Awesome Factories

LEGO bricks are the world’s favorite construction toys. We know they’re made out of plastic, but how do they make so many different colors and shapes? And how do they package just the right quantity of the right bricks? The LEGO Group takes us inside of their factories for an inside look at how a finished set comes together.

Wood veneers give objects a high-end look while using cheaper wood for structure. The process to make the thinly-sliced wood involves shaving off bark and splitting logs, then sliding the wood against a razor-sharp blade to peel off layers. ImagineGrove Woodworking takes us inside Veneer Tech to view the fascinating process.

Aluminum is one of the world’s most recyclable materials. It can be melted down over and over again without degrading. So it’s no wonder soda, and beer cans are made from the metal. In this older clip from How Its Made, they visited a factory that stamps and shapes aluminum into cans millions of times a day.

The Hydraulic Press Channel usually shows how machines can be used to destroy stuff. But in this video, they take us inside Componenta, where such equipment is used to create things. Watch as a molten pillar of steel is loaded into a duo of presses, which gradually shape it into a ring that will be used to make a giant gear.

Rather than just show you how one thing is produced, this extensive playlist from Science Channel compiles factory footage for 200 different items. From industrial fans to orange juice, from ketchup to luxury sports cars, there’s something here for just about every interest. So click play, and head down the rabbit hole.

Commissioned by the U.S. Navy in the 1940’s, the Emeco 1006 Navy Chair is immediately recognizable. Designed for light weight and resistance to fire, the aluminum chairs are nearly indestructible. BRANDMADE.TV takes us inside the Hanover, Pennsylvania factory where these iconic chairs are still manufactured by hand.

BRANDMADE.TV takes us inside the Zippo lighter factory for a look at how they create their iconic windproof lighters. The process starts out with rolls of brass which are shaped to form each lighter’s case before it’s chromed. The interior is formed from steel, then brass, flint, a wick, and cotton are added to complete the assembly.

Tens of millions of golf balls are made every year. In this clip from Golf Town, they take us inside one of Titleist’s factories to see how they make their Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls. The process starts with a rubber sheet, which is formed and smoothed, then encased in a dimpled urethane covering before painting and packaging.

New York City sees many of its stop signs and other street signs vandalized or stolen each year. Between replacements and other projects, the Department of Transportation’s Queens sign shop makes over 100,000 new signs each year. Insider takes us inside the facility for a look at the work that goes into this laborious process.

You’d think that creating a badge for a car would be no big deal, but in the case of UK luxury automaker Aston Martin, every little detail matters. Car fanatic Mr JWW visited Vaughton’s, the factory where they meticulously create each badge, and got to help make a custom badge for his special-edition DBX Q SUV.

A classic segment from How It’s Made which shows the process of transforming latex rubber into condoms. Obviously, it’s important that they don’t break, but we’re not sure what real world scenario they’re trying to simulate with that inflation test. We’re thinking they just do that one for fun.

We’ve seen how cymbals are made, now find out how the drumsticks that are used to play them are born. Vic Firth shares footage from inside their factory, where they transform sticks of freshly-cut wood into their premium 5A American Classic sticks, then precision matches them for weight and pitch to ensure perfect pairs.

How It’s Made takes us inside of the Baby-Foot Sulpie factory, where they make premium foosball tables. Watch as the players are cast from molten metal, then painted before being assembled onto stainless steel rods and placed into their permanent places on a handcrafted wooden foosball field.

We’ve seen what the insides of a bowling ball look like. Now see those balls get that way in this clip from How It’s Made, starting out with a soupy goo for its core, wrapped in polymer and polyurethane layers, and then sanded. We were most surprised by the odd shape of the core.

This footage from Chinese company Jiake Machine shows the process of taking coiled wire and transforming it into a sturdy mesh for fences or construction. The system pulls wires from dozens of spools and feeds them through a welding rig that spot-welds each intersection, with the mesh emerging from the other side.

Pretty much every display you can buy today is either LCD or OLED. But for decades, the cathode ray tube was the only way to watch video. This older clip from How Its Made show the process, including filling the tube with phosphors, adding conductive elements, and installing an electron gun to create images on the tube.

LEGO builder The Brick Wall has created machines that can make tasty tapas, veggie cars, and even cook breakfast. His latest creation can assemble a pizza, from smoothly applying tomato sauce, to sprinkling cheese and toppings evenly across its surface. Now he just needs to make a LEGO brick oven to cook it in.

It’s both a useful packing material and a wonderful plaything for fidgeters like us. Now go inside Sealed Air’s factory and see how they make their official BubbleWrap brand bubble wrap. It’s interesting that the first bubble wrap machine was designed to make wallpaper.

Sino Sales & Support presents a brief and wonderfully satisfying look at a factory in China where rows of machines crank out millions of glass marbles each year. The soothing sound of thousands of rolling marbles should be an option on every white noise machine. Skip to 0:38.

Ever wondered how drone maker DJI builds its little flying machines? The company released footage from inside of its assembly facility. The clip shows off some of the final stages of building Mavic 2 Zoom drones, including a bit where a computer flies each one for quality testing. You can find the original video on Weibo.

Ever wonder how they make coils of sheet metal? This fascinating footage captured by Sweden’s Dalarna University at the SSAB hot rolling mill shows how a giant slab of steel is heated, then cleaned, roughed, and rolled through a series of machines into gradually thinner and thinner layers.

Prima Power shows off the power and speed of one of its impressive fiber lasers. Their 6kW Laser Genius slices through sheet metal of varying thickness like a hot, razor-sharp knife through butter. We can’t believe how easily it got through that metal at 1:20. More laser porn here.

From the “Satisfying Robots” file comes this video footage of the LiSEC TPA-A, a fully-automated system that applies thermoplastic spacers that provide insulation between panes of architectural glass. The robot securely holds the glass in place using suction, then rolls it along its conveyor as it works its magic.