, lemon, cherry, and exotic fruits. When indigenous north americans needed containers, they looked no further than the pine needles that littered the forest floor. They wove the needles into sturdy baskets for their daily use. The making of these coniferous containers continues today, ensuring that it doesn't become a lost art. Pine-needle baskets are beautiful examples of resourcefulness. They prove that something substantial can be made from needles that would otherwise just end up on the ground and be trampled on. The norway red pine in the northern united states sheds needles in the fall. Just before they drop, they can be easily plucked from the branches. This forager also collects needles that have fallen to the ground. He tosses some pinecones into the bag too. Back in the studio, a craftsperson immerses the needles in boiling water and simmers them for five minutes. This softens the needles so that they're flexible enough to work with. She selects a pinecone and boils it for 15 or 20 minutes. This causes the scales to close up, and the cone shrinks. Here are the pinecones before and after boiling. The shrunken cone will serve as a handle for a basket lid. After winding waxed linen thread around the cone's base, the craftsperson loops thread around the strands to hold them firmly together. She now coils a bundle of pine needles around the cone and sews them to it. She sets the cone aside for now. Next, for an effect that is simply decorative, the craftsperson coils pine needles around a colorful piece of stone that's been sealed in acrylic. Holes around the edge of the acrylic envelope make it easier to stitch the pine-needle coil to the decorative center. The craftsperson gives each stitch a gentle tug to pull the coils snuggly so that it encompasses the acrylic edge. This decorative center is now ready to be used as a starting point for a basket or a lid. Using another technique, she crafts a basket center using only softened pine needles and thread. This will be a bit trickier. Using pliers, she pulls off the sheaths that hold the groupings of needles together. Without the sheaths in the way, it will be easier to work with the needles. The craftsperson now takes a bundle that's almost the thickness of a pencil and forms a small loop. She ties a knot at the cross point. She stitches the bundle all the way around, creating a spiral with a threaded pattern that radiates outward, like spokes on a wheel. The craftsperson continually tucks more pine needles into the tail of the spiral to make it thicker and more even. She then weaves a basket base from the center spiral outward. She stitches each coil of pine needles to the one before it. And she aligns the stitching to create a decorative pattern that adds to the appeal of the basket. The craftsperson now tucks in pine needles with the black sheaths still on, to add even more visual interest. She artfully arranges them around the basket base and stitches them to it. From start to finish, it takes about 12 hours to craft the entire basket. After completing the lid with the decorative stone, the craftsperson tests the fit. For an alternative embellishment, she weaves red dogwood twigs into a pine-needle basket. It's another way to be creative with the materials that nature offers up in abundance. Each one of these pine-needle baskets is an original, handcrafted by an artisan. And that makes them worth holding on to. A micrometer is a handheld precision-measuring tool typically used in manufacturing. A toolmaker producing parts for factory equipment or a machinist making parts for a product would use a micrometer to take precision measurements to make sure the part dimensions confirm to engineering specifications. Micrometers come in different types and ranges of measurement. This model is designed to measure the outside diameter of an object. The graduations are in imperial units up to 1 inch. The micrometer's frame starts out as a forged-steel part that needs to be machined to the final shape. Workers secure the part on a mechanical milling machine. The machine first squares the ends... Then slices the part down the middle, dividing it into frames for two micrometers. A computer-guided mill profiles the frame. This is the forged frame before this step and after. Another computer-guided mill reduces the inside and outside diameters of the frame's hollow stem. Workers insert a nut in the stem, then dip a piece of solder into a soldering chemical called flux and insert it through a hole in the stem. They hold the stem inside a soldering coil. The heat instantly melts the solder, fusing the nut to the stem. Workers remove excess solder with a wire brush. Then, they grind the stem to finalize the diameter. Here's what the stem looks like before this last grinding and after. Next, on the opposite end of the frame, they mill a notch. This is for the lock nut that locks the micrometer against the object while you read the measurement. Workers now sandblast the entire frame. This removes all traces of metal dust and machining lubricant, leaving the surface pristine, a requirement for the next step-- electroplating the frame with chrome. They complete the micrometer's frame by laser-marking the brand name and a reference chart of measurements in fractions of an inch and the decimal equivalents. This machine shapes a long steel rod into the micrometer's inside shell, which, in conjunction with the outside shell, displays the measurement