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Today on "how it's made"... Chains... Bagels... And vinyl records. Chains are as indispensable today as they were thousands of years ago. Ancient historians refer to the use of metal chains for jewelry, shackles, and construction. Today, chains are used for those very same purposes and many more. Chains are used to tie things down, hold things together, and pull things along, and their many sizes reflect the varied uses. To make a chain, a turning drum uncoils this wire rod and pulls it through a steel guide ring to a steel draw box. Grease inside the box lubricates the wire. On its way out of the box, the wire goes through a die, such as the one being demonstrated here. The die has a smaller diameter than the wire, and as the turning drum pulls it through, the wire narrows, hardens, and becomes stronger. Now electrically driven tools move in from all sides. This is a forming machine. A tool called a jaw propels the wire forward, while another jaw pushes on the wire, bending it around a steel pin. It forms a "c" shape. Another forming tool closes the "c," completing one link in the chain, and then another jaw makes the next link. This machine is making jack chain, which is usually used to hang lights. Another forming machine makes a chain that can haul a heavier load. A grip pulls the wire onto rollers that straighten it out. Steel cutters now make notches on both sides of the wire. These notches mark the place where the wire is to be sliced into link-sized pieces. A mechanized knife makes the final cut at the notches. Next, roller arms loop a cut piece of wire around a steel finger. The roller arms make it look easy, but they're actually exerting tons of pressure in order to shape this wire. After the rollers form the link, a pliers-like tool grabs it and turns it around. This positions the completed link so that it can connect with the next link as it's shaped. As each link is added, the chain drops into a pile below the machine. There are dozens of forming machines in most chain factories. Each machine makes 50 to 60 links per minute. That's about 250 feet of chain per machine hour. To put that into perspective, one machine could make a chain as long as the empire state building is high in just under six hours. After the chain is formed, it will need to be strengthened. So it's on to the welding machine. Hammers to the left and right push the link in, then two copper blocks move in from the sides. They act as electrodes and zap both sides of the link with an electrical current. The current ripples through the gap in the link, while the hammers push it in. The link reaches a scorching 1,700 degrees fahrenheit. The wire melts and the link fuses together. Now a pulley system drops the freshly welded chain into a heat-treating coil. An electrical current runs through the copper coil, heating the chain inside until it's orange-hot-- 1,724 degrees fahrenheit. The pulleys lower the chain into a tub of water to cool. The extreme temperature change alters the molecular structure of the steel, making it much harder. But the experience leaves the chain a bit brittle. So it goes into a second heat coil that's not as hot as the first one and then into another cool bath. This takes away the brittleness and gives the steel a bit of stretch. Now the ultimate strength test-- this is the chain calibrator. Pulleys run the chain into a groove that's been cut into a block of steel. A clamp on the left holds it in place, while the hydraulically powered block of steel pulls the chain to the right. Will it break or will it hold? And can it handle the load? After all, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. The first bagels were created in eastern europe during the 1600s. Exactly why is debatable, but one account is that they were a tribute to the king of poland. The king was a military hero and a great horseman, so a baker shaped the dough to resemble a stirrup. The austrian word for "stirrup" sounds like "bagel". You used to get bagels in just two varieties-- sesame seed or poppy seed. Today they come in a rainbow of flavors, from nine-grain to blueberry to cinnamon-raisin to whole-wheat sesame. Commercial bakeries make them like this. The first step is to blend all the ingredients in a huge mixer. These include molasses, salt, yeast, flour, sugar, malt flour, ascorbic acid, and enzymes. If needed, workers also add the special flavorings. Raisins or blueberries go in when the mixing's nearly done to avoid pulverizing them. One batch of dough weighs 750 pounds and makes about 3,200 bagels. They slowly add about 26 gallons of water as the ingredients blend for 10 minutes. They monitor the water and air temperatures so that the dough reaches 78 degrees fahrenheit. That's when yeast activates, enabling