All language subtitles for Modern.Marvels.S23E01.World.of.Wood.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H264-BTN_track3_[eng]

- [Narrator] It
gives us shelter,

holds up entire cities,
and inspires our ingenuity.

- It really allowed man to
branch out all across the world.

- [Narrator] The
average American uses

640 pounds of it a year.

- [Steve] We have about
200,000 square feet

of warehouse space here,
and that's still not enough.

- [Narrator] We may
think we live in an age

of plastic and steel,
but America still depends

on the time-tested
strength of wood.

Welcome to "World of
Wood" on "Modern Marvels".

[dramatic upbeat music]

[saw whirring]

Any way you cut it,

we need wood.

- Worldwide, we use about four
billion tons of wood a year,

and that amounts to about
three and a half pounds

of wood per person per day.

A lot of the times we use wood

and we don't even
think of it as wood.

- [Narrator] Whether it's
making a three million dollar

Stradivarius sing, or
putting pencil to paper,

wood can do it all.

It can even be twice as strong
as steel, pound for pound,

when it's used the right way.

Wood pilings are long posts
driven deep underground

that can support 35
times their weight.

They hold up beach
houses in Malibu,

the Brooklyn Bridge,
the Superdome,

and even the city of Venice.

- The entire city of Venice
is supported by wood pilings.

St. Mark's Cathedral's
estimated that it's supported

by about a million wood
pilings that were pounded

into the ground one
by one to firm up

the soggy soils of Venice.

The pilings of Venice are
about a thousand years old.

They're still there today.

They're still there
doing their job.

- [Narrator] In the
last thousand years,

the process of
making wood pilings,

and how quickly we can do
it, has been revolutionized.

- I would say probably
in the last three weeks,

these logs were still
standing as trees.

- [Narrator] First, not just
any tree can become a piling.

[saw whirring]

[tree creaking and thudding]

- Trees in the forest,

there's only 10 trees per acre

that will be considered
a pole or piling quality.

- [Narrator] Only the
longest, straightest trees

make the cut.

At Kisatchie Treating
in Louisiana,

yellow pine trees arrive
stripped of their branches.

- One of the first
processes we do is

remove the bark from the tree.

This here is the pole peeler.

All that system does is just
tear the bark off the pole.

It's loud, it's mean machine.

- [Narrator] Cutting heads
deliver a one-two punch.

The first has coarser
blades to chew through

the thick outer bark.

The second takes off what's
left of the inner bark.

- On an average we'll peel
about three to 400 poles a day.

- [Narrator] Once
peeled, the log is graded

based on length
and circumference.

They cut the pole to the
nearest multiple of five feet,

to standardize the lengths.

Pilings start out at about
a 100% moisture level.

Before they can
add preservative,

Kisatchie needs to cook
off some of that liquid.

They move the pilings into a
kiln where they'll be heated

to 225 degrees for 72 hours.

It's like a sauna for wood.

- It's enough to boil the
moisture outta the piling.

Our target moisture is
23 to 27% of the piling.

- [Narrator] That's one
quarter of the piling's

original moisture content.

What happens next is a
step that is done more

to help preserve wood
than anything before.

Pressure treatment.

Under pressure,
preservatives will be forced

into the dry pilings where it
will fight rot and insects.

Kisatchie has North America's
largest pressure chamber,

at 150 feet long
and eight feet wide,

and with one and a
quarter-inch thick walls.

The big chamber means
big chemical tanks.

- What you're looking at now
is our preservative tanks.

They'll hold approximately
57,000 gallons.

Once we get the pilings
into this cylinder,

we'll dump all the preservative
into this cylinder.

This wood, it'll just suck
that chemical into it.

- [Narrator] After
sweating in the kiln,

the pilings are like
squeezed sponges.

So they'll suck up
the preservative

and return to the
100% moisture level.

Pressure will force
the preservative

in faster and deeper.

- All right, we got
the wood in here.

We got the process started.

It's gonna take about
two, two and a half hours

to get it complete.

- [Narrator] First, they
create a vacuum in the chamber

for 30 minutes to
open the wood fibers.

Then they add the chemical
and raise the pressure

to 150 pounds per square
inch for 15 minutes.

This forces the preservative
deep into the wood.

