How Products are Made

February 8, 2006 12:38 PM

Step right up ladies 'n gents! See how to make just about verything from accordions to zirconium. They've got paint, unicyles, condoms and much much more! Diagrams included at no extra charge!
posted by Irontom (17 comments total)

If you aren't interested in any of those the home page has a lot more.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:51 PM on February 8, 2006

Neat. Thanks.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:00 PM on February 8, 2006

Very nice.
posted by lobstah at 1:07 PM on February 8, 2006

Great links: a nice complement to How Stuff Works. Some things are better left unexplained, however. Remember what Otto von Bismarck said:

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

See here for more details about this concept.
posted by cenoxo at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2006

Great one.

A few years back a friend and I took a long cross-country road trip. We had no itinerary, but had some general principles to guide us. One of the principles was, "If we meet anyone who offers to show us how anything is made, we will take them up on it."

We really didn't get that opportunity, but it's still an excellent principle.

And lastly, here's one for those wiseacres who always want to know how they get the Teflon to stick to the pan....
posted by Miko at 1:21 PM on February 8, 2006

Well great, now I'm on the watch list.

Thanks, cool reference.
posted by like_neon at 1:22 PM on February 8, 2006

That's awesome. Thank you.
posted by feathermeat at 1:24 PM on February 8, 2006

Posts like this are why I frequent Mefi.
posted by JeffK at 1:26 PM on February 8, 2006

"(Zirconium's) most significant applications have been in various structural components of nuclear reactors."
I would have thought that most of it went into cubic zirconium pretend diamond jewelry on QVC shopping channel.
posted by Cranberry at 1:28 PM on February 8, 2006

Neato!
posted by DieHipsterDie at 1:46 PM on February 8, 2006

See how to make

See how things are made

I thought it was going to show me how to make an accordion. Cool link anyways.
posted by poppo at 1:53 PM on February 8, 2006

This is a truly fantastic post and has been flagged as such. Thanks!
posted by JMOZ at 1:56 PM on February 8, 2006

Excellent site. I'm always a sucker for things that walk you through some random manufacturing process. (The closest now-a-days being some segments of "Dirty Jobs" on Discovery.) This site scratches that same well-wuhduhyano itch.

Thanks!
posted by icosahedral at 2:02 PM on February 8, 2006

Great post !
posted by elpapacito at 2:25 PM on February 8, 2006

icosahedral: You need to figure out when "How it's made" is broadcast in your area. The show depicts an amazing variety of manufaturing processes including glass, guitars, hockey sticks, candy, you name it! The entire show is just footage of the manufacturing processes with a voice over explaining what is being done.
posted by davey_darling at 6:51 PM on February 8, 2006

ditto on "how it's made". I'm constantly checking On Demand to see if there's a new episode up.
posted by squarehead at 9:31 PM on February 8, 2006

for those interested in fabrication, I highly recommend looking into Neal Gershenfeld's work with fab labs at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. his book, Fab is a good read. more info

thank you for a great post. very cool.
posted by carsonb at 1:50 AM on February 9, 2006