Pewter Flasks Potato Salad Hydrogen Fuel Cells Engineered Wood Siding
Long before the plastic water bottle, there was the hip flask, carried in a pocket or strapped to the waist or hip. Unlike a water bottle or earlier canteen, the flask was used for carrying a very different type of thirst quencher-- several ounces of hard liquor. In the 18th century, it became quite fashionable for well-to-do europeans to carry elegant flasks crafted from silver or pewter. Today, flasks are typically given as gifts, often engraved with monograms or messages. Pewter is an ideal metal for flask making because it's so malleable. They begin with a sheet of raw pewter that's about 8/100" thick. With a guillotine cutter, they slice a rectangular starting piece called a blank. They lay this blank onto a copperplate, which has the flask decorations on it in raised form. They feed the plate and blank through a rolling press. The compression stamps the design into the malleable pewter. Next, they place the imprinted blank in a hydraulic press outfitted with flask-shaped forming dyes. In a single strike, the press shapes the blank into half a flask. They transfer it to a trim press and clip off the excess pewter around the perimeter. They repeat the entire process to produce the other half of the flask, then solder the two parts together. They shape certain styles manually. A metalsmith heats the blank with a gas torch to make the pewter pliable, then wraps it around a flask-shaped aluminum block. He hammers the adjoining edges flat with a wooden mallet and removes the block. He fuses the edges by running a line of pure tin solder down the entire length of the joint. Meanwhile, on another press, workers stamp out pewter-sheet rectangles. The metalsmith solders one rectangle to the top of the flask... Then cuts it to the right shape with jeweler scissors. Next, he solders on a pewter thread for the cap. Before fusing a pewter rectangle to the bottom of the flask, he stamps it with a maker's mark. Then he dabs the bottom of the flask in flux, a chemical which helps solder run smoothly without globs. Then, just as he did with the top, he solders on the bottom, then contours it. Next, he puts a drill through the cap thread and bores a hole for filling and boring. Then, with an abrasive belt, he grinds all the solder seams flat, making them barely noticeable. Workers now fill the finished flask with water to check for leaks and rinse out the interior. Then they screw a pewter cap onto each thread. Now a buffer takes over. With a cloth wheel and pumice, he removes any surface imperfections, such as marks left by the abrasive belt they used earlier to grind down the solder seams. Once the buffing's complete, the flasks go through a dishwasher cycle to clean off pumice residue, then the finishing touch. A polisher shines up the pewter until it has a reflective-mirror finish. They pour out whatever water's still inside, emptying the flask for its new vocation. Unlike the flasks used to conceal liquor under clothing back in the days of prohibition, these modern-day pewter flasks are meant to be seen and treasured. In many families, a potato-salad recipe is a closely guarded secret passed down through the generations. The family barbecue just wouldn't be the same without it. But when there's no time to whip up a homemade batch, there's always the factory-made kind. The appeal of potato salad knows no boundaries. People around the globe have cooked up various versions of this dish over the years. There are so many different recipes, they could fill an entire cookbook. But no matter how you toss it, potato salad is always pure comfort food. Of course, it's all about the potato. At this factory, they use varieties with low water content so the potato salad doesn't end up soggy. They arrive fresh from the field and funnel out of the truck trailer onto a conveyer for an efficient and gentle unloading. They head up to a washer to clean off the dirt and remove stones and pebbles. The potatoes then bounce across rollers covered with fine grit abrasive. This scrapes off the skins. Once peeled, a worker inspects the white flesh for bruises or other flaws. They then tumble down a chute towards the dicing machine. It's equipped with these cutting cylinders. The blades are positioned vertically on one, while they're in a horizontal configuration on another. As they revolve in sync, they carve the potatoes into cubes. The blades can be adjusted to cut the cubes larger or smaller, depending on the recipe. Here they turn out medium chunks for a creamy, american-style potato salad. Workers roll trays full of potato cubes into a big pressure cooker to steam-cook for 6 to 10 minutes. Pressure cooking preserves the nutrients and original flavor of the potatoes. While the potatoes are cooking, they prepare the crunchy component-- the celery. The celery sticks first go for a sudsy ride to scrub them