Some Assembly Required (2007–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Guitars/Caskets/Lip Balm - full transcript
For all the everyday things,
all the stuff in our world,
there's the story of
how it comes to be.
Hello. I'm Brian Unger.
I'm Professor Lou Bloomfield.
UNGER: From the drawing
board to the assembly line,
it's how the ordinary is
actually extraordinary.
On "Some Assembly Required"...
Guitars, caskets, and lip balm.
UNGER: One of the first
solid-body electric guitars
was invented by jazz
musician Les Paul in 1941.
Now, in the early '50s, he
joined forces with Gibson.
And these days, worldwide,
this guitar is pretty
much the standard
for novices and
professional players.
When Les Paul, the
legendary jazz guitarist,
helped Gibson launch
this masterpiece in 1952,
right away, the signature
sound and design
of the Les Paul model
made it the choice for guitar
gods throughout rock 'n' roll.
The Gibson guitar
factory in Nashville
is where craftsmanship
and science
make beautiful music together.
Hundreds of guitars
leave here every day.
The factory here in Tennessee
is literally heaven for guitars.
We start with
wood, five kinds of it.
That's what it takes to produce
the trademark Les Paul sound.
You know, the shop here at
Gibson is a working woodshop.
It's dangerous.
A lot of saws.
A lot of people riding around
on pallets when they shouldn't be.
The guitar body of a Les
Paul is mostly mahogany.
That's used for
structural stability.
But it's wet when it
comes through the door.
That's a problem.
Wet wood leads to warping,
and warping leads
to imperfect sound.
So, first, we lower the
percentage of moisture
carefully.
We don't want the wood to turn
and to curl and
all that kind of stuff.
We want it dry so that it's
always gonna be straight.
UNGER: So, you're
looking for a goal of 10%?
10% and under is
what you're looking for.
A conventional oven
would take about a month
to bake the water out.
So to speed things up,
Gibson uses a vacuum kiln,
one that effectively
vacuums away the moisture,
reaching the 10%
target in just two days.
The way it works is
to take away the air
and to lower the
pressure inside the kiln
while it's cooking the wood.
BLOOMFIELD:
Lower the air pressure,
and water's boiling point
plunges more than 100 degrees.
In fact, by the time you get
to the pressure inside this kiln,
water boils at only 90
degrees Fahrenheit.
UNGER: Our baked
mahogany emerges
like buns from the oven.
We're close to
turning all this wood
into the bottom of
a Les Paul guitar.
This is actually warm.
Yeah.
Now it's over to Bob Nesman,
who literally pieces together
the bottom of the guitar.
Now, most people
think guitar bottoms
are one big chunk of wood.
They're actually three
pieces glued together.
- What do you call this?
- Just a glue wheel.
UNGER: The glue wheel.
90 guitar bottoms get on and off
this Ferris wheel-looking
contraption every hour.
Is there a trick?
My first body.
The glue is dry in
just a couple of hours,
and then it's into the router.
Computers tell the router
where to carve out
spaces in the guitar body.
Now, in these cavities
Gibson will install
hardware down the line.
This is a deafening,
dusty process.
Then these guitar bottoms,
the backs, finally gets tops,
which become the
fronts of the guitars.
Now, the tops are made of maple.
It's a beautiful wood.
Some call it a tone wood
because of the rich
sound it helps produce.
The moment I get cocky is
the moment I break something.
All right.
Top, meet your bottom.
Good old glue with about
1,000 pounds per square inch
marry the mahogany and maple.
MAN: Excellent work.
Then I tangle with a
terrifying band saw.
That saw's a
little intimidating.
Wow. Look at that.
Back into the router,
and this assembly is
really starting to hum.
Of course, we still need
to cut the neck of the guitar.
Now, we've got to add more
wood to one end of the neck
to make it wide
enough to hold the keys.
This is the neck of the guitar.
Yeah, that's right.
At the end, of course,
the end of every Gibson
neck is wider with...
- What do you call those?
- Wing blocks.
You put wing blocks on them.
So, right now,
it's just basically...
A piece of wood.
- Yeah, a piece of wood.
- Yeah.
The wing blocks go in the clamp.
The neck is glued.
UNGER: All right. It's cooking.
Same thing as your
microwave at home.
Same microwave oven
you'd have at home.
That's right.
George, there's radiation
coming out of here,
and we don't want to
fry your privates, George.
And in just seconds,
our necks get their wings.
The initial woodwork is done.
And with that, we've
created the bones
of the most famous
guitar in the world.
Now our neck needs some metal.
When you tighten
all the strings,
they tend to pull
the neck forward
so that it bows like this.
That makes it hard to
keep the guitar in tune.
The original solution
to this problem
was to use an
awkwardly thick neck.
But then one day someone
at Gibson had a brilliant idea.
They cut a slot in the neck
that's deeper in the middle
than at the ends and
inserted a metal truss.
When they tighten
this truss now,
it pushes the middle forward so
the whole neck arches like this.
Not only does that help
it fight the string tension
and keep in tune,
but they can adjust it
over the life of the guitar
to accommodate changes
in climate or temperature.
With their truss rods in place,
the necks move down the line
to meet up with a critical
part of the guitar, the frets.
These are the frets.
This is one continuous fret.
But essentially, each piece
will be a fret on a guitar neck.
There is a ridge on
the end of this fret,
and it is this edge
that's going to fit
down in the precut
groove already in the neck.
It takes a while to catch on.
Every fret is installed
by hand at Gibson.
It's careful, expert work.
It's just one example
of the passion they
pour into these guitars.
Gibson hasn't found a machine
that has a soft enough touch
or works as fast or can
exact the high quality needed
at this critical assembly.
That's a great-looking
board. You did good.
Did I? Is that all right?
There are two
reasons for having frets.
One of them is to lift the
string off the fingerboard
so it can vibrate more clearly.
[Note vibrates]
The other is to end the
string at a very specific location
to give it a sharply
defined pitch.
When you say to give it
a sharply defined pitch,
you mean to give it a note?
Yeah.
They are put in there
at very specific locations
to create the Western scale.
Each one of these is a
note on the Western scale.
But you've got to get
the fret height right.
If the fret's too tall,
the string will hit
it as it vibrates.
The fret board is
glued to the neck,
and together with my
friend Tyler Parsons,
we fit the neck to the body
of the guitar, again by hand.
UNGER: Now, this is a
true marriage right here.
This is where the
neck meets the body.
- Is that right, Tyler?
- That is right.
Like the space shuttle
docking with the space station.
All right.
Now, how far down
this clamp do I go?
You can go into the side of it.
- Usually go right into the side.
- Oh, the side. Okay.
Then just twist it around
to the right side, right here.
The neck is actually
too big to fit the guitar.
I suppose they could make it
so it would just
slip in there nicely.
But they want to make
sure that it's custom-fit.
So that has to be done by hand,
like everything
else here at Gibson.
PARSONS: Throw some
glue on that bad boy.
Make sure it's on all surfaces.
UNGER: All surfaces.
Make sure to put
a little pressure
pushing towards
the back of the guitar
when you're pulling
down on it, too.
Kind of pull it. There
it is right there, man.
- Right on here?
- Right on there, man.
The Gibson guitar factory
in Nashville, Tennessee.
This place has produced one
of the most popular instruments
on the planet, the
Les Paul electric guitar.
Now, a vintage Les
Paul electric guitar
can fetch from $100,000
to $500,000 at auction.
Lou and I are making
our own classic six-strings.