the dough to rise later on. Worker uses a thermometer to take the dough's temperature. Too warm, the dough will rise too quickly. Too cold and the dough won't rise enough. Here, workers cut large chunks of dough for raisin bagels into smaller blocks. They'll put these blocks into a machine called a divider. The machine squeezes the dough through small openings to create doughballs that weigh 3.7 ounces, which will each become one bagel. The divider also distributes the balls into four single files as they emerge from the machine and move along plastic conveyor belts. They're plastic so workers can clean them easily and often. Next, a machine called a bagel former flattens the balls into strips. This way, the strips can be curved into rings. The curved conveyor belt guides the dough through a tight circular opening with a stainless-steel rod at its center. The rod forces the two ends of the strip to join in a circle. This process happens in less than two seconds, before the dough has a chance to dry out. It's the moisture in the dough that enables the ends of the strips to stick together. The bagel rings emerge from the bagel former onto another conveyor. Workers then visually inspect the rings to ensure they came out right. After placing the bagels onto ungreased trays, workers put them in a large room called a proofer for 90 minutes to rise. The proofer is kept at 109 degrees fahrenheit with 80% humidity. Next a worker places the trays onto a metal conveyor belt. This conveyor moves the bagels into a huge steam oven about the size of a school bus. Steam makes the bagels chewy and shiny. To ensure the dough develops properly, they maintain air temperature in the bakery at a constant 68 degrees fahrenheit. And there's no air-conditioning to ensure the right humidity level. After baking for exactly 13 minutes at precisely 450 degrees fahrenheit, the bagels come out of the steam oven. They lost moisture during the baking process, so they now weigh around a half-ounce less than before. To cool down, the bagels move along a winding conveyor belt that snakes through 6 floors of this 1.5-square-mile bakery. Bagel-making ranges from large commercial operations like this one to small neighborhood bakeries that still make them the old-fashioned way-- rolling and shaping the dough by hand and baking them in a brick oven. During the 50-minute journey, their temperatures drop to about 98 degrees fahrenheit, cool enough to package in plastic bags later on. Here, a worker inspects the bagels for shape, color, height, and shine. To help the consumer, a machine preslices the bagels almost in half. It leaves a portion uncut so the bagel sections stick together and stay fresh. Next, workers separate the bagels into groups of six, placing them along another conveyor lined with tiny brushes. These brushes keep the bagels upright as they head off for packaging. A mechanical arm scoops the bagels along, and another blows open the bags and inserts the bagels. This bakery prepares up to 3,000 half-dozen packages an hour for shipping, fast enough to have a fresh bagel land on your breakfast plate as soon as 12 hours later. Vinyl records have an ever-increasing following among audiophiles, collectors, and deejays. Some say they sound better than digital cds and mp3s. To cater to this market, some record companies are releasing more music on vinyl, a manufacturing process that's interesting and fun to watch. The first step is to cut a master record. This flat disk is made of aluminum, and it will be the core of the master. The surface has a gritty texture early on, but they sand it down and polish it smooth. They place the aluminum disks on a conveyor belt, and they ride towards a device that will coat them with a veneer of lacquer. The disk enters the curtain coater. Nitrocellulose lacquer-- a similar substance to nail polish-- oozes out of a long, thin opening, forming a veil, or curtain. As the disk passes through the curtain, it's slathered with the lacquer. Rollers with scrapers catch the runoff. The excess lacquer they collect is reused. The lacquer starts to dry immediately. The solvents evaporate, and the veneer hardens into a nail-polish-like finish. But like any manicure job, there are often flaws. At this inspection station, workers scrutinize each lacquered disk for pits, bumps, or dirt. Even a minor imperfection won't be tolerated, so the rejection rate is high--  about 50%. They recycle the rejects. They rim the good masters with plastic edging. It will stop the disks from rubbing together during stacking and damaging the finish. Next, a worker holds the disk under a hydraulic puncher that cuts a hole in the center. Then, handling it carefully so he doesn't disturb the finish, he places it on a spindle. A robotic arm slides a plastic ring down the