clean. Along the way, an inspector sorts out leaves and over-ripe pieces. They set cutting cylinders to dice more finely than with the potatoes. Out of the washer and thoroughly rinsed, the celery sticks tumble into the dicer, and it chops them into small bits. The minced celery exits into a vibrating trough and tosses about in a peroxide solution for a second cleaning. It's an extra precaution because the celery won't be cooked, and cooking kills bacteria. After another rinse, the soaked celery lands in a perforated drum that fits into another drum. The colander rotates within the drum to spin-dry the celery. The next ingredient is the eggs. They arrive at the factory already hard-boiled and de-shelled by the supplier, so all that's left is the slicing and dicing. The egg whites cube nicely. The yolk separates and crumbles completely. With so many yolk crumbs, their favor will permeate the entire potato salad. They're now ready to combine some of the ingredients. A worker adds finely cut onion to the egg, followed by diced red pepper and then celery. They weigh the mix with each new ingredient to confirm that the portions are right. And now for the dressing. They pump the ingredients out of big storage tanks. They include vegetable oil, sugar, vinegar, and egg yolks. Whipped into a frothy mayonnaise, the dressing flows into an enormous, steel mixing vat. They add the chopped-egg-and-vegetable combination. The now cooked potato cubes join the other ingredients in the vat. Blades spiral slowly for a gentle mixing to ensure the potato salad doesn't turn to mush. With the salad now ready, suctioning devices set plastic tubs on a track conveyer. Sensors signal their approach to dispenser nozzles, and the tubs stop right on cue for a fill-up of creamy potato salad. Suctioning arms then flip the lids onto the tubs, and once sealed, they're on their way. In just 40 minutes, they've manufactured enough potato salad at this factory to feed 500 people. It should be quite a picnic. A hydrogen fuel cell runs vehicles and other machines by directly converting the chemical energy in hydrogen gas into electrical power. Hydrogen is an abundant fuel source. It can be extracted from water, enabling almost any country to produce it domestically. Hydrogen-fuel-cell engines can power vehicles and run backup generators for large computer operations. They produce electrical power without any emissions. At the heart of the engine is a stack of super-thin hydrogen fuel cells. The engine's blower blows in air. The fuel tank feeds in hydrogen gas. Hydrogen and oxygen react and create electricity. Each fuel cell is made of five parts. On each end, there's a channelled plate made primarily of carbon, a material which conducts electricity. Hydrogen enters the cell through the first plate, which channels it through the next component-- a chemically treated paper which conducts both gas and electricity. Then the hydrogen enters this membrane, where it splits into protons and electrons. The protons react with the drawn-in oxygen, producing water. The water passes through another paper to the cell's outer plate, where a pump draws it away. Meanwhile, the electrons travel to the end of the stack of fuel cells to electrical wires. After assembling the stack, technicians compress the fuel cells in a hydraulic press. Compression helps the current flow smoothly from cell to cell. It also presses the rubber casket around each plate to the adjacent one, sealing the stack so that hydrogen can't leak out. The technicians run a quality-control test with nitrogen gas to verify the seal. Before releasing the press, they install high-strength steel rods to bind the compressed cells together. For a stack this size, the rods apply 3 1/3 tons of pressure. With a stack now off the press, they hook up an electric circuit board which monitors the voltage of each fuel cell. After securing the connectors to the stack with an adhesive strip, it's just a matter of connecting one to each fuel cell... And securing that connection with a special type of epoxy which contains silver to conduct electricity. Next, they mount the circuit board in a plastic cover to protect it. The fuel-cell stack is now fully assembled and moves to the factory's test area. A technologist mounts it on a test station and, simulating installation in an engine, hooks up a hydrogen line, an air line, and a water line for cooling. The testing machine runs a three-hour, automated performance test. They mount the stack onto the engine's structural frame, then install the hydrogen recirculation pump. Next, a water-recirculation pump, which cools the fuel cell by pumping in cool water. Then they mount the components, which feed hydrogen stored at high pressure in the fuel tank. That pressure pushes the gas through stainless-steel fuel lines to the cell. Next, the fan that blows outside air into the fuel cell to react with the hydrogen. This