We've taken the raw
lumber, baked it, cut it,
glued it, and shaped it.
Well, we have what
is an assembled guitar
for the first time.
This is a real Gibson.
Now, we're ready to put
some paint on this wood,
and even the color prep, all
the sanding that goes into it,
is done by hand.
When the wood is smooth as silk,
we're ready to paint the
classic sunburst finish
on a Les Paul.
They paint the guitars
with quick-drying lacquer.
That's important, given
they apply up to six coats.
- What do you think?
- It's all right for a rookie.
All right for a rookie?
Ouch, Karen. Ouch.
Through trial and error,
Gibson settled on six
as the means to achieve
a really rich, deep luster.
When the paint is dry,
it's time to tango
with a cotton wheel coated
in wax as your partner.
It's all in the hips.
I'm just going to sort
of sit back and watch
before I ruin one.
Buffing is like waxing the car.
The guitars will be so shiny
you'll be able to
see your reflection.
This is like dancing.
I mean, you got
to have a rhythm.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like we should have
a drink first before I do this.
So, kind of like this?
- Kind of.
- Kind of?
Sort of, but not really?
Use your body
more than your arms.
- Just put my hips into it?
- Yeah, yeah.
Lean into it a little bit more.
Wow. Look at that.
Congratulations.
Do you see yourself in it?
[Laughter]
Buffed my first guitar, yo.
Oh, she's pretty, huh?
Nice and polished.
Of course, at this
stage, merely air guitar.
And I will spare you my
nerdy air-guitar moves.
But we're moving
into another room here,
and this is a very
special place.
This is a place where some
metal strings get together
with a couple of magnets,
and together what they
produce is pretty electrifying.
So, how does all
this become electric?
Well, the answer begins
with magnets inside
the body of the guitar.
This has always stumped me,
this functioning of the pickup.
How does it work exactly?
You really are
generating electricity
with the vibration of string,
and it's done magnetically.
BLOOMFIELD: Inside every
pickup, there are U-shaped magnets.
Magnets like to
be complete loops.
So they need a top piece,
and that's the steel string.
When a string is plucked,
it drags the magnetic
field back and forth,
and that motion
generates electricity.
That electric power
flows through the cord
to the amplifier to the speaker,
which shakes the air
at the pitch, or note,
of the plucked string.
UNGER: Hardware's
in. Time for the strings.
So our Les Paul is
nearing its final destination.
And it's just about to
make beautiful music.
- Right, Kirby?
- That's right.
Now, they call you the stringer.
Now, I wonder what
you do here, Kirby Beets.
Well, it's magic.
This is the tail
piece, obviously.
Right.
And you basically
just, in advance,
feed these strings through there
so you can just,
in this assembly,
just pop it on there and
move it down the line?
Exactly.
Just tightening
them up a little bit.
Voilà.
BLOOMFIELD: Now,
there are three things
that determine the
pitch of a guitar string.
The first is its inertia.
The more inertia the string has,
the slower it vibrates
and the lower the pitch.
The second way to
affect pitch is tension.
As you turn the key here
and tighten the string up,
its pitch goes up.
[Note playing]
Finally, there's the
length of the string.
As you're playing the guitar,
you're shortening the
string so it vibrates faster.
- From this note...
- [Low note plays]
- to this note.
- [High note plays]
A guitar will easily go
out of tune or lose its pitch
if the neck bends
under the pressure
of the tightened strings.
Remember that truss
rod we placed in the neck?
This neck is underbowed.
You'll see the
tension of the strings,
if you can look down
there, right through here.
So, that neck has a dip.
The truss rod is going
to correct that for us?
Yes. All you got to
do is turn it clockwise
about an eighth of a turn
and see that it's straight.
Oh, yeah. It is straight.
I've been in this
plant for 12 years,
and I can look
at a top like this
and just be knocked out by it.
You know, I can say, "Man,
that is just like, you know.
Somebody's really going
to be lucky to get this guitar."
They're going to find
this and fall in love with it,
just like I did mine.
See if it works.
Before we can ship
it, there's one last step.
Time to tune our
classic six-string.
[Notes playing]
It's a chromatic tuner.
It picks the string out.
I'm hitting the "E" string,
and it's showing you it's an "E"
and it's showing
you that it's a little flat.
I bring it up, and I...
[Notes playing]
I'm gonna have to do a
bend buzz, make sure...
Make sure that
everything plays right on it.
Could be a bad note somewhere.
This is very exciting for us
because we've
seen this guitar go
from a couple of pieces of
wood in your lumber yard...
Yes, sir.
To your hands,
where someone's actually
making music come from it.
What is there left to say?
- Sold!
- [Laughs]
As they say, nothing is
certain except death and taxes.
No matter what your
preoccupation with the former,
in the end, six feet under is a
highly corrosive environment.
Batesville, Indiana,
is home to an
American industrial giant,
the Batesville Casket Company.
It's one of the largest
manufacturers of caskets
in the world.
About 1/3 of the caskets
here at Batesville
Casket Company
are made from wood.
The other 2/3 made from metal.
Each day, tons of
metal are cut, stamped,
welded, and adorned,
turned into custom caskets.
So to get an idea of how much
metal they go through every day
here at Batesville
Casket Company,
imagine five of these
filled with giant coils
of steel, copper...
and bronze.
Caskets come in many
shapes and varieties.
But the ones we're
making have a feature
that adds to the
lifetime of the casket.
It's the metal ones that hold
up best against the elements.
And it's what they
do to the metal
that's the key to the
casket's longevity.
They start with the raw
material for the caskets.
Here, giant steel sheets,
some 3,000 square feet of it,
are cut into rectangles.
From here, the newly cut
sheets are sent to be pressed
and turned into shapes
that will become
the tops, the bottoms,
and sides of the casket.
And as you can imagine,
pressing or shaping steel
requires tremendous force.
BLOOMFIELD:
Steel is tough stuff.
But as anyone who's ever
had a fender bender knows,
it can dent.
Engineers call that yielding.
And they use it to shape
normally elastic steel
so that it changes
shape forever.
BLOOMFIELD: It
takes huge pressure,
about 450 pounds
per square inch,
to make steel yield to
the casket maker's will.
UNGER: It's in the next
step that a key process occurs
that makes the casket
last a really long time.
Well, I'm here with Charlie,
and we are applying
the sacrificial anode.
And it has something
to do with rust, right?
Huh?
The whole sacrificial thing
has something to do with rust?
Yeah.
Anytime you're talking
about sacrificial anodes
is a time for Lou.
BLOOMFIELD: A
casket will corrode
much like a battery
will lose its power.
When it's buried,
the casket will lose
positive metal particles, ions,
to the soil.
In other words, it will corrode.
When you add the
zinc sacrificial anode,
that anode strengthens
the casket's negative charge,
attracting positive metal ions
and stopping them from leaving.
It's that corroding anode
that keeps the casket intact.
That's why it's
referred to as sacrificial.
UNGER: This zinc bar is
the most important weapon
in the battle against corrosion.
But it's not the
nicest-looking adornment.
So it's attached to the bottom.
While bottoms are being
pressed in one area of the factory,
tops are being
cranked out in another.
All right.
That thing coming down
is literally like a building.
You can feel the ground
shake underneath you
when that puts that amount
of pressure, only 1,500 tons,
down on this metal.
Shove it up in there.
Oh, I see. Like that.
Now we're going to do
four of these every minute,
and by the end
of an 8-hour shift,
we're going to have
about 1,200 casket lids.
