Chocolate Coins Floor Heating Systems Pedal Cars Latex Swords
This edible money is a symbolic treat. In some parts of the world, chocolate coins are stuffed in christmas stockings to celebrate the charity of saint nicholas. They're also handed out to jewish children during the festival of hanukkah to teach them the value of money and charity. Chocolate coins don't have any purchasing power, but they do buy a lot of appreciative smiles from the kids. They start with giant chocolate bars. Each one is 10 pounds of pure chocolate. The worker transfers the big bars to a kettle. It's a kind of double boiler. Hot water bubbles and steams inside a sleeve shell to heat and melt the chocolate. There are 2 1/2 tons of liquid chocolate in this kettle. The machine now pumps the chocolate through a long pipe with different cooling zones. The chocolate thickens but not to the point of solidification-- a process called tempering. It causes the chocolate to form a precise crystal structure for just the right texture and taste. The thick liquid chocolate flows onto a conveyer that brings the chocolate under a broad blade. The blade levels it to a specific thickness and spreads it evenly, creating a long sheet of chocolate. The chocolate now begins to coagulate and harden. To spur that process, it travels through a refrigeration tunnel that is approximately 15 yards long. This journey transforms the liquid chocolate into a soft solid. Next, they clean and prepare the die. It's a spring-loaded device that works cookie-cutter style to punch out round blanks. There is one big difference. Each cutter is long and tubular, so as it punches out the chocolate blanks, they accumulate inside. The latticework of leftovers journeys forward to be re-melted into the process... So not a crumb of chocolate goes to waste. At the end of the line, dozens of coin blanks have stacked up in each magazine. And piles of leftover chocolate have accumulated in a bin that will now be transferred back to the melting pot. Now it's time to print some chocolate money. To do this, they wrap the chocolate first and then emboss both the wrap and the chocolate blanks simultaneously. Here's how it works. Sheets of glossy gold foil travel between rollers to establish an even tension. Ahead, a forked arm moves two chocolate blanks between the foil sheets. Piston-like knives move in to wrap, cut, and fold the foil around the blanks. The forked arm then delivers the foil-wrapped blanks to a die press. It stamps designs on both sides of the coins, making an impression on the foil through to the chocolate. The chocolate, although solid, is still warm enough to receive the image. Removed from the machine, here's what the die heads look like. These are used to emboss chocolate coins with american penny markings. As for the foil discards, they don't end up on the scrap heap. Instead, they accumulate in a bin to be sent out for recycling. They make 150,000 foil-wrapped coins a day. To change the currency type, they simply switch die heads. Chocolate coins can be made in many sizes with a range of different illustrations. The coins now spill out onto a conveyor that takes them to a bin. All that's left now is the packaging, which will be the traditional mesh bag. From start to finish, it takes less than an hour to make a chocolate coin. Gold dollars or $5 poker chips, every day, it's a jackpot of chocolate money at this factory. So there's never any shortage of edible cash, only decisions to be made-- poker chip or chocolate penny? You could always flip a coin. In-floor heating systems are hardly a new concept. The ancient romans heated the floors of their bathhouses. Today's systems use either electric cables or hot-water pipes installed beneath the floor's surface. As the floor warms up, the heat radiates to people and objects in the room. For electric radiant heating systems, installers affix installation gauges to the subfloor, then wind electrical cables around those gauges. When there are no objects such as bathtubs to work around, installers can roll out a fiberglass mat that has the cable embedded. Once the cables are in place, the installers lay down the floor. Radiant heating systems can be installed under most types of flooring. It's up to 28% more energy efficient than forced-air or baseboard heating. At the core of those electric heating cables are copper or copper-alloy wires called conductors. An unwinding system feeds each spool of conductor to an extrusion machine. Extrusion machines force molten plastic through a die to form a particular shape. They load the raw plastic pellets into a receptacle called a hopper at the top of the machine. The pellets drop down into a heating device that quickly liquefies them. The machine then forces the molten plastic through a round die, forming a plastic