Awesome Making

Shuri Bakaseru (The Fascinating Repairmen) shows Nobuo Okano at work. Okano has been restoring books by hand for over 30 years. The video is in Japanese, but you’ll clearly understand his meticulous process. More here.

Once you get past the silly computer voiceovers, you’ll be treated to the construction of an incredibly detailed scale model of Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower, built from 2779 sticks of bamboo by artist Srinivas Thatipally. Feeling ambitious now?

This time-lapse video from Hagerty Classic Cars celebrates the Chevy small-block V8, one of the greatest and most versatile engines ever made. With the help of Thirlby Automotive, they rip one down, then rebuild it like new. (Thanks Justin!)

The candy artists of Montreal’s La Confiserie Candy Labs demonstrate how they make their amazing hand-rolled hard candies. The arduous 3-hour process has been condensed to 9-minutes by Sterokroma. Order the finished candies here.

We know that you cut panes of glass by scoring them before snapping them apart, but this footage showing how to quickly transform a large pane of glass into several smaller pieces without shattering them is still immensely satisfying.

This incredibly complex machine takes spools of fiberglass, Kevlar or carbon fiber and braids them together for form a durable composite. Similar techniques are being used to make lightweight automotive and airplane parts.

An immensely satisfying demonstration of craftsmanship as two Japanese carpenters show the kind of precision required to perfectly interlock a pair of wooden beams into an extremely strong unified structure.

Grant “The King of Random” Thompson demonstrates just how recyclable aluminum cans are by melting down a batch, and then casting new metal ingots from them using his homebrew mini metal foundry. The fun starts at 1:20.

Alden Gleason shot this captivating video of the assembly line at Julie’s Organic Ice Cream. We dare you to watch the whole thing without running to your freezer to see if you have any ice cream bars. That chocolate bath looks so good.

We recently went inside the Stern Pinball factory to see just what it takes to make a modern pinball machine. Fortunately, the day we were there, they were working on The Walking Dead, which made the visit doubly sweet.

Dan Reeder of Gourmet Paper Mache creates insanely detailed sculptures using paper mache. Watch as he crafts one of his dragons here. Then check out a shark, a minotaur, Danery’s dragon, and the elusive unipossum.

John Neeman Tools demonstrates the complex and time-consuming process of forging one of its beautiful Damascus steel knives, handmade by master bladesmith Chris. This makes us so happy that such craftsmanship is still alive.

We’ve featured plenty of videos showing how blacksmiths make swords, but this clip from Inspire to Make shows how to make a teensy weapon out of an ordinary nail. Using a smaller nail as the crossguard is especially clever.

Inventables‘ easy-to-use machine lets you upload designs from your computer and carves objects from a variety of materials. The bundled software can carve and cut in 2.5D, while you can use off-the-shelf CAM software for full 3D objects.

In this demonstration for Mastercam, you’ll see a solid cylinder of metal turned into perfectly spherical globe, using a high-speed computer-aided lathe – a machine that delicately cuts away metal as the piece is rotated.

WIRED recently went inside the Crayola factory for a brief tour of the colorful and messy process which turns raw wax into about 12 million crayons every day. Sesame Street covered the same ground 30+ years ago, with fewer robots.

A dramatic time-lapse demonstration of the fermentation process in the making of Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot Ale, with massive batches of bubbling hops, yeast and wort rising and falling on their way to becoming delicious beer.

German watchmaker NOMOS Glashütte lets us get up close and personal with the process behind the creation of their intricate and luxurious mechanical timepieces, which are still largely made by hand.

Even Frostmourne came from fire. Man at Arms takes on one of the most requested and most complex weapons it’s ever made, the sword from the Warcraft franchise. So, we guess we have four Lich Kings now.

(PG-13: Language) We’re always spellbound by the show How it’s Made. In this video from Jerk Circle, we learn about the little-known sandwich cookie disassembly plant, which breaks down excess cookies into raw materials, producing one-half the flour consumed in the U.S. Or not.

Wired takes us inside the Tesla Model S factory. It still amazes us that raw coils of sheet metal can transformed into such a beautiful and functional vehicle. While the plant employs 3000 humans, robots are the true star of the show.

A look behind the scenes at New York City’s Department of Transportation’s sign shop, a small team of 22 men and women who make every single street sign for all five of NYC’s boroughs.

There’s a reason that a pair of Louis Vuitton’s can cost you a pretty penny as Youtuber leicax70 shows in this mesmerizing clip recorded at the Fiesso d’Artico workshops in Venice, Italy.