I got to do two
jobs at once here.
I'm telling you. It's tough.
My very tolerant
coworker, Bob Prickle,
rolls lubricant on
the edges of the steel
so it doesn't tear under
the force of the press.
Now, this press could
easily take off a limb.
So Batesville has installed
an interesting safety feature,
an invisible light beam that
spans the mouth of the press.
Break that plane,
like I just did...
Oh, did I shut that down?
And the whole
production line shuts down.
It's timing. Timing
is everything.
By just pointing over there, I
shut this whole thing down?
All you got to do is
break that line right there.
I just stepped in front
of these light curtains,
and I shut not only
this machine down
but that machine, that robot,
and the two other
presses down the line.
Is the robot okay?
Oh, Albert's cool.
Over the years,
state-of-the-art robots
have joined the line.
Here in the primary assembly
area for the casket lids,
the lid takes shape for
the first time on this press.
It's handed off to
this robot, Albert,
who feeds it into
a second press.
Here the edges are trimmed off,
the scrap is put
on to this line,
fed out that way on this
conveyor, put into a Dumpster,
and hauled out of the building.
The second robot, Obi,
hands off the lid to a third press,
where the edges
are curled under,
a flange is placed
on the casket top,
and it's fed down this line,
where an antirust
wash is placed on the lid,
it's heated, and dried.
Well, this fourth and last press
here on the line makes these,
the sides that go like this.
And now that we have
all the sides of our casket,
including the tops
and the bottoms,
it's time to weld these together
and assemble them in a
different part of the plant
here at Batesville.
At Batesville Casket
Company in Batesville, Indiana,
we've shaped our raw
metal into the pieces
that will add up to a casket.
Now, with the tops and
bottoms and sides all pressed,
it's time for the next step.
I'm going to weld all
the pieces together
to form the shell of the casket.
- Ready to weld, I believe.
- Ready to weld.
As you go down that weld,
how do you get that nice,
smooth weld down the seam?
Take it slow down the seam.
- So I'm going too fast?
- Yeah.
You got to go slow.
You can't go fast.
Did I hit the seam
at least this time?
Most of the way.
UNGER: I messed up there.
I can work with that.
You can work with that.
He can work with it. Whoo-hoo!
Now once the shell is
complete, it moves down the line,
where we weld on the bottom.
You probably didn't know
that you can weld under water.
But here it is.
This seam welder is tying
together two sheets of steel.
BLOOMFIELD: A
tremendous electric current
runs from a copper
wheel through the steel.
Since copper's a
great conductor,
it holds up just fine.
Steel's a poor conductor, and
it begins to melt immediately.
The water acts as a coolant,
keeping the steel
from overheating.
UNGER: This welder is automated,
but Batesville still relies on
welders like Raymond White
to push the casket through.
While that seam
welder sort of drives it,
you steer this
thing through, right?
But you've got to
have the right moves.
Watch yourself.
Lou and I have to smooth
out the man-made welds
since some of these seams
will be visible on the casket
if they're not sanded.
One of the dangers of doing this
is not so much the sparks
flying off it as you're sanding.
It's the metal filings
getting stuck inside your hair
or on your forehead,
and after you leave the line,
they drip down into your face
and sometimes get in your eyes.
Thus, the hair net,
protective eyewear...
and the flame-retardant
underwear we're wearing, too.
A century of knowledge has
made Batesville's assembly
a remarkably
choreographed operation.
The lids we pressed earlier
will soon be united
with their shells
for the first time.
For most caskets
manufactured by Batesville,
the lids will be cut in half.
Next up, a robotic
header welder,
a totally automated
process that's totally cool.
Now, I'm with my
friend Brian here.
We're at the header welder.
And this is the header.
This is basically the end
in the assembly for the lids.
Caskets built with 2-piece lids
need headers built into each
half for structural support.
So it rotates and then
the welding begins.
The robot does it all.
Welds the headers into
place and grinds them smooth.
Well, if there was
a nerve center
to the Batesville
Casket Company,
this would kind of be it.
This is sort of a nexus
where caskets are
coming in from all angles.
Some of them are
going in to be painted.
Some of them are going
along the top to be brushed.
Some of them are
going to be primed.
And, really, for the first
time in this assembly,
these caskets stop
just being metal boxes
and start taking on a
little more significance.
So, inside this room, a very
small room, confined room,
the delicate process
of painting goes on.
So delicate we're
not allowed to do it.
Now, because these caskets
require a flawless finish,
there's no room
for rookie mistakes.
So Lou and I are
relegated to the sidelines
during the critical
painting phase.
BLOOMFIELD: The paint
formula is the final touch
that extends the
life of the casket.
Even if there is a flaw,
chemicals in the paint
react with the environment,
resulting in a
closure over that flaw,
halting the corrosion process
and sealing out moisture.
UNGER: When the paint's dry,
it's time for the
hardware to be installed.
Working with the crew,
we'll install more than 24
different hardware components
to each casket.
In these chambers they can paint
thousands of fancy, decorative
elements in a single shift.
This is where all the
ornamentation on the casket
is painted,
but they do it in these
giant washers and dryers.
It's not paint. These are
giant vacuum chambers.
And they're putting real metal
coatings on even plastic parts.
BLOOMFIELD: Tungsten
filaments are precoated
with little chunks
of pure metal.
And when heated to
several thousand degrees,
the metals begin
to evaporate atoms.
Those atoms leave and travel
straight through the vacuum
to form a shiny, mirror
finish on whatever they hit.
In this case, the casket parts.
Now, why not just paint
these with regular spray guns?
You can't get a shiny metal
finish like this with a paint.
UNGER: With our coating dry,
the hardware is bolted on
while the caskets
move on down the line.
The crews in this
part of the plant
work at amazing speeds.
They'll churn out 68
caskets in an hour.
Installing the bedding,
a very delicate operation,
is the final step of assembly.
Right now, we're just kind of,
really just kind of pimping
the final ride, as they say.
Our custom casket designed
to withstand the test of time
is now complete.
Early on, we installed
an important component,
the one that slows
nature's corrosive assault.
That innocuous-looking
piece of zinc
might help a
casket outlive us all.
It is very early in the morning.
It is 6:30 a.m.,
and this place is
a hive of activity.
Pardon the comparison,
but it's appropriate.
We're in the home
of the most recognizable tube
of lip balm perhaps in the world,
Burt's Bees.
Everyone loves this.
Everyone recognizes it.
But it is so much more than
just a little tube of lip balm.
Have you seen Burt?
- Who?
- Burt?
- No.
- No.
Burt? Have you seen Burt? No.
At the Burt's factory in
Durham, North Carolina,
they churn out over 16,000
tubes of lip balm every day.
But before the success,
before all the buzz,
there was a modest beginning.
In the early '80s, Burt
Shavitz was selling honey
out of the back of a
pickup truck in Maine,
when he and his
partner, Roxanne Quimby,
decided to take some
of the excess beeswax
and make candles and
lip balm in their kitchen.
Eighteen years later,
Burt and Roxanne's recipe
has remained the same...
A combination of vitamins,
oils, and, of course, beeswax.
Now, since beeswax
is such a key ingredient,
before our assembly,
we head for the hive.
Now, Burt's imports its
wax, tons of it, from overseas.
But we're on a budget.
So it's off to the Brushy
Mountain Bee Farm
in Moravian Falls,
North Carolina.
All right, Professor.
Let's suit up.
- How'd you get done so quick?
- I don't know.
