HOW IT WORKS | Electric Toothbrush, Sushi, Charcoal, Rubber Gloves | Episode 4 | Free Documentary

the show that reveals how extraordinary items in our world are designed constructed and produced see the engineering the technology and big ideas that make the world go round find out how it works [Music] coming up the making of an electric toothbrush how 40,000 revs a minutes can put a smile on your face creating rubber gloves these ceramic hands take the plunge so yours will stay dry and charcoal how a factory makes the summer essential out of old bits of wood [Music] the recent boom in sushi restaurants has seen Britain swapping fried fish and chips for raw fish and rice sushi is not only made in its traditional home of Japan in isafjoedur a small fishing town in Iceland they produce frozen sushi on a massive scale before it gets anywhere near the factory the fish has got to be pulled out of the sea it looks like a bog-standard fishing trip but this catch isn't going to be smoked for kippers it's gonna be turned into nigiri and Maki you might think they need the rare bluefin tuna or some wild salmon to make sushi but here they use the humble haddock - a line is weighted to sync between 60 and 90 metres that's where the haddock hang out it's tied to a boy and left for 24 hours [Music] the next day the fisherman wheel in the catch they'll and the had it with a gaff and then quickly kill it nine hours after leaving the harbor they returned with four tons of soon-to-be sushi the factories right next to the harbor so forklift trucks take the catch straight in for processing traditionally sushi is made in Japan by masters who trained for up to 10 years but here a lot of the work is done by machines and computers after the heads have been chopped off the Philips are sliced off the bones by circular saws the Philips have to be pristine so workers inspect them on a brightly lit table which show up any imperfections such as specks of bone [Music] porns are one of the most popular sushi ingredients and local fishermen catch tons of them as we all know it takes an age to peel corns by hand but thankfully they developed the machine to do the job it catches hold of the shells between rollers and removes them without touching the flesh the shelled prawns are spread out onto a conveyer belt and they better be looking sharpish every spot of them is about to be checked by a state-of-the-art computer cameras capture the way the blue light reflects off the conveyor belt and a computer scans the image it can tell by the way light bounces whether it's being reflected by a prawn or a non prom it's curtains for any non prawns as they are blasted away with Jets of air [Music] fragments of prawn shell escape and these have to be picked out by hand they don't just prepare to fish here in Iceland they make the finished article and for sushi you need rice first they wash it to remove the excess starch [Music] then they load it into a jumbo rice maker which cooks it till it's slightly underdone they add rice vinegar which gives sushi rice its distinctive flavor and sugary water to balance the acidity it's all rotated in a sort of steel tombola to make sure that every grain soaks up the flavor it might look enough to feed a family of 40 but it's only a small fraction of the 100 tonnes of rice they cook every year since sushi is eaten raw hygiene is at a premium in the prep room the salmon sliced and took bite-sized pieces each one weighing exactly 10 grams they really have turned the art of making a tasty snack into an exact science [Music] here they are making the Giri a finger shaped pile of rice with a piece of fish on top the Machine shapes the rice and adds a drop of hot Japanese horseradish called wasabi they're stacked into neat lines and then a worker pops a 10-gram fill it on each one this machines making machi their the round ones with seaweed on the outside it spreads out the rice on the sheets of the seaweed and then strips at a kind of sweet omelette called tamago are added by hand some shrimps are minced and then pureed before being squirted into the middle of the murky as it passes along the conveyor belt the two edges of the marquee are folded together to make a large block [Music] [Music] it doesn't look much like finger food at the moment but after it's cut into discs it'll look the part over at the nigiri line they're putting the finishing touches to some prawn sushi a seaweed ribbon doesn't only look nice it also helps the fish stay on top of the rice they're popped onto a conveyor belt and head off to the deep freeze it's going to be shipped all over Europe and needs to arrive tasting fresh 12 minutes at - 65 degrees seals in the flavor this factory even does the packaging they box it up as quick as possible so we can get back into the freezer so the next time you dunk your sushi into some soy sauce take a second to marvel at the fish Philip that's being cut into an exact ten gram portion savor the Japanese rice that's been delicately flavored and spare a thought for the nonprofit have been blown into oblivion [Music] [Music] now summer would be complete without a barbecue and no barbecue would be complete without charcoal but is charcoal just burned wood or is there more to it at this factory all they need to make the fiery coals are cheap off cuts of timber they're brought down to size by a giant cutter the wood still contains moisture that needs to be completely removed before it's turned into charcoal so it goes into a silo where it will dry out at 100 degrees Celsius but to make it bone-dry they have to heat it in a retort it's a special apparatus which will extract every drop of moisture after 25 tons of wood is piled in the hatch is closed to make the retort any tight when the word next sees the light of day it'll be the finished product in the lab a scientist demonstrates how it works this airtight container represents the retort the wood is heated inside and because there's no oxygen it can't catch fire as it gets hotter it sweats out the last drops of moisture which are then taken away from beet tubes [Music] what's left is carbonized wood or charcoal to me [Music] the liquid which drains off the retort gets sold to it'll be used to flavor smoky foods like salami [Music] when they open the lid they've got to cool the charcoal down and fast it's 500 degrees Celsius and as it comes into contact with oxygen it could burst into flames without warning it plummets down into coal bunkers through this trapdoor we have to spray water