filter removes dust and other contaminants from the air the fan draws into the fuel cell. Meanwhile, technicians have assembled the computer that controls the whole engine. They now connect the wires from the fan, the pumps, and the other engine components to the computer. They hook up the fuel-cell output wiring, the wires which carry the current the fuel cell creates, and sends it to whatever vehicle or device the engine is powering. A tiny portion of the cell's output runs the pumps and other engine components. Now fully assembled, the engine undergoes extensive performance and safety testing. Once it passes every test, technicians perform a final visual inspection, then install the sheet-metal cover. The hydrogen-fuel-cell engine is now ready to be shipped to the customer and installed in the machine it'll be powering. Whether running a vehicle like this forklift or powering computer servers, the only by-product is waste heat and water, which is why hydrogen power is clean energy. Engineered wood siding is essentially clapboard reinvented. With its rough grain, it resembles natural wood. Each board contains wood strands that are resin-bonded for strength and durability. They're also treated to resist rot and termites. Engineered wood siding is a chip off the old block-- or a lot of chips, for that matter. But how do they transform a bunch of wood chips into a solid piece of wood? It starts with aspen and other kinds of wood. They transfer the logs to ponds to maintain a consistent moisture content and temperature until production. The logs land soaking-wet on a conveyer. Grooved rollers feed them into a debarker. It shaves off both the tree bark and the cambium-- the soft, green layer beneath the bark. This exposes the white aspen wood. The logs land on the next conveyer in a horizontal configuration. Circular saws cut the logs into smaller chunks, known as bolts. The bolts head towards a machine called the waferizer. Here's a look under the waferizer hood. A 10-ton steel disk holds 48 razor-sharp knives. When the disc spins, the knives slice the bolts into wafer-thin chips, known as strands, in just seconds. The strands are the same length, but slightly different widths. Most are roughly the size of a business card. They remain flat and don't curl up because of the stability of the aspen wood itself. A conveyer delivers the wood strands to big, steel bins, and from here, they're fed at a controlled rate to a dryer one floor below. Heated by a furnace, the cyllindrical dryer is superhot. It rotates to tumble-dry the aspen strands. A blender coats the strands with resin adhesive, wax for moisture resistance, and a preservative to ward off rot and termites. They spray a release agent onto the next conveyor to keep the strands from sticking to it. Rotating disks orient the first layer so the strands all land in the same direction. The next layer lands in a more random configuration. The third layer is again uniform and parallel. The result is a loosely interwoven mat of wood. Layering the strands will provide dimensional stability in the finished siding boards. A carriage now moves a large, circular saw back and forth to cut the mat into sections approximately 16 feet in length. The sections transfer to a faster conveyor that pulls them forward. A steel carriage stretches a sheet of heavy, industrial-grade paper across the mat of wood strands. The paper has been coated with a primer and saturated with a durable adhesive that bonds with the wood strands. A multitiered press closes to compact the mats and bake them. The heat and residual moisture activate the resins to turn wood strands and paper into one solid piece of engineered wood. At the same time, the press embosses the paper topping with a deep, cedar-like grain. The press opens, revealing the cured and compacted composite sheets. The thickness has gone from roughly 4" to just under 4/10" a conveyer doubles as a scale to confirm the content of each sheet is exact. Saws trim the sides and slice the sheets in two. A pusher pushes then shoves the smaller sheets forward, and another saw trims the ends. The trimmings don't go to waste. They're ground up and used as fuel for the dryer. They now have a stack of 40 engineered wood sheets. They're ready to be turned into siding boards. Rollers push the sheets one at a time into saws that slice them to siding dimensions. Now separate strips, they exit in a cluster and separate. A paint gun coats the trimmed edges with primer. This seals any exposed wood from the elements. After a trip through the oven to dry the primer, the engineered siding boards head towards an inspection station. Here, a worker scrutinizes each board for blemishes or damage. If he finds any, the board is rejected. The siding will be painted postproduction to the homeowner's preference, and once installed, this engineered wood product is sure to fit into the neighborhood.