I probably made a mistake,
and I'll pay for it later.
Now, these little workers
are very industrious,
but they don't take too
kindly to surprise visitors.
Put smoke on them here.
Steve Forrest has
30 hives on his farm.
We'll put smoke on them here.
Is there any reason why
we're protecting protective gear,
Steve, and you're not?
Yes, because I'm worried
that you might sue
me if you get stung.
I think that's an
excellent reason.
Each hive contains
several removable frames.
Wow. Look at all that.
Within each frame is a
honeycomb covered in wax.
Beeswax is a pretty
nice white color.
I've seen beeswax in
various different colors.
What gives the
beeswax its color?
Well, you can
really see it here.
See how white
this is right here?
Yep.
- And how this is darker?
- Yep.
Do you know why it's darker?
Because the bees
have been walking on it.
Oh. It's like walking
on white carpet.
After the bees have
all buzzed away,
we're left with
something like this.
I would just then
take this knife,
which is kind of one
of the tools of the trade,
and scrape off these caps.
And that is pure
wax right there.
And this is how, presumably,
Burt would have
begun Burt's Bees.
Back at the plant,
we begin the process of making
lip balm at the loading dock,
where all the oils
arrive by the barrelful.
All right.
Is there anything I should
know before I pull this out?
- It's heavy.
- It's heavy. Okay.
So I pull this baby out.
- Oh!
- Whoa!
[Laughter]
That's not good.
Not bad.
I got three tubs of aloe juice.
What am I going to do with it?
You're going to sample it now.
Then we measure out
two of the lip balm's
key ingredients,
sunflower oil and
peppermint oil.
Just remove any dust, dirt
that might get in the product.
Okay, all right.
So, how much peppermint oil
are you going to put in there?
We're going to get
about 15 kilos in there.
Twist this?
It's usually what
you do to a spout.
You know, Mike,
this is my first day.
You got to go easy on me.
I don't want to overfill
my container, right?
No, you don't want to do that.
Dude, you're over.
Classic overpour.
Oh, geez.
The oils in Burt's recipe...
Sunflower, coconut,
peppermint...
They all play important roles.
First, they act as
moisturizers to soothe dry lips.
But they also give lip balm
its structure, consistency.
Here's how.
All these oils contain fats.
But some fats melt at lower
temperatures than others.
The exact combination
of these fatty oils
will help produce a balm
that will melt on your
mouth and not in the tube.
The next ingredient we
measure out is vitamin "E."
The vitamin "E"
acetate? You got it.
Hello, vitamin "E."
Oh, yeah.
- That's a lot of lip balm.
- All right.
[Whistles]
Ever just fall asleep right here
watching the 25
kilos of vitamin "E"?
The potential to basically
cover yourself in oil at Burt's Bees
is great, isn't it?
I mean, I'm already
just, like, covered in...
I don't know... Some
kind of vitamin "E."
And I've got some peppermint
oil on me and beeswax.
You go home, you just smell
like a big tube of lip balm?
Sure do.
- You do?
- Yeah.
- People give you funny looks?
- Yeah.
Burt's then heats
the ingredients
to a temperature above
120 degrees Fahrenheit,
then slowly cools it down.
All right. It's time
to test the wax.
In North Carolina, the
folks here at Burt's Bees
are busy attending to
the world's chapped lips.
Burt's kitchen is about
the size of a football field,
and the batch of
lip balm I'm making
will eventually
fill 100,000 tubes.
We started mixing our oils
into a heated compound,
and now it's time for
Burt's famous wax.
So I'm here with Keith,
the compounding specialist.
I have my... Which spatula
am I going to use here?
Normally, we're
going to use this one.
This one is to get all the...
Keith, Keith, this is
for, like, pancakes.
No, but you can't
use this spatula
for the small containers.
It's really the big step
where we add the beeswax.
This is. This is the hard work.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Okay.
- Bend at the knee?
- Bend at the knees.
I'm going to dump
this whole box?
You're going to
dump the whole box.
Is there any kind of
method to this part?
No, you just practice.
Have you ever slipped
and fallen into the beeswax?
- No, I haven't.
- Okay.
Beeswax has a high
melting temperature.
It forms the
infrastructure for a hive,
keeping its solid structure
even on the hottest day.
Beeswax consists
of long molecules
that cling to one
another strongly enough
to create a firm solid
that's still pliable.
It's an ideal base for lip balm.
Now just five more
boxes. Piece of cake.
Five more boxes?
Five more.
Could you do it?
Do you go to a
gym, or do you just...
No, I get all my...
This is all the exercise.
This seems like a lot of work.
But consider this.
It took bees from around
25 hives an entire year
to fill just one of these boxes.
But there's one more ingredient
that's gonna help
hold Burt's together.
BLOOMFIELD: This
waxy substance, lanolin,
is a semi-solid at
room temperature,
but it melts near
body temperature.
It's one of nature's
best moisturizers,
consisting of molecules
that are easily
absorbed into the skin,
where they retain moisture.
UNGER: The mixture is heated
up until the beeswax melts.
Now, the final two ingredients
are peppermint
oil and vitamin "E."
They both break down at
temperatures over 130 degrees.
So they'll go in last.
Are you sure there's not an
easier way to do this, Keith?
No, that's the easiest
way to do it right now,
is just to put it in
there and dump it.
About three dozen
gallons or so should do it.
You guys don't waste a
drop here at Burt's, do you?
Try not to.
Now, seriously, though,
all this oil and all of
these things you use,
how do you clean all this up?
Usually, we use a mop.
A mop.
Well, we're all done with
our melting and our mixing,
and we're ready to take
this concoction out of here
and pour it into the tubes.
With some help
from Fernando Chia.
I'm supposed to
put these in now.
- Is that right?
- Exactly.
And they need to be straight.
They need to be
straight in here. Okay.
And we normally use two
hands, but we understand.
Everyone at Burt's is so polite.
Feel a little snap?
That snapped.
Turn it over and
place it on the belt.
Let's make some balms.
It takes just 10 minutes
for the molten balm to solidify.
So I flip it over like this...
Use your thumbs. Exactly.
And voilà.
Pretty impressive.
Oh, yeah. That's nice.
This is a good year, right here.
No more fumbling for the cap.
This machine actually puts
all the caps on the tubes
in succession with precision
without missing a beat.
Now I face the greatest
challenge of the day.
So, Ella, how
much time do I have
to basically fill one
row of this box?
You have 3.3
seconds to fill one row.
That's ridiculous, Ella. 3.3.
The ladies down the
line are handling it.
And already...
So, on this line,
we need to get
8,000 boxes off today?
8,000 boxes.
And with a clown
like me on the line,
how many do you
think you'll get off?
500.
That bad?
This is some serious "I Love
Lucy" stuff going on right here.
I can't believe they
do this in 3.3 seconds.
It's just really ridiculous.
That one's upside down. Darn it.
How do you get your
fingers to move that fast?
Oh, that was 8.08 seconds.
I'm actually adding
time as I work.
Somebody put this
one upside down.
Who did it?
Anyone?
Now, what happens
if you fall behind 3.3?
That person would
be switched out.
Switched out.
So you would move me
out, put me in a new position?
Yes, I would. In a heartbeat.
All right.
Oh, no.
I am so sorry.
I want to apologize to
the whole line for that one.
Well, that is the "A
to Z" of Burt's Bees.
Hopefully, everyone who ordered
Burt's will get their products.
But with me on the line, I'm not
sure they're going to get them.