Then they pull a final
vacuum for an hour

to draw out any extra fluid.

- [Lonnie] When the
piling comes out,

it'll be dry to the touch.

- [Narrator] Infused
with preservative,

the wood is ready for shipment.

This load is part of
a much bigger order

heading to New Orleans.

There, the pilings
will turn soft ground

into a school's foundation.

- To the common eye,
this ground looks hard,

but when you start putting a
lot of weight on top of it,

it won't support it.

It's a silty soil
condition here.

- [Narrator] To create
a stable foundation,

they'll drive pilings 40
feet down to a solid layer

known as the hard pan.

The pilings will
act like stilts,

supporting whatever is
built on top of them.

- Each one of these poles
hold approximately 35 tons,

and the stress load that you're
gonna use on top of that,

it's a fraction compared to
what these things can hold.

- [Narrator] The
muscle of the operation

is a modified crane
known as a pile driver,

like the wrestling
move named after it.

The pile driver isn't
pretty, but it gets results.

First, the crew raises a one
ton piling into position.

- [Jay] They're gonna go and
pick up the butt of the pole.

They're gonna pull it
all the way up to the top

of the pile driver.

- [Narrator] Then the crew
has to create a guide hole.

- They'll do a process
called water jetting.

And what this does is
when you get in a silty

or sandy condition, the
water jetting just displaces

the dirt for a moment.

- [Narrator] They've
gotta drop the piling

before the dirt rushes
back into the hole.

The cage acts like
a guide or sled.

- It's gonna fall
within the cage.

They're gonna drop
this hammer hard.

[water splashing]

- [Narrator] Once the
piling's in the hole,

they pound it deeper.

- This is a drop hammer.

And you know, the force
that's being generated

by the drop hammer,
depending on the weights

that they have on
it, is tremendous.

- [Narrator] Each blow delivers
a force of over two tons.

- This big white box on
the back of the crane

is gonna generate
the compression

to pull the hammer up

and then literally gravity
itself is gonna do the rest.

The hammer ball is gonna drop,

and it's gonna hit
the top of the pole,

and there you have it.

You're driving a pile.

- [Narrator] Hard
hats are required.

And another piece of gear
is highly recommended.

- It's helpful to wear
earplugs all the time out here

'cause you can tell
it's pretty loud.

Probably close to 180 decibels.

- [Narrator] 180 decibels
is as loud as a stun grenade

and louder than a
heavy metal concert.

They know they've hit the
hard pan when they've pound

the piling 22 times, and
it moves less than a foot.

The pilings compact
the dirt around them,

creating friction that
keeps them in place.

- And that's the reason
why you come over here

and you shake these poles, you
can't even get 'em to budge.

I mean, this stuff
sets up like concrete

once the pole's driven.

- [Narrator] The crew can
drive 40 to 50 piles a day,

so it'll take about a
month to set the base

for a foundation.

After they drive
all 1000 pilings,

they'll cut the tops
to the same height,

connect them with
steel and cement beams,

and then pour the
concrete slab on top.

This will be the new
school's foundation.

The school will eventually
weigh 25,000 tons,

the equivalent of
two cargo ships,

and every single
pound of it will rest

on the timber pilings.

And the school is just one
of hundreds of buildings

in the area that need wood
to stay above the mud.

- This city is built
on friction piling.

Pretty much New Orleans
is built on stilts.

- [Narrator] Both New Orleans
and Venice are waterlogged,

which seems like the
worst places for wood,

but actually the
opposite is true.

Why?

Because wood doesn't
rot underwater.

- Once it's driven
below the water table,

just below the
surface of the earth,

they're not gonna
have any oxygen.

And it takes oxygen for
the rot and the different

bug infestation to occur,

so these things will
never be touched.

They'll be here hundreds
of years from now.

- A lot of people think wood
and water just don't mix.

But the fact of the matter
is as long as wood stays

constantly wet, it
will last indefinitely.

One of the more surprising uses
of wood is as a water pipe.

In England, they unearthed
hundreds of miles of this stuff.

It's in New York City.

There's sections of Sedona,
Arizona where the water system

is still made out of wood pipe.

So as long as it stays wet,
it'll last hundreds of years.

