Gummies Aluminum Cans Fish Farming Bronze Sculptures
Today on "how it's made," gummies, aluminum cans, fish farming, and bronze sculptures. There's nothing kids love more than candies they can pull and stretch, which probably explains why gummy candies and licorice have always been stick-to-your-teeth favorites, except with parents who don't have a family dental plan. Everyone calls this red licorice, but there's actually no licorice root in it. The ingredients are wheat, sugar, and corn syrup, with red food dye and both artificial and natural strawberry flavoring. They cook the mixture for 2 hours at 216 degrees. This slowly forms a thick paste. They cool it down, then put it through extruders. The extruders work like icing nozzles, shaping the paste into a design such as the twirls we see here. A water-lubricated knife slices the continuous strips into 7- and 8-inch lengths. The water also rinses off any licorice buildup on the blade. The cut licorice goes on aluminum trays. The stacks of trays then go into an oven to dry for 8 hours at 140 degrees. As the excess moisture evaporates, the licorice shrivels. Workers weigh the correct amount of licorice for each package. To make gummy candies, they use what are called printing boards-- large sheets with raised shapes. To make gummy worms, for example, they mount the gummy-worm board on a stamping machine. The machine then stamps the worm shapes onto trays of cornstarch. This creates a series of cornstarch molds for the gummy worms. While that's going on, another machine mixes gelatin, sugar, corn syrup, color, and flavoring and cooks the mixture at 240 degrees. A machine called the depositor pours the mixture into the cornstarch worm molds. The molds then go into a refrigerated room. In 12 to 15 hours, the candies cool and solidify. A machine then flips the candies out of the trays. The cornstarch molds disintegrate. As they fall downward, the machine sifts out the lumps, then recycles the used cornstarch into new cornstarch trays for the next batch. The candies go through a cleaner. As they spin, air nozzles blast off the cornstarch. The next drum coats the candies with mineral oil to make them shiny. Children love gummy worms because they're gooey and slippery and wiggly, but it's not just kids who are hooked on them. Many fishermen actually use them for bait. Before packaging the candies, the workers weed out any that are stretched out or stuck together. Wonder if they get to eat the rejects? A prion is what causes killer neurological diseases such as mad cow in animals and creutzfeldt-jakob in humans. It's a protein normally found in the membranes of cells. Scientists are trying to determine what changes that protein to an abnormal form to cause these fatal brain diseases. The next time you buy a canned soft drink, consider this-- that aluminum can will always be recyclable. Unlike plastic, aluminum never deteriorates, no matter how often it's melted down and used again. Aluminum cans are so lightweight that it's hard to believe they're made from a huge roll of aluminum sheeting that weighs almost 10 tons. The sheet is about 5 feet wide and as thin as construction paper. A roll like this is long enough to make three-quarters of a million drink cans. The sheet feeds into a press that punches out round pieces that will be formed into cans. The punch press actually performs two operations. It punches out a disc 5 1/2 inches in diameter, then bends it into a cup. What's left of the sheet gets compacted and sent back to the aluminum factory, where it's recycled into new rolls. The cup goes into a machine called the draw-and-iron body maker. A tool draws out the aluminum, forming the body of the can. The tool is lubricated so it won't tear the aluminum while stretching it. The lubricant also acts as a coolant because the aluminum heats up as it's being worked. Once the body is formed, a trimmer cleans and straightens the edge. Now the cans move along upside down on the conveyer belt over to the washer. The washer performs a 6-stage cleaning. The first two washes are in hydrofluoric acid at 140 degrees. The last four washes are in deionized water, neutral water with no ph, also at 140 degrees. The cans come out of the washer and go under a hot-air dryer. They're now shiny because the hydrofluoric-acid wash removed a thin surface layer of aluminum. Next, a roller passes over the cans, coating the bottom rims with varnish. This varnish coating allows the cans to slide easily on the conveyer belts and into vending machines. It shows up as a blue ring under an ultraviolet light. The cans are now ready to be printed. This rotation printing system can apply up to five colors, one at a time. The machine then applies a layer of varnish to protect the ink. This is what the print and varnish process looks like in slow motion, and here's the actual speed--  1,800 cans per minute. Next, the cans fly through an oven that instantly hardens the ink and dries the protective varnish. The next machine sprays