I'm not sure they're going
to get out the door today.
Oh, man.
all the stuff in our world,
there's the story of
how it comes to be.
Hello. I'm Brian Unger.
I'm Professor Lou Bloomfield.
UNGER: From the drawing
board to the assembly line,
it's how the ordinary is
actually extraordinary.
On "Some Assembly Required"...
Guitars, caskets, and lip balm.
UNGER: One of the first
solid-body electric guitars
was invented by jazz
musician Les Paul in 1941.
Now, in the early '50s, he
joined forces with Gibson.
And these days, worldwide,
this guitar is pretty
much the standard
for novices and
professional players.
When Les Paul, the
legendary jazz guitarist,
helped Gibson launch
this masterpiece in 1952,
right away, the signature
sound and design
of the Les Paul model
made it the choice for guitar
gods throughout rock 'n' roll.
The Gibson guitar
factory in Nashville
is where craftsmanship
and science
make beautiful music together.
Hundreds of guitars
leave here every day.
The factory here in Tennessee
is literally heaven for guitars.
We start with
wood, five kinds of it.
That's what it takes to produce
the trademark Les Paul sound.
You know, the shop here at
Gibson is a working woodshop.
It's dangerous.
A lot of saws.
A lot of people riding around
on pallets when they shouldn't be.
The guitar body of a Les
Paul is mostly mahogany.
That's used for
structural stability.
But it's wet when it
comes through the door.
That's a problem.
Wet wood leads to warping,
and warping leads
to imperfect sound.
So, first, we lower the
percentage of moisture
carefully.
We don't want the wood to turn
and to curl and
all that kind of stuff.
We want it dry so that it's
always gonna be straight.
UNGER: So, you're
looking for a goal of 10%?
10% and under is
what you're looking for.
A conventional oven
would take about a month
to bake the water out.
So to speed things up,
Gibson uses a vacuum kiln,
one that effectively
vacuums away the moisture,
reaching the 10%
target in just two days.
The way it works is
to take away the air
and to lower the
pressure inside the kiln
while it's cooking the wood.
BLOOMFIELD:
Lower the air pressure,
and water's boiling point
plunges more than 100 degrees.
In fact, by the time you get
to the pressure inside this kiln,
water boils at only 90
degrees Fahrenheit.
UNGER: Our baked
mahogany emerges
like buns from the oven.
We're close to
turning all this wood
into the bottom of
a Les Paul guitar.
This is actually warm.
Yeah.
Now it's over to Bob Nesman,
who literally pieces together
the bottom of the guitar.
Now, most people
think guitar bottoms
are one big chunk of wood.
They're actually three
pieces glued together.
- What do you call this?
- Just a glue wheel.
UNGER: The glue wheel.
90 guitar bottoms get on and off
this Ferris wheel-looking
contraption every hour.
Is there a trick?
My first body.
The glue is dry in
just a couple of hours,
and then it's into the router.
Computers tell the router
where to carve out
spaces in the guitar body.
Now, in these cavities
Gibson will install
hardware down the line.
This is a deafening,
dusty process.
Then these guitar bottoms,
the backs, finally gets tops,
which become the
fronts of the guitars.
Now, the tops are made of maple.
It's a beautiful wood.
Some call it a tone wood
because of the rich
sound it helps produce.
The moment I get cocky is
the moment I break something.
All right.
Top, meet your bottom.
Good old glue with about
1,000 pounds per square inch
marry the mahogany and maple.
MAN: Excellent work.
Then I tangle with a
terrifying band saw.
That saw's a
little intimidating.
Wow. Look at that.
Back into the router,
and this assembly is
really starting to hum.
Of course, we still need
to cut the neck of the guitar.
Now, we've got to add more
wood to one end of the neck
to make it wide
enough to hold the keys.
This is the neck of the guitar.
Yeah, that's right.
At the end, of course,
the end of every Gibson
neck is wider with...
- What do you call those?
- Wing blocks.
You put wing blocks on them.
So, right now,
it's just basically...
A piece of wood.
- Yeah, a piece of wood.
- Yeah.
The wing blocks go in the clamp.
The neck is glued.
UNGER: All right. It's cooking.
Same thing as your
microwave at home.
Same microwave oven
you'd have at home.
That's right.
George, there's radiation
coming out of here,
and we don't want to
fry your privates, George.
And in just seconds,
our necks get their wings.
The initial woodwork is done.
And with that, we've
created the bones
of the most famous
guitar in the world.
Now our neck needs some metal.
When you tighten
all the strings,
they tend to pull
the neck forward
so that it bows like this.
That makes it hard to
keep the guitar in tune.
The original solution
to this problem
was to use an
awkwardly thick neck.
But then one day someone
at Gibson had a brilliant idea.
They cut a slot in the neck
that's deeper in the middle
than at the ends and
inserted a metal truss.
When they tighten
this truss now,
it pushes the middle forward so
the whole neck arches like this.
Not only does that help
it fight the string tension
and keep in tune,
but they can adjust it
over the life of the guitar
to accommodate changes
in climate or temperature.
With their truss rods in place,
the necks move down the line
to meet up with a critical
part of the guitar, the frets.
These are the frets.
This is one continuous fret.
But essentially, each piece
will be a fret on a guitar neck.
There is a ridge on
the end of this fret,
and it is this edge
that's going to fit
down in the precut
groove already in the neck.
It takes a while to catch on.
Every fret is installed
by hand at Gibson.
It's careful, expert work.
It's just one example
of the passion they
pour into these guitars.
Gibson hasn't found a machine
that has a soft enough touch
or works as fast or can
exact the high quality needed
at this critical assembly.
That's a great-looking
board. You did good.
Did I? Is that all right?
There are two
reasons for having frets.
One of them is to lift the
string off the fingerboard
so it can vibrate more clearly.
[Note vibrates]
The other is to end the
string at a very specific location
to give it a sharply
defined pitch.
When you say to give it
a sharply defined pitch,
you mean to give it a note?
Yeah.
They are put in there
at very specific locations
to create the Western scale.
Each one of these is a
note on the Western scale.
But you've got to get
the fret height right.
If the fret's too tall,
the string will hit
it as it vibrates.
The fret board is
glued to the neck,
and together with my
friend Tyler Parsons,
we fit the neck to the body
of the guitar, again by hand.
UNGER: Now, this is a
true marriage right here.
This is where the
neck meets the body.
- Is that right, Tyler?
- That is right.
Like the space shuttle
docking with the space station.
All right.
Now, how far down
this clamp do I go?
You can go into the side of it.
- Usually go right into the side.
- Oh, the side. Okay.
Then just twist it around
to the right side, right here.
The neck is actually
too big to fit the guitar.
I suppose they could make it
so it would just
slip in there nicely.
But they want to make
sure that it's custom-fit.
So that has to be done by hand,
like everything
else here at Gibson.
PARSONS: Throw some
glue on that bad boy.
Make sure it's on all surfaces.
UNGER: All surfaces.
Make sure to put
a little pressure
pushing towards
the back of the guitar
when you're pulling
down on it, too.
Kind of pull it. There
it is right there, man.
- Right on here?
- Right on there, man.
The Gibson guitar factory
in Nashville, Tennessee.
This place has produced one
of the most popular instruments
on the planet, the
Les Paul electric guitar.
Now, a vintage Les
Paul electric guitar
can fetch from $100,000
to $500,000 at auction.
Lou and I are making
our own classic six-strings.
We've taken the raw
lumber, baked it, cut it,
glued it, and shaped it.