- [Narrator] Ever versatile,
wood gives builders

an excellent strength
to weight ratio,

and won't rot underwater.

But it also has a weakness,

one that martial arts
know how to exploit.

A 2000-pound wood piling
can support 35 tons,

but even a child
can smash a board.

- [Instructor] Yah! Yes!

- [Narrator] How can wood
be so strong and so weak?

[wood splintering]

Many martial artists
know the answer,

because breaking boards
is a common way to teach

correct striking technique.

- Hah!

Hah!

Hah!

Hah!

- Breaking boards is
comparable to breaking bones.

If you can break
a one-inch board,

you can break a
bone in the body.

So, students will
practice breaking boards

as opposed to breaking bones.

- [Boy] Hah!

- [Narrator] But brute
force won't split a board.

- Hah!

- [Narrator] You have to
hit it with the grain.

- How you align the board
does make a difference

in breaking it.

You wanna go with the grain.

You don't wanna go
against the grain.

So when you put the boards down,

you wanna make sure that
they're all aligned together.

- [Narrator] Hit
it the wrong way,

[wood splintering]

and it's not the
wood that breaks.

- I've seen people
break their hands.

- [Narrator] What makes
wood strong in one direction

and weak in the other,
starts with a tree.

This is a wood factory.

Under the bark, the tree's
fibers are long and tough,

like densely packed wires.

And each year the tree
grows by adding a layer

of these fibers, creating rings.

- If you look around a forest,

you notice the
trees are actually

these strange-looking columns.

They're actually
pretty alien-looking.

They're these big, long growths
that are very tall and thin,

and the force on them is
almost entirely going down.

And so it makes sense that
trees would've built themselves

to be strong
towards compression.

You look at this thing
and it is a column.

That's what it is.

And therefore,
that's how we use it.

We use it that way.

Even when you're framing
a house with joists

and two by fours, you're
using the long direction

of the two by four
for the strength.

- [Narrator] But how do you
take material that's strong

in one direction and make
it strong in all directions?

Like a car wheel?

Almost all early cars and
more than three million

of Henry Ford's Model
Ts had wooden wheels.

Many lasted longer than
the cars themselves.

But today, if you need
a replacement wheel,

you'll need it custom
made by a specialist

like Bill Calimer.

He's one of the last
people in the world

who knows the secrets of
making a wheel from wood.

- For the automobile
wheels I use hickory.

Hickory is a very strong wood,

and one of its major
properties is it's bendable.

It's very flexible for
the spokes as well,

and that allows the wheels
to last a long time.

- [Narrator] Flexing
or bending is the key

to using wood's
strength to its fullest.

A Model T's spokes connect
to a two piece section

of the inner rim.

These wooden pieces have
to bend without stretching

the outer fibers, or
they'll crack and break.

Bill starts by cutting one
and a half-inch wide pieces

of hickory to form the two
halves of the inner rim.

If he tried bending
them now, they'd break.

So he prepares them for
bending by putting them

into a steamer.

The steamer heats the
wood to over 250 degrees

and will loosen the fibers.

- Now the rule of
thumb for steaming wood

is that it should be
in steam for an hour

of the inch of thickness.

And these are approximately
an inch and a half thick,

so they're going to be
in there approximately

an hour and a half.

- [Narrator] While
the rim pieces steam,

Bill makes the spokes, starting
from a master template.

Each car model
has its own style.

- Up here I have
primarily Model T Ford,

some early Cadillacs,
Stanley Steamer.

This shelf is primarily
Buick, later Cadillac,

Pierce, Arrow, and
Oakland I see there.

- [Narrator] Using the template,

he marks and then
cuts out rough blanks.

On an asymmetrical lathe,

the template serves
as the guide,

and Bill can turn three
new spokes at a time.

After 90 minutes in the steamer,
the rim pieces are ready.

The heat has loosened
the fibers enough

so that they can bend
without breaking,

but outer fibers could still
get stressed in the bending,

so Bill has made his own
one-of-a-kind bending machine.

It presses down on the
center of the boards,

pushes in from the ends,

and keeps constant
pressure on the outsides.

The result, compressed
fibers in the inner section

and fibers that
haven't been stressed

on the outside section.

The rim pieces stay
in the bending machine

two to three hours
until they cool

so that they'll
keep their shape.