jacket around the conductor passing through. This jacket insulates the bare wire. A water bath cools the still-warm plastic to prevent sticking as they wind up the conductor on a spool. The next machine takes two insulated conductors and twists them together into a single strand. This forms a paired conductor. Then the next machine braids 16 spools of triple-strand copper wire around the paired conductor. This copper braid is the ground. The ground will capture any electrical leak should the cable get damaged, preventing electrocution. The cable's internal wiring is complete. Now they run it through an alignment jig that straightens and smooths everything out in preparation for the next extrusion process, which coats the wiring in a final plastic jacket. Then they wind up the cable on a spool to prepare it for packaging... And put one end into a machine that cuts off an inch or so of jacket. After soldering the two conductors to each other so that the electrical current goes out on one and returns on the other, they insulate this connection from the braided ground with transparent heat-shrink plastic. Then they pull the ground over the now-insulated end and cover it with a black heat-shrink plastic. This seals the end of the cable so that water can't seep in and short out the wiring. Another machine produces the cable that brings power from the wall-mounted thermostat to the heating cables under the floor. It's called the cold lead because it leads to the heating cable, yet itself doesn't heat up. This machine cuts the average production run of 8 1/2 miles of cold-lead cable into several cables of standard length, either 2 or 3 yards long depending on the product format. The cold lead is comprised of two conductors and a separate ground wire. Workers connect it to the heating cable by fusing conductor to conductor and ground to ground. They protect this junction with a hard plastic cover called a mechanical joint. This, too, must be sealed to prevent any water infiltration. After all, heating cables are often installed under floors in wet environments such as bathrooms. So, they seal the joint by injecting enough polyurethane to fill every nook and cranny. The polyurethane takes three to four minutes to dry, then another 24 hours to fully harden. This machine assembles the other format-- the roll-out mat with heating cable embedded. First, it winds cable the same way an installer would onto installation gauges. Then it secures it to an adhesive-backed fiberglass mesh. Three strips of adhesive tape above and below reinforce the bond. The mat format is sold by the roll, while the loose cable is packaged in a kit with installation gauges and glue sticks to adhere the gauges to the subfloor. It looks like a car and it drives like a tricycle-- a child-size version of a motorized three-wheeler vehicle, popular in the early 20th century. Instead of gas, pedal power propels this replica forward. Based on actual vehicles, a wave of nostalgia has put pedal cars on the road to a comeback. An old-style pedal car is a snazzy toy with a sleek metal body and real rubber tires. Highly collectible, owning one is a trip down memory lane. Production starts with the pedal car's wood floor. The worker places a metal template of the floor under a sheet of ash plywood and transfers the two to a router table. With a pin in the template below to guide him, he moves the plywood as the router cuts it. This produces a part that's the precise size and shape needed for the pedal-car floor. Using the same system, he cuts a slot for the pedals and another one for the rear wheel. He evens the edges with a hand router, giving the pedal-car floor a finer look and feel. He glues supports for the backrest close to the rear of the floorboard. He props the backrest against the supports and screws it into position. He installs the dashboard framework further towards the front. Next, they varnish the laminated ash dashboard a deep, rich hue, to replicate the look of the one in the original three-wheeler vehicle. And now for the body of the pedal car. A welder tacks together the two parts of the aluminum shell and seals them with special adhesive. They then screw the wooden framework to the aluminum body. After a thorough cleaning, they paint a primer coat onto the metal. Then it's in to the paint booth for a glossy coat of automotive paint. In the meantime, the metal chassis of the pedal car comes together. A worker mounts a dummy twin engine to the front. In this pedal-powered replica, the engine's purpose is purely decorative. The headlights, though, are real. He attaches those to the chassis, complete with the hooded framework distinctive to the original, full-size three-wheeled car from a century ago. He then fits the tires to the chassis. They're cycle tires, child-sized, to fit the