OK, let’s start with the basics as explained by Herb Johns, product manager for Lafarge of Lafarge North America: “Cement is not something that you walk on. It’s not something that you drive on. That’s concrete. Cement is a powder that you mix with water to make a paste to glue sand and stone together.”

In this week’s episode of Cool Stuff Being Made we see what goes into making cement, starting at the quarry and going all the way to the loading of the trucks — three minutes to load 25 tons. There’s lots of processing in between — crushing, etc. The element that’s often overlooked but is clearly essential in the manufacturing is energy…heat to process the rock. Thirty percent of the fuel used at the Cementon, Pa., facility comes from scrap tires, which hold the equivalent of two gallons of oil a piece. And a lot is used: 33 million tires a year.

As Lafarge’s website explains: “Lafarge is the largest diversified supplier of construction materials in the U.S. and Canada. We produce and sell cement, ready-mixed concrete, gypsum wallboard, aggregates, asphalt, and related products and services. Our products are used in residential, commercial and public works construction projects across North America.”

And, yet again, our many thanks to PCN, the good people at Pennsylvania Cable Network who supplied the original video.

* Speaking of energy, from a Lafarge news release datelined Bath, Ontario:

Today, Lafarge North America Inc., the country’s largest cement manufacturer and Performance Plants Inc. (PPI) a Kingston-based biotechnology company, announced a multi-year agreement to grow and develop clean energy biomass grasses and woods for use as fuel at the Lafarge Cement Plant in Bath.

For Lafarge, the joint project is part of the company’s ongoing public commitment to reduce its carbon footprint including the use of renewable and local fuel alternatives.

“The future of the environment, our business and the communities we serve depends on reducing the need for fossil fuels to run our operations,” said Robert Cumming, environmental and public affairs manager at the Lafarge Bath Cement Plant. “We’re proud to team up with Performance Plants who has extensive knowledge in biomass technology.”

From earthenware to ceramics to a full range of stoneware, tableware and giftware, the Pfaltzgraff Company has nearly two centuries of high-quality manufacturing behind it. Like so many Pennsylvania companies, Pflatzgraff began in the minds and muscles of German immigrants, and today…well, here’s what the company website says:

The Pfaltzgraff family immigrated to the United States in the early 1800′s and set up a small potter’s wheel and kiln on their modest twenty-one acre homestead in York County, Pennsylvania. The brand has remained in York ever since. The earliest Pfaltzgraff market was defined to be “as far as you can get with a horse and a wagon and then get back home the same day.” Today you can find Pfaltzgraff products in department stores, gift and specialty stores and our own Pfaltzgraff and Farberware factory stores from coast to coast. In addition, Pfaltzgraff products are available on this website, and through our popular catalogs.

In today’s “Cool Stuff Being Made” tour, Fred Botterbusch, vice president for manufacturing, takes us from clay to cup at the Thomasville facility, one of four manufacturing operations in the York, Pa., vicinity. For cups? It starts with the handle.

To our friends at the Pennsylvania Cable Network, we say “Danke” for the underlying video for this factory tour.

And to the all the good people at Pfaltzgraff, we say good luck and best wishes on your bicentennial. 2011 is just a few years away.

Changing, adapting, improving and innovating is a constant process — and constant demand — for many manufacturers, and Matric is a prime example of this principle. The company Matric Limited began in 1971 with a customer-oriented philosophy focused on providing quality products for radio hobbyists and technicians, has repeatedly expanded its facilities and products to manufacture electronic circuit boards, keyboards and electronic remote devices.

In this week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made” tours, the company’s sales manager, Kirk Byerly, walks us through process of manufacturing an electronic circuit board — including the use of a variety of high-tech machines run by skilled employees. The company makes products to order, e.g., printed circuit boards – electronics wireless products, fieldbus products, software and 3D modeling.

The company’s website is www.matric.com, and there’s a good company history here.

Have we mentioned what a good group of people there is at PCN, the Pennsylvania Cable Network that provides the videos for this series? Well, they are.

This week we head to Broomall, Pennsylvania to climb the spiral staircases of “The Iron Shop,” an 80-year-old family business and the leading manufacturer of spiral staircase kits. The New York Post did a nice feature on the company this year, so allow to excerpt.

Spiral staircases don’t only look good, they also save space — and can even make you money.

So says Allen Cohen, President of The Iron Shop, which sells do-it-yourself spiral staircase kits online.

Cohen also runs M. Cohen and Sons, which creates glamorous staircases for companies, residences and shops like Gucci’s new 56th Street and Fifth Avenue location — a grand concoction of bronze, steel and glass that debuted this month.

For an average Manhattan loft, a spiral staircase can cost as little as $2,000 and take up 32 square feet.

That’s a lot less than the average 80 square feet that a regular straight, boring staircase takes up.

By saving 48 square feet, Cohen calculates, you’ve just increased the value of your apartment by $48,000 — since the average Manhattan apartment runs $1,000 a square foot.

We see part of the Gucci stairway in today’s video. Allen also gives us a tour of the facilities,  showing us the incredible power of compressed water (and garnets) to cut through metal, as well as the high-quality efficiency of robotic welders. The Iron Shop also builds its own custom machinery to make the metal products to the customer’s demands. But still, forging and old-style riveting are used, so you get a mixture of Old World practices and modern technology.

To the Pennsylvania Cable Network, we say THANK YOU for shooting and sharing the video.