spindle, depositing it around the center hole of the disk. Like the plastic edging, the ring will also space the disks apart. Now the master disks are ready to take a trip to the studio. The lacquer disk is about to be cut. The engineer places it on the recording machine called a lathe. He peels the protective ribbing away from the rim. He places a vacuum line at the center, which suctions to the underside of the disk and holds it in place. The engineer now moves the cutter and a microscope above the disk. He lowers the cutter onto the outer edge of the disk and it does a test cut. He positions a microscope just above the test groove and then peers into it to get a good look at the cut. He makes adjustments to the cut, and then he's ready to record. The lathe cuts the lead-in groove and the music begins. The sapphire-tipped cutter etches the sound into the surface of the disk. From start to finish, the recording will be one continuous groove in the record. A computer monitors the cutting and adjusts the spacing between the grooves where needed. A little vacuum draws up scrap, as the cutter carves the groove. Some believe this sound is warmer and has more depth than digital recordings. But making music fit on an analog disk is sometimes challenging. To reproduce bass, the cutter has to make big, wide grooves that take up a lot of space. And although the grooves can touch, they can't cut across one another. At the end of the recording, the cutter lifts and the master disk is ready for inspection. If it's acceptable, the engineer places a sliding platform on it and scribes a unique serial number into the lacquer. Soon, this master disk will be used to make more records. The master disk has just been cut, but the lacquer surface is far too delicate to play. It's been produced solely to act as a mold. It will literally be pressed into service to make tougher versions of the recorded grooves. And this will enable the manufacturers to make many copies from just one. In the next step, they wash the lacquer disk with soap and water. They spray it with tin chloride and liquid silver. The tin chloride is a sensitizer that helps the silver stick to the lacquer. They wash away little bits of silver that don't stick. In seconds, one side of the lacquer has become a stunning silver disk with the grooves intact. But next, they'll add a duller metal to the silvered side in order to really stiffen the disk. They fasten it to a spindle on the underside of a tank lid. The disk spins, and they rinse it one more time. The water in the tank below is green because these nickel nuggets are dissolving into it. They lower the lid and the spinning disk is immersed in the solution. An electric charge fuses the nickel to the silver... And the nickel settles neatly into the grooves. Now they remove it from the tank and pry the metal layer away from the original lacquer disk. This metal layer is a stamper that will be used to press vinyl records. And the lacquer disk, which has served as its mold, is discarded. Now they look for the exact center of the stamper. A worker places it under the microscope, which is part of an optical centering punch. As the stamper disk spins, he aligns the grooves with a guide in the viewfinder. When he finds the center, he punches a hole there. Next, they clamp the stamper disk into a trimming machine. The disk turns and a cutting wheel trims the edge, cutting the stamper disk to a diameter of 12 1/2 inches. Now the stampers are ready to make their mark. But first the labels must be prepared. A punch bores into the center of a stack of them, making holes. Then they place the labels on a mini-press. It rises to another cutter, which rounds them out. They pour black polyvinyl chloride pellets into a hopper. The pellets fall into an extruder, which turns them into hot rubbery paddies called biscuits. Hoists above and below push labels to each side of the biscuit. Suction cups hold them there while a carriage moves the biscuit forward then drops the biscuit and labels in the press. Two stampers mounted in the press apply 100 tons of pressure. The stampers are a searing 380 degrees fahrenheit. They melt and mold the biscuit into a record. A quick cooling cycle hardens it and bonds the labels to the vinyl. A carriage then transports it to a trimming table. The table spins the record against a knife as it cuts away the ragged edges. Then, the table takes the trimmed record to the finished stack. And the process begins again. This is really a well-choreographed musical production. As one record is lifted out of the press, the next one goes in. The pressing and trimming of a vinyl record takes just 28 seconds. But it's sure to get hours of play by enthusiasts who refuse to buy into the digital revolution and still believe that vinyl is a cut above.