Well, we have what
is an assembled guitar
for the first time.
This is a real Gibson.
Now, we're ready to put
some paint on this wood,
and even the color prep, all
the sanding that goes into it,
is done by hand.
When the wood is smooth as silk,
we're ready to paint the
classic sunburst finish
on a Les Paul.
They paint the guitars
with quick-drying lacquer.
That's important, given
they apply up to six coats.
- What do you think?
- It's all right for a rookie.
All right for a rookie?
Ouch, Karen. Ouch.
Through trial and error,
Gibson settled on six
as the means to achieve
a really rich, deep luster.
When the paint is dry,
it's time to tango
with a cotton wheel coated
in wax as your partner.
It's all in the hips.
I'm just going to sort
of sit back and watch
before I ruin one.
Buffing is like waxing the car.
The guitars will be so shiny
you'll be able to
see your reflection.
This is like dancing.
I mean, you got
to have a rhythm.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like we should have
a drink first before I do this.
So, kind of like this?
- Kind of.
- Kind of?
Sort of, but not really?
Use your body
more than your arms.
- Just put my hips into it?
- Yeah, yeah.
Lean into it a little bit more.
Wow. Look at that.
Congratulations.
Do you see yourself in it?
[Laughter]
Buffed my first guitar, yo.
Oh, she's pretty, huh?
Nice and polished.
Of course, at this
stage, merely air guitar.
And I will spare you my
nerdy air-guitar moves.
But we're moving
into another room here,
and this is a very
special place.
This is a place where some
metal strings get together
with a couple of magnets,
and together what they
produce is pretty electrifying.
So, how does all
this become electric?
Well, the answer begins
with magnets inside
the body of the guitar.
This has always stumped me,
this functioning of the pickup.
How does it work exactly?
You really are
generating electricity
with the vibration of string,
and it's done magnetically.
BLOOMFIELD: Inside every
pickup, there are U-shaped magnets.
Magnets like to
be complete loops.
So they need a top piece,
and that's the steel string.
When a string is plucked,
it drags the magnetic
field back and forth,
and that motion
generates electricity.
That electric power
flows through the cord
to the amplifier to the speaker,
which shakes the air
at the pitch, or note,
of the plucked string.
UNGER: Hardware's
in. Time for the strings.
So our Les Paul is
nearing its final destination.
And it's just about to
make beautiful music.
- Right, Kirby?
- That's right.
Now, they call you the stringer.
Now, I wonder what
you do here, Kirby Beets.
Well, it's magic.
This is the tail
piece, obviously.
Right.
And you basically
just, in advance,
feed these strings through there
so you can just,
in this assembly,
just pop it on there and
move it down the line?
Exactly.
Just tightening
them up a little bit.
Voilà.
BLOOMFIELD: Now,
there are three things
that determine the
pitch of a guitar string.
The first is its inertia.
The more inertia the string has,
the slower it vibrates
and the lower the pitch.
The second way to
affect pitch is tension.
As you turn the key here
and tighten the string up,
its pitch goes up.
[Note playing]
Finally, there's the
length of the string.
As you're playing the guitar,
you're shortening the
string so it vibrates faster.
- From this note...
- [Low note plays]
- to this note.
- [High note plays]
A guitar will easily go
out of tune or lose its pitch
if the neck bends
under the pressure
of the tightened strings.
Remember that truss
rod we placed in the neck?
This neck is underbowed.
You'll see the
tension of the strings,
if you can look down
there, right through here.
So, that neck has a dip.
The truss rod is going
to correct that for us?
Yes. All you got to
do is turn it clockwise
about an eighth of a turn
and see that it's straight.
Oh, yeah. It is straight.
I've been in this
plant for 12 years,
and I can look
at a top like this
and just be knocked out by it.
You know, I can say, "Man,
that is just like, you know.
Somebody's really going
to be lucky to get this guitar."
They're going to find
this and fall in love with it,
just like I did mine.
See if it works.
Before we can ship
it, there's one last step.
Time to tune our
classic six-string.
[Notes playing]
It's a chromatic tuner.
It picks the string out.
I'm hitting the "E" string,
and it's showing you it's an "E"
and it's showing
you that it's a little flat.
I bring it up, and I...
[Notes playing]
I'm gonna have to do a
bend buzz, make sure...
Make sure that
everything plays right on it.
Could be a bad note somewhere.
This is very exciting for us
because we've
seen this guitar go
from a couple of pieces of
wood in your lumber yard...
Yes, sir.
To your hands,
where someone's actually
making music come from it.
What is there left to say?
- Sold!
- [Laughs]
As they say, nothing is
certain except death and taxes.
No matter what your
preoccupation with the former,
in the end, six feet under is a
highly corrosive environment.
Batesville, Indiana,
is home to an
American industrial giant,
the Batesville Casket Company.
It's one of the largest
manufacturers of caskets
in the world.
About 1/3 of the caskets
here at Batesville
Casket Company
are made from wood.
The other 2/3 made from metal.
Each day, tons of
metal are cut, stamped,
welded, and adorned,
turned into custom caskets.
So to get an idea of how much
metal they go through every day
here at Batesville
Casket Company,
imagine five of these
filled with giant coils
of steel, copper...
and bronze.
Caskets come in many
shapes and varieties.
But the ones we're
making have a feature
that adds to the
lifetime of the casket.
It's the metal ones that hold
up best against the elements.
And it's what they
do to the metal
that's the key to the
casket's longevity.
They start with the raw
material for the caskets.
Here, giant steel sheets,
some 3,000 square feet of it,
are cut into rectangles.
From here, the newly cut
sheets are sent to be pressed
and turned into shapes
that will become
the tops, the bottoms,
and sides of the casket.
And as you can imagine,
pressing or shaping steel
requires tremendous force.
BLOOMFIELD:
Steel is tough stuff.
But as anyone who's ever
had a fender bender knows,
it can dent.
Engineers call that yielding.
And they use it to shape
normally elastic steel
so that it changes
shape forever.
BLOOMFIELD: It
takes huge pressure,
about 450 pounds
per square inch,
to make steel yield to
the casket maker's will.
UNGER: It's in the next
step that a key process occurs
that makes the casket
last a really long time.
Well, I'm here with Charlie,
and we are applying
the sacrificial anode.
And it has something
to do with rust, right?
Huh?
The whole sacrificial thing
has something to do with rust?
Yeah.
Anytime you're talking
about sacrificial anodes
is a time for Lou.
BLOOMFIELD: A
casket will corrode
much like a battery
will lose its power.
When it's buried,
the casket will lose
positive metal particles, ions,
to the soil.
In other words, it will corrode.
When you add the
zinc sacrificial anode,
that anode strengthens
the casket's negative charge,
attracting positive metal ions
and stopping them from leaving.
It's that corroding anode
that keeps the casket intact.
That's why it's
referred to as sacrificial.
UNGER: This zinc bar is
the most important weapon
in the battle against corrosion.
But it's not the
nicest-looking adornment.
So it's attached to the bottom.
While bottoms are being
pressed in one area of the factory,
tops are being
cranked out in another.
All right.
That thing coming down
is literally like a building.
You can feel the ground
shake underneath you
when that puts that amount
of pressure, only 1,500 tons,
down on this metal.
Shove it up in there.
Oh, I see. Like that.
Now we're going to do
four of these every minute,
and by the end
of an 8-hour shift,
we're going to have
about 1,200 casket lids.
I got to do two
jobs at once here.
