Stainless Steel Football Helmets Resin Figurines Laboratory Glassware
Today on "how it's made," stainless steel... Football helmets... Resin figurines... And laboratory glassware. Stainless steel was invented in the early part of the 20th century. The key ingredient is chrome, which forms a protective oxide film on the surface. Originally called nonrusting steel, it amazed consumers because it didn't need to be polished and today, the concept hasn't lost its luster. Stainless steel is made to look shiny and new even though it starts from scrap. Old stainless steel is recycled to make new, giving trashed sinks, pots, and other refuse a new lease on life. Tons of scrap steel are fed into a roaring furnace along with chrome and nickel alloys for added strength and rust-proofing. Enormous electrodes heat the mix to the melting point, creating a dramatic fireworks display in the process. After several hours, the molten mix goes into a refining furnace. Pipes blast in argon gas and oxygen, converting some impurities to gas and causing others to float to the surface for easy removal. A technician regularly checks the temperature and takes samples to make sure the chemistry is right. A bit more scrap is added to bulk up the mixture as it melts. The scrap also causes a chemical reaction that helps to fuel the refiner. The bubbling steel soup now flows out of the refining furnace. Rollers guide it as it's cast into a long mold. The result is a 75-yard-long ribbon of steel. Torches cut it into shorter chunks called slabs. A worker writes identification information on each one using chalk designed for hot surfaces. Then, the slabs are hoisted over to another station to await further processing. After this break in production, the slabs are reheated to soften them up for more processing. By now, a rusty scale has accumulated on the steel surface. Workers pressure wash it away without cooling the hot metal. The slab shoots back and forth through a machine with rollers. A constant spray cools the rollers as they stretch the steel longer and thinner. It's now over 650 yards long, the length of a couple of city blocks. A spray of water cools the stretched steel a little, but not too much because it needs to be soft and flexible enough for coiling. This spool coils the strip tightly like a roll of toilet paper. Then, the roll is transferred to another station. Here, the steel goes into a hot acid wash that removes the scale that's built up since the last cleaning. Burners in this machine also heat the steel, then slowly cool it. This relieves stress in the metal, softening it for further processing. The steel is now unwound into a machine that rolls it to the customer's specified thickness. Rolling the metal when it's cold also hardens it and closes its surface pores, making it shine. After one last cleaning, the stainless steel strips are gleaming and the chrome in the steel combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form that rust-preventing oxide film. Finally, rotating knives trim the edges and slit the steel to various widths, again, to meet customer's specifications. This job is now done, and it's a brilliant finish indeed. Up next, meet the starting lineup at a football helmet factory. Football helmets cushion the cranium, helping players score touchdowns without sustaining head injuries. Helmets have been part of the sport for over a century. First made of leather, then padded plastic, they keep the end zone from becoming a danger zone. In a game of tackles and tumbles, a helmet is essential equipment. To make one, plastic pellets are suctioned into a machine that melts and molds them into a dome shape. This fist-like device shapes the inside of the shell, which hardens in just a matter of seconds. A robot then collects it and transfers it to a conveyor. It's quite a lineup. The shells move into position for a trimming, and the extra plastic from the molding is clipped off. Next, a robot drills up to nine holes in the shell. The holes will be used to attach a liner, face guard, and various pieces of hardware. This robot works far more quickly than a human can, performing all the drilling in just 30 seconds. This is the ultimate in computerized precision. A worker collects the drilled shell and moves a new one into position for the robot. The outside of the helmet shell is roughed up with an orbital sander. This preps it for priming and painting. This factory uses a high-grade brand of automotive paint, and it takes three coats to make sure this paint job is rugged enough to survive a go on the gridiron. The helmets cure in the open air for up to 18 hours. During this time, a chemical reaction hardens the paint to a glossy finish. Not every helmet is painted. Some teams prefer tinted plastic. It all depends on the look the team is going for. Labels are attached, including safety information, trademark logos and the date of production. This padding is made of vinyl and foam. Workers snap it in place in the crown of the helmet. The padding for the side and back is made of the same material. The back is reinforced with a plastic bumper. A helmet from each production run undergoes an impact test. It's fitted on a head-shaped form equipped with sensors which are carefully calibrated. The technician presses a button and the helmeted head falls. This mimics the effect of a player's head hitting the ground during a tackle. The computer then measures the force of the impact on the head. Once the production run gets the okay, the face guard is attached. It's made of plastic-coated steel and has been custom produced at a different factory. There are dozens of face guard styles for the player to choose from. This helmet is now looking pretty fierce. But it's not ready for action yet. It needs a chin strap and cup. This machine uses heat to transfer a foil logo onto the polyester chin straps. It also cuts them to the correct length. Once a chin cup has been sewn to the strap, the assembly is loosely fastened to the helmet. Later, it will be precisely fitted to the player's head. This helmet is now almost ready for kickoff. There's a final inspection and then they wrap it up, complete with the manual and fitting instructions. It's taken less than a day to manufacture a football helmet that can withstand thousands of blows. Because in the game of football, protection against head injury is a victory in itself. When we return, bringing resin figurines to life. Figurines are made of many materials, from porcelain to plaster to resin-- not the kind that comes from