In the next step, Bill
lays out the spokes.

Once they fit together, he
bolts them to a metal hub.

This forms what's
known as a spider.

Now he has to line the
spokes up exactly right

with the two halves
of the inner rim.

- And it's very important
to put the proper spoke

in the proper hole.

[drill whirring]

[hammer pounding]

- [Narrator] If they're bent
correctly, they fit perfectly.

It just takes a little
TLC and a hammer

to work them into
an outer metal rim.

Last step, check that
it's true and balanced.

- This wheel's
looking pretty good,

is running pretty straight.

Now alls I have to do
is make three more.

- [Narrator] Bill builds
wheels for roughly

100 cars each year.

Ford churned out almost one
million Model Ts in 1920 alone.

That's at least four
million wheels a year,

which wasn't just
a monumental feat.

It also created
mountains of wood scrap.

Henry Ford hated waste,

so he and a partner figured
out how to use wood scraps.

They turned it into charcoal.

Ford dealers sold it by the bag,

and would occasionally throw
one in if you bought a car.

Barbecuing became part of
the American experience.

In 1951, investors bought
the charcoal business

and named the new company
after Ford's partner,

E.J. Kingsford.

Today, Kingsford is the
world's largest producer

of charcoal briquettes.

Its biggest plant is
in Bell, Missouri,

where they use
the same technique

and some of the same
equipment as Ford once used.

- I'm standing at the
beginning of the charcoal

briquette-making process.

This is a wood
mountain, basically.

It's our hog fuel pile.

- [Narrator] The hog fuel
pile is about 40,000 tons

of wood from local sawmills.

Enough to keep the plant
running 24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

Kingsford consumes about
250,000 tons of it a year

at this plant alone, and over
a million tons companywide.

They process so much wood,

it takes a bulldozer to
load the conveyor belt.

The first step is to dry
the wood in heated drums.

- [Steve] We're changing the
wood from about 50% moisture

down to about five.

- [Narrator] From the
dryer, the wood is then run

through a five-story oven
known as a retort furnace.

This is where wood
becomes charcoal.

- The retort furnace
itself is really the heart

of the char-making unit.

- [Narrator] The key to making
charcoal is super heating

the wood without burning it.

In a low oxygen environment,

the dried wood travels
through five levels,

with temperatures
reaching 1200 degrees.

It takes two hours to run
the wood through the furnace.

It converts about eight
pounds of hog fuel

into one pound of charcoal.

At this point,
it's just a powder.

To make their
trademark briquette,

Kingsford binds the powder
with another secret ingredient.

- We're at the discharge
end of the presses,

and the briquettes
are coming out

with the K pressed in them.

At this stage, the briquettes
are more like brownies,

and so the next stage
we're gonna send 'em over

to the dryers and dry them
down to about 5% moisture.

- [Narrator] Along the way,
the briquettes go through

a shaker that takes
off the rough edges.

Then they're sorted into
one of three dryers.

- We have three
briquette dryers.

Actually two of them came
down from Ford Charcoal

in Michigan, so there are
some old pieces of equipment.

By the time they get
to the end of dryer,

they're now 5% moisture.

They're dry, rock
hard, and they're ready

to send to package.

- [Narrator] Each 20-pound
bag holds at least

300 briquettes.

- This is our distribution
center at the Bell plant.

Recall we started at the
wood mountain or wood pile.

This is the last stop
before we send 'em off

to the customer.

We have about 200,000 square
feet of warehouse space here,

and that's still not enough.

A lot of it's going
right to the customer.

We'll probably see a
couple hundred trucks

in and out each day.

- [Narrator] Kingsford sells
more than a billion pounds

of charcoal every year,
fueling an American tradition,

all thanks to Henry
Ford's hatred of waste.

But Ford didn't invent charcoal.

Humans have been making
it for thousands of years.

It was a crucial fuel
for many cultures.

- Charcoal can burn at a
much higher temperature,

and when you can get
higher temperatures going,

you can use that to smelt
metals, to smelt glass,

to smelt copper.

A lot of people think
that some of the downfalls

of civilization were
based on the fact

that some of these
civilizations ran outta wood.

- [Narrator] Vast tracks
of forest were cut

and burned to make charcoal.