hoses to settle the cloud of acrid dust [Applause] once it's locked in the bunker the dangers over after its cooled down they sorted by size large lumps will be sold as barbecue fuel around the country the fine dust is mixed with wheat starch to help it bind then it's compressed into briquettes at this stage they're still soft so they get baked off and turned into solid lumps finally the large lumps are banged up this factory sends out 80,000 bags every day they're delivered to petrol stations and other outlets and come as summer months they'll be blackening sausages in a back garden near you [Music] coming up after the break how they make the rubber gloves that keep your hands clean while you're doing the dirty dishes and the electric toothbrush find out how they stuff a head with bristles in just a second [Music] [Music] for those of us that actually do the washing-up rubber gloves help to make the job a little more bearable to make them you start off with some latex rubber natural latex is usually white which isn't the best color for a pair of gloves that do the dirty work so they add an orange dye by dipping his hand into the latex for just a few seconds this chap has made a glove albeit a very thin one but he can't stand around with his hand in a vat all day so they use ceramic hands to model the gloves instead latex doesn't stick properly to bare ceramic but a dip in a salt water bath coats the surfaces and then they're ready for the latex [Music] after a quick dip as spin gets rid of any drips these gloves are thick enough to move on to the next step but right now they're delicate and easily torn [Music] that problem will be sorted out later but now it's time to add a little more home comfort a cotton lining but loves have been made inside out so when they're dipped into this glue it's actually the inside that's getting coated now there's a good sticky surface the gloves go to be sprayed with a fine cotton mist this lining makes the gloves easy to put on and also gives them a more luxurious feel making their house work just a little bit less of a chore to strengthen the latex rubber it needs to be baked in a furnace this process is called vulcanization these two strips help demonstrate the effect of the process this one hasn't been vulcanized and it loses its shape after being stretched but the vulcanized trip returns to its original shape [Music] once they're out of the furnace the gloves are nearly finished but they've just been heated to 100 degrees so they're given a cooling dip then the workers can simply pull them off the moles [Music] there's no need to be delicate with them these are tough gloves [Music] a spin in the tumble dryer and they're finished [Music] this streamlined and efficient process allows them to make fifty thousand pairs of rubber gloves every single day an apple a day keeps the doctor away but one of the most efficient ways to keep the dentist at bay is a state-of-the-art electric toothbrush the battery cases start out life has millions of tiny plastic granules these are melted down into a sticky liquid and then injected into molds where they harden into the shape of the casing [Music] a computer scans it to make sure there aren't any flaws if there is even a tiny imperfection water could get in and damage the electrics which will go inside later these are the brush heads they're bald at the moment but they're about to get some extensions the bristles are made from a man-made fiber called polyamide the different colors indicate the thickness of the bristle thick ones go in the middle of the head and on the edge they use thinner softer ones so as not to damage gums a head stuffed with bristles in just a second in slow motion you can see what's going on [Music] they use a silvery wire to hold the bristles in place the bristles are folded around a tiny piece of wire which is then jammed into the holes the head is rotated so a machine can fill a whole head without moving an inch the brushes have got a full head of bristles but they're a bit rough around the edges so they set off for a short back inside a razor sharp blade cuts away any straggly ends leaving the bristles or the white length finally they blunts the bristles sharp edges across the factory floor the neck of the brush is being assembled a light sensor tells this machine when a metal pin is in place and it quickly slots on a plastic cover which will hold the head it's then blasted with rays of UV light this kills any germs and leaves the plastic completely sterile a computer scans it to double-check no germs have made it through next the next I'll get in their heads so far the casing is hollow but soon a motor and gearbox will put the electric into electric toothbrush on the left is a gearbox and on the right a motor a machine clamps them together and locks them in place then a worker welds them together with a rechargeable battery after he checks that the circuit is connected the electrical components are fitted into the casings a plastic stopper seals the battery in with a simple twist the brush heads spin around that it dizzying 40,000 revs per minute and for good measure they gently walk back and forth a quality controller gives them a final once-over after the necks and heads have been slotted onto the bodies some of the batch go off for testing they'll be scrubbing false teeth for the next 320 hours that's well over five years worth of dental hygiene if the test is passed then the whole batch is deemed okay and sent out with 5-year guarantees as long as they don't get dropped down the loo they'll probably be brushing for a lot longer [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 2,410,876

Rating: 4.6108351 out of 5

Keywords: How It's Made (TV Program), How it works, how its made discovery, Cool Stuff: How It Works (TV Program), Full episodes, Sushi, Charcoal, BBQ, Rubber Gloves, Electric toothbrush, Glove (Garment)

Id: QYhPqR7sAmg

Length: 23min 42sec (1422 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 27 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/circaanthony]

Ew. I dont think Ive ever seen factory made sushi, where would I buy it?

[u/sjade11407]

Mmmm.... shrimp puree.

[u/Youreahugeidiot]

I was totally with this until they froze the sushi. I then stared mutely in abject horror.

[u/Noobnugget19]

Holy crap, that shrimp conveyor at 4:10 is awesome.

[u/boroniaboys]

Its impressive something delicately handmade like sushi can be made on an industrial scale and look so good.

[u/squilliam132457]

T_T