trees, but a synthetic resin, a kind of plastic. It's affordable, lightweight, and easy to use, making it the material of choice for many artists and craftsmen. Each figurine in this collection is cast from a mold of the original sculpture, then hand painted. This character is a 19th-century federal marshal. Working from period photographs of her subject, the artist makes a sketch she'll use as a model. She needs plastic-based clay so it's easier to sculpt. She works on the facial features, constantly referring to the photographs. She usually starts with the figure's head and then adds it to the body. She works from more photographs to create his rifle. It's a delicate piece, so she sculpts it separately before setting it onto the figure. Bearing the artist's signature, it's now ready for casting. First, the sculpture bakes for 30 minutes at 275 degrees to harden. Then, workers cover it with a thin layer of releasing agent so it won't stick to the production mold they're about to make. They place a wall around the piece, tightly seal the base to prevent leaks, then pour in the silicone rubber mix. In two days, the rubber hardens enough to hold the shape of the sculpture, but is still flexible enough that workers can remove the original artwork without damage. After removing the retaining wall, suction is used to gently pull the piece from the mold which retains the sculpture's shape down to every last detail. Now, figurine production can begin. Workers fill the mold with a mixture of resin and flour made from ground pecan shells. This colors the resin and makes it stronger. The mixture sets in less than an hour and out comes the first of many figurines, an exact replica of the original artwork. The base is sanded to level it. Then, it's stamped with the figurine's name, i.d. number, and copyright information. Resin is an ideal material for casting because it captures all the details of the original artwork. It creates lightweight, durable reproductions that can be finished in a variety of ways. Here the first artist coats the figurine's broad areas with acrylic paint. Working color by color, she uses various brushes depending on the area she's painting. She finishes up with the smaller details. Then, she passes the figurine on to the next artist. This second artist fills in the facial features and other fine details. She starts with the whites of the eyes, then views the figurines from all angles to make sure she hasn't overlooked any tiny details. Her fine brushwork on the facial features is what truly bring this figurine to life. Bass reeves, u.s. marshal, is just one figurine in this series that proudly honors the contribution of african-americans in shaping the history of the united states. Once marshal reeves passes inspection, workers wrap him up in protective bubble plastic. Each piece in the series comes with a certificate of authenticity bearing the artist's signature as well as the name and life story of the person the figurine portrays. Collecting this set of resin figurines isn't just for the knickknack lover. This is indeed affordable art for the history buff, small-scale figures that pay a large-scale tribute to african-americans pioneers. Coming up, behind the scenes of a real test-tube birth. Their size, shape and function run the gamut, ranging from beakers and test tubes to petri dishes and vials. Mixing, measuring, storing, or sampling is all in a day's work for a piece of laboratory glassware, built to withstand even the most potent of chemical concoctions. Many scientific breakthroughs are born inside laboratory glassware, the containers scientists use to hold samples for chemical experiments. The glassware starts off as thin glass tubing stacked by size, weight, length, and diameter. Workers select the correct size for the culture tubes they're about to make and place them in a magazine. As it spins, it drops a tube into each slot on a cutting bed. Then comes the flame. When the heated tubing contacts the wet steel blade, the thermal shock results in a clean separation of the glass. The tubes get a second thermal shock treatment which cuts them to length. Then it's on to the glazing bed. A glazing burner shoots out 1,200-degree flames. The heat melts each tube at one end, forming a lip called the glass bead. Just two seconds of heat splits the tubes in half and forces the glass bottom of each tube to close in on itself. The finishing fire smooths out the closure. Then, a small amount of air is shot into the open end of the tube to form its round bottom. Now, the tubes head into an annealing oven side by side. They bake for about 15 minutes at 1,200 degrees. This strengthens the glass so it will better resist cracking. The heat also sterilizes the tubes. Once the tubes cool, workers collect and pack them. Here they're making pipettes, long tubes that labs use to transfer fluids. A flame heats the glass to form an indentation which determines the flow rate through the pipette. A wider flame then heats the glass, making it soft and malleable. Large rollers tug at the sides, drawing the soft glass to form the pipette's tip. Now, for the other end of the pipette. Thermal shock is used to cut it to length and again, a glazing burner forms a glass bead along the rim. A cutting wheel slices through the tip end, creating two tubes of identical length. This production line makes vials. These gizmos, called top turrets, feed large glass tubes into a machine. First, a punch-out burner heats the end of the tube to create an opening. Then, a steel pin widens the hole on the upper part of the vial. A forming dye squeezes the heated glass to sculpt the shoulder while a steel plug rises from the bottom to open the vial even wider. Then, a second forming dye shapes the neck. Next, a parting burner splits the vial into two. A bottom turret plucks the newly created half and draws out the soft glass to lengthen it. Fingers inside the turret prevent the glass from breaking. All that's left now is shaping the bottom of the vial. A burner forms a concave base in less than a second. The vials now slide down to what's called an after-former machine. Here, suction cups lift and place each vial into metal grooves on a printer bed. It's a basic silk-screening process with a squeegee pushing paint through the screen's holes onto the vial. Grippers place the vials on a rack headed for the oven where they'll bake for about 20 minutes. Finally, a robotic arm whisks the finished vials to packaging. From there, it's off to a blood bank, a hospital, or chemistry class.