This week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made” takes us to the American cigar capital of …Scranton, Pa.? You bet. As Dominic Keating, company president, tells us on our factory tour, Avanti Cigar Company is the nation’s largest producer of all-tobacco cigars, exclusively. From the company’s website:

With prices that start at 45 cents each and top out at a dollar and a quarter, the cigar lines produced by Avanti Cigar Company are not status symbols. But for the serious connoisseur who wants to experience a unique, mild, and flavorful smoke, these Italian style cheroots are anything but a step down. “We feel it’s our turn now to be part of the cigar phenomenon” says Tony Suraci, Jr., marketing director and part of the third generation of the Scranton, Pennsylvania-based clan that produces Parodi, DeNobili, Avanti, Petri, and several other regionally recognized brand names for the Toscano-style cigar market. All told, the company manufactures and distributes over 30 million 100% U.S. tobacco cigars annually. While those numbers might sound impressive, the company routinely sold two to three times that number during its heyday in the 1960s. Nonetheless, Avanti still produces more all-tobacco cigars than any other U.S. company.

Mr. Keating does a nice job of explaining the machinery and processes and people, with lots of detail along the way. To Pennsylvania Cable Network, we say grazie for providing the video.

Nissley Winery – We travel to Nissley Vineyards & Winery Estate in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania, for this week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made,” where winemaker Bill Gulvin gives us a tour of the process — from vinyard to bottle.

Rice hulls? Nitrogen? Argon via the sparger? Sure…all part of making wine.

The Nissley Winery web site is here, the list of wines is here, and don’t miss the summer concert series.

To Pennsylvania Cable Network, thanks for sharing the videos. Always appreciated.

One of the great names of medicine is that of Dr. Charles E. Drew, a black American physician born in Washington, D.C., in 1904. He overcame walls of racial prejudice to become a doctor, and while studying at Columbia University became involved with prominent researchers working on the problem of blood storage.

Up until then, the challenge was to keep blood refrigerated until it was needed. He focused his efforts on separating and storing blood components, particularly blood plasma, in order to extend its shelf life.

During the Battle of Britain, Dr. Drew created protocols and procedures for the collection, testing and shipping of blood to England where it was desperately needed. Almost 15,000 people donated more than 5,600 gallons of blood. This experience saved countless thousands of lives during World War II.

The U.S. military went to great pains to segregate the blood of whites from blacks in those days, for no sane reason. And though Dr. Drew was the driving force behind the plasma project, he was denied the leadership role in it because of his race.

Dr. Drew was tragically killed in an auto accident in North Carolina in 1950. There were rumors he was denied medical treatment because of his race, but another black doctor traveling with him reported they received the best care available.
I’m glad he did. The reality of discrimination against that great man is embarrassing enough.

This week in “Cool Stuff Being Made,” we head to Quality Custom Cabinetry in New Holland, Pa., for a tour of the company’s 126,000 square feet facility. Dale Leaman, director of customer service, walks us through the 16 departments, starting with an explanation of importance of just-in-time manufacturing. And, as always, attention to quality is key to success.

Many good things happening at Quality Custom Cabinetry:

2006 Quality Custom Cabinetry, Inc. launched a new line of cabinetry named Saxton Cabinetry, a European frameless construction. Saxton Cabinetry went through a rigorous pilot program by several dealers. Due to the new product line, the corporate identity and overall organization was renamed to “QCCI.” (Quality Custom Cabinetry, Inc).

2007 QCCI added 57,000 square feet for manufacturing and distribution to facilitate both products, Quality Custom Cabinetry and Saxton. QCCI introduced a new product collection under the Quality Custom Cabinetry brand, called Steeplechase. Steeplechase features 1 inch thick face frame construction with sophisticated styling detailing surrounding inset doors and drawers, a hallmark of Quality Custom Cabinetry.

Thanks, as per usual and with sincerity, to PCN-TV for providing the base video. Cabinetry and other woodworking is a Pennsylvania tradition, so there’s history afoot.

UPDATE (8:40 a.m): Bumping this to the top of the page because we garbled the company’s name in the original post. Apologies to KME.

John Kovatch III, now president and CEO of KME Fire Apparatus — part of of the Kovatch group of companies — shows us the ins and outs of manufacturing custom firetrucks and other fire-fighting apparatus in this week’s Cool Stuff Being Made, a video from 2005. The company is another family business starting small, growing and expanding. As this feature story at Bystronic explains:

Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corporation, headquartered in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania, builds custom-designed fire trucks, rescue trucks, industrial foam vehicles and aircraft refuelers….[Spirited] visionary, John “Sonny” Kovatch began his business as a modest two-car repair shop in 1946. Since then, with eleven manufacturing plants at this facility, annual production reaching 300-325 units and orders flowing in from around the world, this family owned and operated company stands as the largest privately held manufacturer of customized specialty vehicles in the United States.

Computer design, metal fabricating, custom painting, plumbing, etc. — there’s a lot that goes into building firefighting apparatus, including one we see in the video, a 2,000-gallons-a-minute pumping unit. And at KME, customers come to the facility to inspect their purchases.

And if you’re in the Harrisburg area in the middle of May, drop by the Fire Expo 2008. KME and many other great companies will be well represented.

Thanks again to PCN for supplying the NAM with a consistent flow of consistently interesting videos on manufacturing in Pennsylvania.

In this week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made” we travel to Souderton, Penn, to visit Asher’s Chocolate to answer the question: One coat of chocolate or two? The answer: Yes!

Our tour is conducted by Jeff Asher, a fourth-generation candy manufacturer who is in charge of sales and marketing for the company. The company was founded in 1892, making it the oldest continuously family owned and operated candy making company in the United States, but the Souderton facility we visit is of the modern sort: The 125,000 square feet factory houses 15 enrobers, a large kitchen and a modern shell moulding plant.

What’s an enrober? Watch Cool Stuff Being Made and find out!

Thanks this week again go to the good people at PCN, the Pennsylvania Cable Network, who provided the video tour and who do a great job of documenting the Keystone State’s history.