And when they ran out, they
looked overseas for more.

Wood got us off our
feet and on a roll.

- The neat thing about wood
is that it really allowed man

to branch out all
across the world,

to get from where
mankind was going.

If you were in a ship
it was made of wood.

If it was on a ski,
it was made of wood.

If it was a wheel, it
was made out of wood.

- [Narrator] Wood was how we
explored, and why we fought.

The British Navy ruled
the waves in the 1700s,

but it needed a
steady supply of tall,

strong trees for
its ship's masts.

White pines in the new
England colonies were ideal,

and so the British crown
claimed the largest for itself,

even ones on private land.

Angered by this policy, in 1772,

colonists fought back
in what became known

as the Pine Tree Riot.

[men angrily shouting]

Revolutionaries adopted
the pine tree as a symbol,

and it was the
emblem on their flag

at the battle of Bunker Hill.

Wood helped launch the nation,

and gave it rise to
an American industry.

Lumberjacks harvested
America's forests

until the Second World War.

- [Man] Three, two, one, go!

- [Narrator] Today,
their traditions live on

as competitions, like the
Johnny Appleseed festival

in Sheffield, Pennsylvania.

[upbeat country music]

These people love their wood.

- I'm Holly Waterfield
and I wear wooden shoes.

We typically cut soft wood,
so we're cutting aspen.

It's been under wet
hay for a few months

and that helps it to even out.

We want it to have
moisture in it.

Dry wood is a lot harder to cut.

And with the axes that we're
using, they're very thin edged,

so dry wood has a tendency
to damage and dull the edge.

So, we have soft, moist wood.

- [Man] All right,
Holly Waterfield won!

- [Narrator] All the events
come directly from skills

the original lumberjacks needed.

The springboard event dates
back to when western lumberjacks

had to make their own
steps in the base of a tree

to climb above its roots.

To prep for that event,
competitors clear away the bark

and dirt so it won't
damage their axes.

- Basically this is
gonna be my bottom pocket

for my first board.

- [Man] Three, two, one, go!

[axes thudding]

And then once you finish, you
gotta throw your axe up here

and then you're gonna
throw your board in here.

Then you're gonna grab
onto the handle of that axe

and use that as leverage
to get up on your boards.

This takes a little
bit of everything.

You gotta be balanced
to stay on your board,

and your board's
kind of springing.

It's kind of bouncing while
you're up there choppin',

so it takes a lot of
strength and endurance

to be able to complete
the whole thing.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

- [Narrator] The underhand chop

and the cross-saw were
used to cut down trees

and divide them into logs.

And log rollers helped keep
huge stands of cut trees

moving downriver.

It was a dangerous business.

One slip and you could be
crushed between the logs.

- They say that for every one
man that died in the woods

cutting down trees, there
were 10 that got killed

on the river drives.

So staying on top of the
log was very essential

to staying alive
on a river drive.

- [Narrator] Thousands of
logs were driven downriver,

and if one got stuck in a rock,

that could all pile up
in a matter of minutes.

It was a tangled, dangerous
mess that gave rise

to the term log jam.

- And then a couple two
or three lumberjacks,

sometimes more,
would have to go in

and start removing logs
at the bottom of the pile

to break that log jam
and get the logs rolling.

And then that is when a
lot of 'em met their demise

because oftentimes the
whole wall would come down

at one time and
bury several of 'em.

- This is a peg and raker saw.

So these are the teeth here.

This would be the exact same
thing they use in the woods.

They go through a 17-inch
log in about seven seconds.

- [Narrator] But in
lumberjack competitions,

there's one machine you
never see in the woods.

Chainsaws with engines
built for much heavier loads

than cutting.

- It came out of a 1996
Ski-Doo snowmobile.

It's approximately 70
horsepower on paper.

Turns the chain right
around 200 miles an hour.

It's a beast to hold onto.

It throws you around
like a ragdoll.

- [Announcer] Ready, set, go!

- 17-inch log, I
should be right around

five, four, five, five.

Three cuts and starting it.

We make it go fast.

This is as close as you
can get to pure drag racing

as there is.

It's just you, the
wood and the motor

and a whole bunch of prayin'.

[saw whirring]

- [Narrator] The original
lumberjacks cut down trees

that were hundreds of
years old and that had wood

that was straight and strong.