scale of this toy-car replica. A quick spin confirms they're operational. He mounts the fenders to the frame just above the tires and secures them with metal brackets. The fenders will guard against splashing mud and water. He now transfers the car body to the three-wheeled chassis. He aligns it with fixing points on the chassis and then screws it into place. Next, he hooks up the exhaust pipe. Like the engine, it's an imitation, but it looks real. He fits an aluminum grille to the front of the pedal car, just behind the mock engine. He installs a small windshield in front of the pedal-car cockpit. And now he pops the dashboard, equipped with a speed dial, into place. It fits into the pedal car's hooped frame perfectly. He wires the battery-operated headlights to the dashboard switch. He attaches the hand brake to the side of the cab and runs the braking cables to the rear wheel. He threads the steering-wheel column down through the dashboard to steering arms on the front wheel axle. He clamps it to the steering arms... And makes some adjustments to precisely position the column to the shaft. He fits the padded leather seat into the cab, and this completes the construction of this pedal-powered replica car. It takes about 40 hours to make one of those retro toys. When it comes to the authentic touches, dave spared no expense and expended great effort. It's time for a spin to the playground and some good old-fashioned fun. Some people enjoy playing combat games on video systems, while others prefer to exchange the controller for a fake weapon, dress up in costume, and act out the fantasy with those who share the same passion. It's called live-action role-playing, and there's typically a medieval or apocalyptic theme to it. These weapons sure look like the real thing-- so much so that this company also sells them as film and theater props. But as menacing as these axes and swords appear, they couldn't even hurt a fly because they're blades are made of latex. In the weapons workshop, they begin the sword-making process by constructing the blade. After tracing a template on a 4/10-of-an-inch-thick piece of flexible waterproof foam, they cut out two blade halves with a utility knife. After slitting one of them down the middle, they glue in a rigid 4/10-of-an-inch fiberglass core. This makes the sword blade stiff enough for combat, yet flexible enough to not break. Next, they glue a strip of durable polyester fabric over the core. This acts as reinforcement, preventing the tip of the core from poking through the foam. Now they glue the second blade half over the first one, sandwiching the core. The glue is a rubber-based adhesive that bonds with pressure that they apply with a heavy marble rolling pin. Next, using a band sander, they sculpt the blade's cutting edges. Then they remove the foam residue with a rotary tool. Next, they take a wood-burning iron and melt the foam in select spots to create the look of battle scars. Then they spray on five to six coats of latex rubber. This forms a protective shield over the foam without hindering the blade's flexibility. Next, using an air brush, they apply two coats of acrylic-based latex paint-- first black, then silver. They brush on a thick coat of black paint, then wipe it off. This wash, as it's called, creates the look of aged metal. And finally, they lightly dab some silver acrylic paint over select spots to highlight details. From foam to main component of a lethal weapon in just a few easy steps. They finish off their handiwork by stenciling on the company logo in gold acrylic paint. Now for the sword's handle. They drill a hole lengthwise through a cylinder made of walnut and glue a steel tube inside. Then they glue leather around the wood... And wrap a leather ribbon around it for decoration. To give it a worn appearance, they lightly sand parts of the surface. To make ornate handles, an artist first sculpts a model out of lindenwood. Using that wooden model, they cast a silicon mold. Then they pour rubber into the mold to cast a handle. For that leather-covered wooden handle, they cast only the components above and below it in rubber. After trimming off the excess rubber, they paint it to look like metal. To assemble the sword, they glue the handle components onto the core, which protrudes from the base of the blade. First, they position the guard. It stops the opposing sword from sliding down past the blade and cutting your hand. Next, the handle. And last, the pommel. It blocks the end of the handle to prevent the sword from sliding out of your hand. Each sword this workshop creates comes with a scabbard, a protective leather sheath. They boil and wax the leather to make it rigid. The workshop also makes daggers and other realistic-looking weaponry-- all you need to bring out your inner warrior.