reading. The machine first drills through the rod to form a hollow cylinder. Next, it reams the inside and grinds the outside to the required diameter. The same machine also shapes a steel rod into the micrometer's outside shell. It carves a diamond pattern onto it called a knurl. This textures the surface, making it easier to grip. Then the machines reams the inside to the required diameter. After sandblasting both shells, workers hang them on a rack, then dip the rack into a tank of chromic acid. Copper prongs on the rack deliver a positive electrical current to the shells while the chromic acid is charged with a negative current. This magnetically draws a chrome layer onto the surface of the shells. Then a computer-guided laser marks the brand name and the graduations on the inside and outside shells. This computer-guided mill shapes a steel rod into the micrometer's key measuring component, the spindle. The machine first profiles the outside. Then it drills a hole 1/2 inch deep and reams it to the correct diameter. It's critical that the spindle not wear down with long-term use, as this would effect the micrometer's measuring accuracy. To prevent this, they harden the steel through a heat-treatment process. First, workers put the spindles in a furnace at a temperature of 1,526 degrees fahrenheit. After an hour, they submerge the spindles in oil, then freeze them overnight to stabilize the steel. The next day, workers temper the steel by putting the spindles back in the furnace for an hour, this time at a lower temperature. Once the spindles cool, a machining tool grinds threads into them. The precision of that threading determines the micrometer's measurement accuracy. To use a micrometer, you place the object you're measuring against the stationary end of the frame called the anvil. Then you rotate the spindle on the opposite end until it's seated against the object. You turn the nut to lock that position and read the measurement. The spindle for this model has 40 threads per inch. So turning it one revolution in either direction moves it 25/1,000 inch. If the steel hadn't been hardened, those threads would wear down over time, causing inaccurate measurements. For the same reason, this disk they now prepare to solder onto the face of the spindle is made of tungsten carbide, the hardest type of steel. After fluxing the face of the spindle, topping it with the disk of solder, and positioning the fluxed carbide disk on top of that, workers place the spindle inside the hot soldering machine to fuse the carbide to the face of the spindle. They grind the diameter of the carbide disk to reduce it to the same diameter as the spindle. After this grinding, the disk becomes integrated with the rest of the spindle. They grind the face of the carbide disk flat. Then this lapping machine polishes the face to perfect the flatness and produces a mirror finish. They perform a quality-control check with an optical parallel made of sapphire. It projects bands of light which detect flatness to a degree the human eye can't perceive. This second test reflects light off the mirror-finish face. When rotating the spindle, the light should stand still. This indicates the face is perfectly perpendicular to the diameter. The micrometer's anvil, the fixed surface opposite the spindle against which you place the object you're measuring, is also machined from carbide. To assemble the micrometer, a worker places a spring in a recessed area of the frame stem, then the inside shell onto the stem. The spring applies enough tension to hold the shell in place. The inside of the stem will have female threads to match male threads on the spindle. This adjusting nut on the end of the stem controls the thread engagement between the two, enabling the spindle to move more tightly or loosely. The next step is cutting those female threads into the inside of the stem. First, a worker reams the stem to the required diameter, then switch the reaming tool on the lathe for a tapping tool. Tapping is the term for cutting threads. They put the stem back on the lathe and tap 40 female threads per inch. Now, workers can assemble the spindle to the stem. They mount the spindle on an automatic lapping machine. Then a worker slides the stem over the spindle, going back and forth multiple times to fit both sets of threads together. They lubricate the threads with instrument oil so they'll glide smoothly against each other. After assembling the lock nut in its notch, the worker cleans the spindle face with alcohol and glues the anvil to it temporarily. Then they rotate the spindle until the anvil reaches its adhesive-coated position at the opposite end of the frame. When the adhesive sets, the worker separates the spindle and anvil. Using an optical parallel, they check the spindle and anvil faces to make sure they're perfectly parallel to each other. The worker completes the assembly by fitting the outside shell to the frame. It covers the end of the spindle that's protruding from the stem. A steel ratchet locks it into position. A final round of quality-control testing ensures the device works smoothly and measures accurately. In this test, they measure four different-sized measuring blocks. In this one, they bring out those optical parallels again to check flatness and parallelism. They also perform a cosmetic inspection and check that the graduations are all legible because, of course, no one wants a micrometer that doesn't measure up.