It was so versatile,

it became the country's
building material.

From railroad bridges
to ornate mansions.

Where is it today?

Some of it is hiding beneath
the beat up exteriors

of houses and barns, and it
could be worth a fortune.

Some wood is so valuable,

companies like Timeless
Timberframe specialize

in recovering and reusing it.

They're taking apart a
barn built in the 1840s

in southern Indiana,

and moving it 200 miles.

The pieces are all
numbered and color coded,

then laid out for reassembly
like a giant puzzle.

The work crew is Amish,

a group familiar with
traditional building techniques.

- Today we are reassembling
a barn that was built

in the 1840s.

These barns were built
by master craftsmen

who settled here from Europe.

- [Narrator] These craftsmen
left marks that reveal

what it took to
carve out timbers.

They cut each one from a log.

- Somebody that was hewing a log

would score the log on
top with a felling axe,

and that log would be flipped

and they could come
on with a broad axe

and go straight
down the side of it.

And you see that's almost
a perfect 90-degree angle.

Incredible.

You're talkin' 15 to 30
work hours involved with

just making a timber square.

- [Narrator] Timber framing is
also known as post and beam,

because those are
the two basic parts.

The idea is to
interlock large timbers

that bear tons of weight to
create a large, open interior.

The barn's frame is a basic,
but very solid structure.

Four bents or support sections
connected by top plates.

The first step is to put
each bent back together.

[upbeat country music]

- Today, we're lifting this
bent section with a crane.

Years ago, they would've used
a horse and block and tackle,

or the whole neighborhood.

This bent section probably
weighs 3000 pounds,

and I wouldn't even want
to think about having

to get that many guys
here to lift it by hand.

Once the bent section is picked
up and swung over in place,

it'll be set down
on the foundation.

- [Narrator] The original
builders didn't use metal nails

to connect the frame, and
Timeless Timbers follows

the same process.

- These two beams are
held together with mortise

and tenon joinery.

This is a tenon on the post.

There's also a tenon on
this beam that comes over

and goes through this
mortis hole in the post.

So this tenon is actually
attached to this beam,

and they're pulled together
and then they're joined

with wooden pegs.

- [Narrator] It takes
the Timeless Timbers crew

less than a day to reassemble
and place the bents.

The next step is to
connect them with a long,

horizontal piece
called a top plate.

- It's tricky because
the wood has a memory,

and it wants to go back to
the place that it was prior

when it was a barn
for 140 years.

So when it's moved,
it'll get outta square.

They're making adjustments
to it right now.

Sometimes it's hard to
get that top plate back

to where it needs to
be to have everything

line up just perfect.

- [Narrator] Every piece
has to go back together

exactly the way it came apart.

- When you look
at a timber frame,

you have to look at the
whole thing as a system.

When you're building
a timber frame,

you can only be off
less than an inch

on anything that you do.

If it's too loose, the structure
will fall apart eventually.

If it's too tight, you're
bound to break things.

Timber framing is an art.

- [Narrator] It's an art that
Timeless Timbers keeps alive

in modern houses and
artist's studios.

But for all its versatility,

wood does have its weaknesses.

Rot and fire.

Wood is so versatile.

We can submerge it,

bend it,

and even reuse it,

and it will remain
as strong as ever.

But when wood alternates
between wet and dry,

it becomes food for
microbes and insects.

- There's a sailing term
called sailing the bottom off,

and it's a perfect example
of the underwater wood

staying good, the above
water staying good,

and right where those
two met, rot occurred.

The ship would literally
separate where the water line

met the air line.

- [Narrator] Today,
boat builders like

Chesapeake Light Craft
try to avoid sailing

their bottoms off by combining
wood with modern technology.

They create over 85
different boat kits

that an average
person can assemble.

Almost all of them start out
as specialty marine plywood.

- This is a plywood
called Okoume.

It comes from Gabon
in West Africa.

It's milled there into veneers,

and the veneers
are sent to France

where it's made into
plywood on special presses.

They use microwaves to cure
the glue in the plywood

and put it on the CNC machine
and cut boats out of it.

- [Narrator] At $125 per sheet,

the cutters want to get every
possible square inch from it.