I'm telling you. It's tough.
My very tolerant
coworker, Bob Prickle,
rolls lubricant on
the edges of the steel
so it doesn't tear under
the force of the press.
Now, this press could
easily take off a limb.
So Batesville has installed
an interesting safety feature,
an invisible light beam that
spans the mouth of the press.
Break that plane,
like I just did...
Oh, did I shut that down?
And the whole
production line shuts down.
It's timing. Timing
is everything.
By just pointing over there, I
shut this whole thing down?
All you got to do is
break that line right there.
I just stepped in front
of these light curtains,
and I shut not only
this machine down
but that machine, that robot,
and the two other
presses down the line.
Is the robot okay?
Oh, Albert's cool.
Over the years,
state-of-the-art robots
have joined the line.
Here in the primary assembly
area for the casket lids,
the lid takes shape for
the first time on this press.
It's handed off to
this robot, Albert,
who feeds it into
a second press.
Here the edges are trimmed off,
the scrap is put
on to this line,
fed out that way on this
conveyor, put into a Dumpster,
and hauled out of the building.
The second robot, Obi,
hands off the lid to a third press,
where the edges
are curled under,
a flange is placed
on the casket top,
and it's fed down this line,
where an antirust
wash is placed on the lid,
it's heated, and dried.
Well, this fourth and last press
here on the line makes these,
the sides that go like this.
And now that we have
all the sides of our casket,
including the tops
and the bottoms,
it's time to weld these together
and assemble them in a
different part of the plant
here at Batesville.
At Batesville Casket
Company in Batesville, Indiana,
we've shaped our raw
metal into the pieces
that will add up to a casket.
Now, with the tops and
bottoms and sides all pressed,
it's time for the next step.
I'm going to weld all
the pieces together
to form the shell of the casket.
- Ready to weld, I believe.
- Ready to weld.
As you go down that weld,
how do you get that nice,
smooth weld down the seam?
Take it slow down the seam.
- So I'm going too fast?
- Yeah.
You got to go slow.
You can't go fast.
Did I hit the seam
at least this time?
Most of the way.
UNGER: I messed up there.
I can work with that.
You can work with that.
He can work with it. Whoo-hoo!
Now once the shell is
complete, it moves down the line,
where we weld on the bottom.
You probably didn't know
that you can weld under water.
But here it is.
This seam welder is tying
together two sheets of steel.
BLOOMFIELD: A
tremendous electric current
runs from a copper
wheel through the steel.
Since copper's a
great conductor,
it holds up just fine.
Steel's a poor conductor, and
it begins to melt immediately.
The water acts as a coolant,
keeping the steel
from overheating.
UNGER: This welder is automated,
but Batesville still relies on
welders like Raymond White
to push the casket through.
While that seam
welder sort of drives it,
you steer this
thing through, right?
But you've got to
have the right moves.
Watch yourself.
Lou and I have to smooth
out the man-made welds
since some of these seams
will be visible on the casket
if they're not sanded.
One of the dangers of doing this
is not so much the sparks
flying off it as you're sanding.
It's the metal filings
getting stuck inside your hair
or on your forehead,
and after you leave the line,
they drip down into your face
and sometimes get in your eyes.
Thus, the hair net,
protective eyewear...
and the flame-retardant
underwear we're wearing, too.
A century of knowledge has
made Batesville's assembly
a remarkably
choreographed operation.
The lids we pressed earlier
will soon be united
with their shells
for the first time.
For most caskets
manufactured by Batesville,
the lids will be cut in half.
Next up, a robotic
header welder,
a totally automated
process that's totally cool.
Now, I'm with my
friend Brian here.
We're at the header welder.
And this is the header.
This is basically the end
in the assembly for the lids.
Caskets built with 2-piece lids
need headers built into each
half for structural support.
So it rotates and then
the welding begins.
The robot does it all.
Welds the headers into
place and grinds them smooth.
Well, if there was
a nerve center
to the Batesville
Casket Company,
this would kind of be it.
This is sort of a nexus
where caskets are
coming in from all angles.
Some of them are
going in to be painted.
Some of them are going
along the top to be brushed.
Some of them are
going to be primed.
And, really, for the first
time in this assembly,
these caskets stop
just being metal boxes
and start taking on a
little more significance.
So, inside this room, a very
small room, confined room,
the delicate process
of painting goes on.
So delicate we're
not allowed to do it.
Now, because these caskets
require a flawless finish,
there's no room
for rookie mistakes.
So Lou and I are
relegated to the sidelines
during the critical
painting phase.
BLOOMFIELD: The paint
formula is the final touch
that extends the
life of the casket.
Even if there is a flaw,
chemicals in the paint
react with the environment,
resulting in a
closure over that flaw,
halting the corrosion process
and sealing out moisture.
UNGER: When the paint's dry,
it's time for the
hardware to be installed.
Working with the crew,
we'll install more than 24
different hardware components
to each casket.
In these chambers they can paint
thousands of fancy, decorative
elements in a single shift.
This is where all the
ornamentation on the casket
is painted,
but they do it in these
giant washers and dryers.
It's not paint. These are
giant vacuum chambers.
And they're putting real metal
coatings on even plastic parts.
BLOOMFIELD: Tungsten
filaments are precoated
with little chunks
of pure metal.
And when heated to
several thousand degrees,
the metals begin
to evaporate atoms.
Those atoms leave and travel
straight through the vacuum
to form a shiny, mirror
finish on whatever they hit.
In this case, the casket parts.
Now, why not just paint
these with regular spray guns?
You can't get a shiny metal
finish like this with a paint.
UNGER: With our coating dry,
the hardware is bolted on
while the caskets
move on down the line.
The crews in this
part of the plant
work at amazing speeds.
They'll churn out 68
caskets in an hour.
Installing the bedding,
a very delicate operation,
is the final step of assembly.
Right now, we're just kind of,
really just kind of pimping
the final ride, as they say.
Our custom casket designed
to withstand the test of time
is now complete.
Early on, we installed
an important component,
the one that slows
nature's corrosive assault.
That innocuous-looking
piece of zinc
might help a
casket outlive us all.
It is very early in the morning.
It is 6:30 a.m.,
and this place is
a hive of activity.
Pardon the comparison,
but it's appropriate.
We're in the home
of the most recognizable tube
of lip balm perhaps in the world,
Burt's Bees.
Everyone loves this.
Everyone recognizes it.
But it is so much more than
just a little tube of lip balm.
Have you seen Burt?
- Who?
- Burt?
- No.
- No.
Burt? Have you seen Burt? No.
At the Burt's factory in
Durham, North Carolina,
they churn out over 16,000
tubes of lip balm every day.
But before the success,
before all the buzz,
there was a modest beginning.
In the early '80s, Burt
Shavitz was selling honey
out of the back of a
pickup truck in Maine,
when he and his
partner, Roxanne Quimby,
decided to take some
of the excess beeswax
and make candles and
lip balm in their kitchen.
Eighteen years later,
Burt and Roxanne's recipe
has remained the same...
A combination of vitamins,
oils, and, of course, beeswax.
Now, since beeswax
is such a key ingredient,
before our assembly,
we head for the hive.
Now, Burt's imports its
wax, tons of it, from overseas.
But we're on a budget.
So it's off to the Brushy
Mountain Bee Farm
in Moravian Falls,
North Carolina.
All right, Professor.
Let's suit up.
- How'd you get done so quick?
- I don't know.
I probably made a mistake,
and I'll pay for it later.