a water-based varnish on the inside of the cans. This creates a barrier between the drink and the aluminum, so the drink won't end up tasting like metal. It also prevents the aluminum from being eaten away from the inside by the acid in carbonated drinks. Next, the cans go through a machine called the necker which forms a 2-inch neck on the can. This is done gradually in 11 steps, so as not to puncture the paper-thin aluminum. The next machine, called the flanger, forms a curved-over edge at the top of the can, which will later attach to the pull-tab cover. The cans pass through a sophisticated vision system that photographs the inside of each can. Any can that doesn't meet standards, that has a bump or ink inside, for example, is automatically removed from the production line. They strap the finished cans onto a pallet. From here, they're shipped to the drink company, which fills them and then attaches the pull-tab cover. Fish farming generates about 20% of the world's fish production. Some fish farms are very high tech, while others use more traditional methods. Fish farming began in 2000 b.c. if these rainbow trout are going to have the energy to make baby trout, they'll have to be well fed. On today's menu-- brown shrimp. The fish farmer gives the mating process a hand. He takes the female fish and presses on her belly to squeeze out her eggs. A 1-pound fish has about 1,000 eggs. It takes about a minute to get them out. Next, he takes the male fish and squeezes out his sperm. This also takes about a minute. The fertilization process is pretty low tech-- no microscopes, no test tubes. The farmer mixes the eggs and sperm by hand. He then rinses the eggs with clean water. He repeats this step seven or eight times until the water runs clear. The eggs that stay at the surface are duds, so they're discarded. The farmer transfers the good eggs to bottles, then fills the bottles to the top with water. The eggs incubate for about a month. By the 25-day mark, if an egg is alive, two little black dots appear--  fish eyes. After the incubation period, the farmer empties the bottles and spreads the eggs on a surface with slats. The eggs lie here underwater... Until they hatch 10 to 15 days later. The newly hatched trout swim down through the slats into the basin below. The baby trout feed off their placenta for the first 18 days. After that, they eat special trout food made of fish meal. The trout grow to about 8 inches long by the age of 8 months. At that point, the smaller trout swimming around them start looking pretty appetizing. So the farmer has to classify the fish by size and move them into separate basins. Trout reach adulthood at the age of a year and a half. Now the farmer transfers them into his man-made lake. From here, the fish will go to market. But before they leave, the farmer mates them, starting the cycle all over again. Bronze is the oldest metal alloy known to man. It is ideal for casting works of art because, when molten, it flows into even the tiniest crevices of a mold. This allows sculptors to achieve incredible detail in their work. Man first discovered how to cast metal around 3500 b.c., during the period known as the bronze age. Many civilizations honored their royalty and gods with bronze statues. When it comes to art, the late 19th-century french sculptor auguste rodin was the master. They say his bronzes were more lifelike than the subjects themselves. Bronze is also a popular medium for modern art. Sculptors first carve a replica of their sculpture from wood or shape it out of a plaster or clay. They coat it with a lubricant... Then with silicone rubber. When the rubber hardens about six hours later, the lubricated replica slips out easily, leaving a detailed rubber mold. Next, they pour hot wax into the mold. The wax cools in about 15 minutes, leaving an exact wax replica of the sculpture. Next, they attach what's called a sprew-- a wax channel that will funnel the molten bronze into the mold. They dip the wax replica into a ceramic material. Then coat it with powdered silicone, a common mineral, to strengthen the ceramic. Next stop-- an autoclave. In about 10 minutes, under the machine's hot steam pressure, the wax inside the ceramic shell melts away, leaving a hardened and hollow ceramic mold. That mold goes into a kiln at 1,560 degrees. After two hours, it's fired. This is the finished mold into which the bronze will be cast. At the foundry, they heat the bronze to 2,084 degrees... Then carefully pour it into the mold. The molten metal takes just a few minutes to solidify. Then they chisel off the ceramic casing to reveal the bronze statue inside. They sandblast the statue to remove the ceramic residue. Then, they saw off the sprew. They weld shut any holes or other imperfections... Then polish the statue using various abrasive heads. They heat the statue, then spray on an acid coating. This coating, called patina, gives the bronze its shimmer and richness of color. Finally, a coat of wax makes the statue shine.