Good, Make Every Day A
Kennedy.
There We Go.
He Was Not The First Person To Ever Share That Sentiment.
He Was, However, The First Person Who Ever Shared It With Me
After Hearing Me Complain One Day
About The Quality Of The Hammer, I Was Using
And Its Inability To Hit The Nail That I Was Aiming For.
My Pop Only Went To The Seventh Grade,
But Among His Many Talents Was
A Natural Ability To Turn A Tool, Any Tool,
Into An Extension Of His Own Arm.
That Was The Thing That Made Him A True Tradesman
And A Master Craftsman.
This Episode Is Not About Carl Noble.
It Is Instead About The People Who Make The Tools
That Guys Like My Grandfather Relied Upon,
Because It's That Ability,
The Ability To Produce Tools On A Mass Scale,
That Is Most Responsible For This Thing We Call Civilization
And Entirely Responsible For
This Episode Of "how America Works."
[exciting Music]
Whether It's A Pair Of Pliers Or A Power Drill,
A Screwdriver Or A Circular Saw,
Tools Are Absolutely Central To Our Existence,
Not Just As Americans, But As A Species.
They Build Our Homes, Shape Our Cities,
And Can Be Thanked For
Pretty Much Every Man-made, Object On The Planet.
That's Why, In The US, It Takes Dozens Of Tool Manufacturers
To Keep Our Country Well-equipped For Any Job,
And, These Days,
With American Infrastructure Growing Like Never Before,
Every Last One Of Them Is Racing To Crank Out The Tools
Needed To Make All That Possible.
Take Channel lock, Inc., For Example.
Here In Western Pennsylvania, This Seven-acre Facility
Can Easily Create Some 30,000 Tools Per Day,
But With New Construction Spurring Demand,
They're Now Charged With Forging And Finishing
A Far More Ambitious 60,000 Of Them By Quitting Time,
And At The Leading End Of That Effort
Are Forgers Like Todd Fleet,
[exciting Music]
He'll Be Responsible For Hammering Out
Some 14,000 Pairs Of Tongue-and-groove Pliers,
An Essential Addition To Any Toolbox,
But To Hit That Kind Of Quota,
He's Gonna Need Some Help
From Two Of The Company's Resident Robots.
- [mike] Working In Tandem, These Robots Should Be been Able To
Bang Out Nearly 600 Pairs Of Pliers Per Hour,
But Since That's Still Not Enough To Hit Today's Quota,
Todd Will Have To Make Up The Difference By Hand.
Fortunately For Him, He's Well-acquainted With
The Finer Points Of Manual Forging.
- [mike] By Working Alongside The Robots,
Todd Can Increase Their Collective Output
To More Than 700 Pliers Per Hour,
Which Should Be Just Enough To Reach Their Quota,
But, This Being A Reality TV Show,
The Odd Issue Is Bound To Crop Up.
[machines Whirring]
- [mike] All Drama Aside,
Making The Tools We Need Is Not Easy,
Because With All The Heating,
Pounding, Grinding, And Polishing That Goes On Here,
Equipment Problems Really Can Be A Regular Occurrence,
But When Everything Works Just As It Should,
Each Of the Channel lock Newly Forged Parts Will Wind Up Here
In The Skilled Hands Of What Are Known As
Lap Joint Cell Operators,
Or, Simply Put, The People Who Turn Those Parts Into Pliers,
People Like Kevin Ellis.
- It's Kind Of Humbling, Actually.
I Mean, If You Think About All The People
That Will Touch A Pair Of Pliers That I Might Have Touched,
Where It'll Go, It Might End Up Anywhere.
It's Just Kind Of Interesting To Think About It, You Know?
Maybe I Touched That Clearly.
- [mike] Most Recently, Kevin's Working On A Kind Of Clear
That Will More Than Likely End Up With An Electrician,
A Model Designed To Cut And Crimp Wire,
But, To Do That, Kevin Will Need To Give Each Of Them
A Run Of One Of the Channel lock Resident CNC Machines.
- This Is Where We Do All Our Machining.
As You Can See, There Are No Cuts.
This Is Just A Blank Clear.
Load Your Pliers Like This,
Clamp It, Wait For The Pressure To Come Up,
And Then Send It In.
- [mike] CNC Machines Like This
Are Among A Toolmaker's Greatest Assets, Shaping In Minutes
What Used To Take Guys Like Kevin Hours.
- That's What They Look Like When They Come Out.
The Cutting Edge Is Cut In.
This Is A Crimped Nest And The Crux.
So Then, After We Run 'em On The Machine There,
We Come Over Here To The Welder And We Assemble.
You Lube Your Joint And Put It In A Rivet.
Your Rough Always Goes On The Top.
[exciting Music] [machine Whirring]
Now You Have A Pair Of Pliers.
- [mike] Well, A Rough One Anyway,
But To Meet Channel lock Exacting Standards,
These Pliers Still Have A Few Steps Left To Go,
Starting With A Little More Shaping.
- We're Gonna Go Over And Grind The Sides Down
To Take The Rivet Off So It's flat.
We Take It And Run It Through Like So.
Smooth-On Both Sides.
- [mike] And With That, All Kevin Has To Do Now
It Is Repeated Process Another 49 Times,
But Apparently, That's About 49 More
Then This Machine Can Handle It Right Now.
- The Heck?
Ah, It Doesn't Wanna Run.
[exciting Music]
- [mike] Like I Said, Equipment Failures Can Be
A Regular Occurrence In This Line Of Work,
And While Kevin Deals With His First Of The Day,
Elsewhere In The Building,
Another Of Channel lock Employees
Is Firing Up Some
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