- The business end is
this wood is essentially

a gigantic router.

This quarter-inch carbide
bit we have to change

every single day because
of the abrasiveness

of the glue in the plywood.

- [Narrator] It cuts at a
precision of two thousands

of an inch.

[cutter whirring]

Paired with a router,
a drill creates holes

for connecting the parts.

The CNC machine is
programmed to cut thousands

of different parts, from
whole panels to small patches.

One of Chesapeake Light
Craft's most popular kits

is the Cocktail Classic.

It takes two people less than
a day to assemble most of it.

At this stage, it's very
similar to a traditional boat,

and would be prone to rot.

But when they apply
fiberglass and epoxy,

they're adding a layer
of modern materials

that seals out water and
stiffens the structure.

- [John] We'll
smooth the hull off

and add a layer of fiberglass
over the entire hull,

which will multiply the
strength of the wood

and eliminate maintenance.

- The end product?

A fast, rugged little boat

that will last for a
hundred years or more.

While water can make
wood vulnerable to rot,

fire can devour it in
a matter of seconds.

In 1906, the great
earthquake of San Francisco

damaged much of that city,

but it was a series of
fires that devastated it.

They raged for four days
and caused roughly 90%

of the destruction.

Wood fuels fire, which
is why it's the ideal

material for matches.

But early matches contained
many toxic chemicals,

and produced a vile smell.

They were known as lucifers.

In 1910, Diamond Matches
patented the first

non-poisonous match
in the United States,

and their goal has been to make
the safest matches possible.

- This is where all
the process begins.

The logs that you
see on the dock here,

this would be about
one day's production.

- [Narrator] They use aspen
because it's strong, straight,

easy to machine, and most
importantly, it burns well.

- This is called the bull chain.

And the bull chain is what
brings the logs into the plant

and starts the
debarking process.

The logs are all about
a hundred inches long.

They're debarked, and then
we cut 'em into lengths

of about 24 to 25 inches.

- [Narrator] The logs are
loaded into a steam bin

to loosen the fibers
and kill bacteria.

- The next thing they
do is go to the lathe

which starts the
veneering process.

- [Narrator] A rotary
lathe spins the wood,

while a wide blade peels the
log into long, flat sheets.

The operator feeds stacks
of sheets into a chopper.

Here, the sheets are
cut into splints.

The chopper uses two
connected sets of blades

and cuts like a high-speed
double guillotine.

The splints are now matchsticks.

Diamond wants them to
burn, but not for too long.

If the wood creates an ember,

it could start a
fire when tossed out.

So, Diamond runs
them through a bath

of monoammonium phosphate.

The wood will still catch
fire, but when it's blown out,

the timbers die
almost immediately.

Once dry, the splints
are pressed together

to face the same direction.

This gets them ready to
be forced into a chain.

- What's happening
behind us is the splint,

the wooden stick, is
getting set in a hole

on this chain above us.

- Misshapen and broken splints
fall out and are discarded.

The next step is to
put on the match head.

Old match heads contained
chemicals that made both

maker and user sick.

Today it's dipped into
a non-poisonous mix

containing potassium
chlorate and sulfur.

The match is complete, but
there's one more safety measure.

The chemicals in
the head won't light

unless they're run
across a rough surface

containing red phosphorus.

Diamond prints this material
right onto its boxes.

Loaded into the boxes, the
matches are ready for shipping.

- [Rick] We produce
approximately 38

million matches a day.

The number of matches
that we produce a year,

we've figured out if you
line 'em up end to end,

they would go round to earth
at the equator about 11 times.

- [Narrator] That's
273,917 miles

of matches every year.

From the tiny to the mighty.

Trees come in all
shapes and sizes.

- In the United States alone,

there's over 1200
different species of tree.

On a worldwide basis, some
people will go as high

as 40 to 50,000 different
species of trees.

Oak alone, there's 200
different species of oak.

Trees have adapted to nature
in a thousand different ways,

and we've taken those
characteristics and

used those trees
to adapt to our needs.

- [Narrator] Our greatest
adaptation of wood

could be when we peel it.

Put the layers back together
and you've got plywood.

At Oregon State University,

they've spent a century
figuring out how to get

the most from wood.

- Wood can be peeled
out like this,

but the grain is still
going in this direction.