Now, these little workers
are very industrious,
but they don't take too
kindly to surprise visitors.
Put smoke on them here.
Steve Forrest has
30 hives on his farm.
We'll put smoke on them here.
Is there any reason why
we're protecting protective gear,
Steve, and you're not?
Yes, because I'm worried
that you might sue
me if you get stung.
I think that's an
excellent reason.
Each hive contains
several removable frames.
Wow. Look at all that.
Within each frame is a
honeycomb covered in wax.
Beeswax is a pretty
nice white color.
I've seen beeswax in
various different colors.
What gives the
beeswax its color?
Well, you can
really see it here.
See how white
this is right here?
Yep.
- And how this is darker?
- Yep.
Do you know why it's darker?
Because the bees
have been walking on it.
Oh. It's like walking
on white carpet.
After the bees have
all buzzed away,
we're left with
something like this.
I would just then
take this knife,
which is kind of one
of the tools of the trade,
and scrape off these caps.
And that is pure
wax right there.
And this is how, presumably,
Burt would have
begun Burt's Bees.
Back at the plant,
we begin the process of making
lip balm at the loading dock,
where all the oils
arrive by the barrelful.
All right.
Is there anything I should
know before I pull this out?
- It's heavy.
- It's heavy. Okay.
So I pull this baby out.
- Oh!
- Whoa!
[Laughter]
That's not good.
Not bad.
I got three tubs of aloe juice.
What am I going to do with it?
You're going to sample it now.
Then we measure out
two of the lip balm's
key ingredients,
sunflower oil and
peppermint oil.
Just remove any dust, dirt
that might get in the product.
Okay, all right.
So, how much peppermint oil
are you going to put in there?
We're going to get
about 15 kilos in there.
Twist this?
It's usually what
you do to a spout.
You know, Mike,
this is my first day.
You got to go easy on me.
I don't want to overfill
my container, right?
No, you don't want to do that.
Dude, you're over.
Classic overpour.
Oh, geez.
The oils in Burt's recipe...
Sunflower, coconut,
peppermint...
They all play important roles.
First, they act as
moisturizers to soothe dry lips.
But they also give lip balm
its structure, consistency.
Here's how.
All these oils contain fats.
But some fats melt at lower
temperatures than others.
The exact combination
of these fatty oils
will help produce a balm
that will melt on your
mouth and not in the tube.
The next ingredient we
measure out is vitamin "E."
The vitamin "E"
acetate? You got it.
Hello, vitamin "E."
Oh, yeah.
- That's a lot of lip balm.
- All right.
[Whistles]
Ever just fall asleep right here
watching the 25
kilos of vitamin "E"?
The potential to basically
cover yourself in oil at Burt's Bees
is great, isn't it?
I mean, I'm already
just, like, covered in...
I don't know... Some
kind of vitamin "E."
And I've got some peppermint
oil on me and beeswax.
You go home, you just smell
like a big tube of lip balm?
Sure do.
- You do?
- Yeah.
- People give you funny looks?
- Yeah.
Burt's then heats
the ingredients
to a temperature above
120 degrees Fahrenheit,
then slowly cools it down.
All right. It's time
to test the wax.
In North Carolina, the
folks here at Burt's Bees
are busy attending to
the world's chapped lips.
Burt's kitchen is about
the size of a football field,
and the batch of
lip balm I'm making
will eventually
fill 100,000 tubes.
We started mixing our oils
into a heated compound,
and now it's time for
Burt's famous wax.
So I'm here with Keith,
the compounding specialist.
I have my... Which spatula
am I going to use here?
Normally, we're
going to use this one.
This one is to get all the...
Keith, Keith, this is
for, like, pancakes.
No, but you can't
use this spatula
for the small containers.
It's really the big step
where we add the beeswax.
This is. This is the hard work.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Okay.
- Bend at the knee?
- Bend at the knees.
I'm going to dump
this whole box?
You're going to
dump the whole box.
Is there any kind of
method to this part?
No, you just practice.
Have you ever slipped
and fallen into the beeswax?
- No, I haven't.
- Okay.
Beeswax has a high
melting temperature.
It forms the
infrastructure for a hive,
keeping its solid structure
even on the hottest day.
Beeswax consists
of long molecules
that cling to one
another strongly enough
to create a firm solid
that's still pliable.
It's an ideal base for lip balm.
Now just five more
boxes. Piece of cake.
Five more boxes?
Five more.
Could you do it?
Do you go to a
gym, or do you just...
No, I get all my...
This is all the exercise.
This seems like a lot of work.
But consider this.
It took bees from around
25 hives an entire year
to fill just one of these boxes.
But there's one more ingredient
that's gonna help
hold Burt's together.
BLOOMFIELD: This
waxy substance, lanolin,
is a semi-solid at
room temperature,
but it melts near
body temperature.
It's one of nature's
best moisturizers,
consisting of molecules
that are easily
absorbed into the skin,
where they retain moisture.
UNGER: The mixture is heated
up until the beeswax melts.
Now, the final two ingredients
are peppermint
oil and vitamin "E."
They both break down at
temperatures over 130 degrees.
So they'll go in last.
Are you sure there's not an
easier way to do this, Keith?
No, that's the easiest
way to do it right now,
is just to put it in
there and dump it.
About three dozen
gallons or so should do it.
You guys don't waste a
drop here at Burt's, do you?
Try not to.
Now, seriously, though,
all this oil and all of
these things you use,
how do you clean all this up?
Usually, we use a mop.
A mop.
Well, we're all done with
our melting and our mixing,
and we're ready to take
this concoction out of here
and pour it into the tubes.
With some help
from Fernando Chia.
I'm supposed to
put these in now.
- Is that right?
- Exactly.
And they need to be straight.
They need to be
straight in here. Okay.
And we normally use two
hands, but we understand.
Everyone at Burt's is so polite.
Feel a little snap?
That snapped.
Turn it over and
place it on the belt.
Let's make some balms.
It takes just 10 minutes
for the molten balm to solidify.
So I flip it over like this...
Use your thumbs. Exactly.
And voilà.
Pretty impressive.
Oh, yeah. That's nice.
This is a good year, right here.
No more fumbling for the cap.
This machine actually puts
all the caps on the tubes
in succession with precision
without missing a beat.
Now I face the greatest
challenge of the day.
So, Ella, how
much time do I have
to basically fill one
row of this box?
You have 3.3
seconds to fill one row.
That's ridiculous, Ella. 3.3.
The ladies down the
line are handling it.
And already...
So, on this line,
we need to get
8,000 boxes off today?
8,000 boxes.
And with a clown
like me on the line,
how many do you
think you'll get off?
500.
That bad?
This is some serious "I Love
Lucy" stuff going on right here.
I can't believe they
do this in 3.3 seconds.
It's just really ridiculous.
That one's upside down. Darn it.
How do you get your
fingers to move that fast?
Oh, that was 8.08 seconds.
I'm actually adding
time as I work.
Somebody put this
one upside down.
Who did it?
Anyone?
Now, what happens
if you fall behind 3.3?
That person would
be switched out.
Switched out.
So you would move me
out, put me in a new position?
Yes, I would. In a heartbeat.
All right.
Oh, no.
I am so sorry.
I want to apologize to
the whole line for that one.
Well, that is the "A
to Z" of Burt's Bees.
Hopefully, everyone who ordered
Burt's will get their products.
But with me on the line, I'm not
sure they're going to get them.
I'm not sure they're going
to get out the door today.
Oh, man.