You can make use of that by
taking wood in this direction,

but then plying it with wood
that you turn 90 degrees,

and put them together like this,

and it's like a
steel-belted radial.

You end up having strength
going in alternating planes

that gives the wood strength
not only in this direction,

downward, but also laterally,

which you wouldn't
get in wood naturally.

- [Narrator] Don't
think of plywood as made

from leftover scraps.

It's more like a
composite material.

- Plywood is a good
example of us emulating

wood's natural strength and
actually taking advantage

of it and doing one better.

- [Narrator] Humans
have been gluing layers

of wood together
since ancient times,

especially when wood was scarce.

- The Egyptians created
their own form of plywood.

They would just slice wood very
thin, alternate the layers,

and they used it for a lot of
the things found in the tombs.

- [Narrator] But modern
plywood came about in the 1800s

with the invention
of a rotary lathe.

It spins the log while a blade
peels it into thin layers,

like unrolling paper towels.

This lathe can turn a
large log into a mile-long

piece of ply.

The greatest plywood
construction of all time

was an enormous
boat that could fly.

It was the brainchild
of the eccentric genius,

Howard Hughes.

He called it the Hercules,

but it's better known by
a nickname Hughes hated.

The Spruce Goose.

Hughes did nothing halfway,
and the Spruce Goose

was pure Hughes.

Today it's housed in Oregon's
Evergreen Aviation Museum.

- The aircraft is the largest
in the world by wingspan,

and it's 319 feet and 11 inches.

It's about 80 some feet tall,

weighs about 300,000 pounds,

and could carry another
hundred thousand pounds.

- [Narrator] Its wings
are about the length

of a football field and
was over 10 times bigger

than the Army's main troop
transport plane, the C-47.

Hughes began work on the
Spruce Goose in 1942.

During World War II,
German U-boats were sinking

so many ships, the US
was afraid of sending out

troop transports.

Hughes' goal? Fly
over the U-boats.

He sent out to build a
plane that could carry

750 fully equipped men,

but U-boats weren't the
only obstacles Hughes faced.

- He was told he could not
use strategic materials

such as aluminum or
magnesium, so on,

because those were being used
for fighters and bombers.

So he was forced to look at
other sources of material,

and wood was a major available
source for doing this.

- [Narrator] Hughes
assembled a team of engineers

and furniture makers.

They used plies of wood
peeled from birch trees

and molded the layers.

They called it Duramold.

- Everything you see in
here from front to back

to the tip of the
tail is Duramold,

which is made out of birch wood.

Everything here is wood.
[knuckles rapping]

- [Narrator] Some
sections were paper thin,

while others were
as thick as beams.

Once the plane was
glued together,

they pulled out the nails,

all eight tons of them.

Just about the only
metal is in the engines

and hydraulic and
electrical systems.

Critics had a field day
lampooning the project

as the flying lumber yard
and questioning if it

could even take off.

But in 1947, Hughes
had the last laugh.

He brought the press
along for what he said

would just be a
test of the engines.

- So he took the aircraft
out, fired it up,

and he asked his co-pilot
for 10 degrees of flaps.

- [Announcer] More throttle!

It's 60!

It's about 65!

It's 70!

- He hit 70 miles an hour.

The airplane took off
just as advertised.

- [Announcer] And I
believe we are airborne.

We are airborne,
ladies and gentlemen.

We are really up in the air.

- [Narrator] Vindicated,
Hughes built a special hanger

for the plane and spent a
million dollars every year

to keep it flight ready.

It was a monument to both his
genius and his eccentricity.

- It is also a monument to
wood because of the fact

that the Duramold had
incredible strength.

We measure it every month
and the wings haven't sagged

even a 16th of an
inch in 10 years.

- [Narrator] Any
way you slice it,

there's only one material
that can just about do it all.

Wood.

- There's wood in some
pretty unexpected places.

A lot of people think
of it as something

that's old- fashioned,

but it's been with us
every step of the way

from mankind's step outta
the cradle of civilization

right up through today.

- [Narrator] Strong
enough to pile drive,

flexible enough to bend,

and light enough to fly.

Wood is one of the most
multifaceted materials we have,

making it a modern marvel.

[crowd cheering]