Today on How It's Made
Balloons
OK. Here we are with a lovely tree of balloons
Balloons are used in many many occasions such as birthdays and weddings
And also sometimes
the odd ceremony of death
In which they use grey balloons
Yes but it's not all fun and games, here's how they're made.
First, they are inflated
The woman's hand here, she is called Jennifer, and she has an incredible power
to inflate balloons simply by holding
them
Here is the liquid balloon. This one is white, they're going to add blue to it.
All balloons start off white, but you never see white balloons. That's the secret of
the balloon industry
Now this is going to a creamy blue. A sky blue.
It's beautifully swirly
but then it gets ruined by science
This is orange
This is pink
This is turquoise
This is dipping spraying water!
Oh no!
So out of the mist comes many uninflated balloons on sticks
These are the moulds for the balloons they will dip into the liquid rubber
and then out again
It's a very quick process because if you get too much goo
you have a very thick balloon, very difficult to inflate
so now they let it drip a little bit to get the drips off because you don't want a
drippy balloon either
this is another way of doing it, by
bringing the water to the balloons
take the mountain to Muhammad as they'd say
yes that's what they say in his factory, that's their slogan
yes, they go out their way to take that liquid to the balloon
rather than the balloon to the liquid
yes they take the mountain to Mohammed
they look a little bit like lightbulbs right
now
but we know they're not because lightbulbs can not be wet in any circumstance
they are then rotated around
and more are actually done into the blue
and here yet more Mohammeds are dipped into the mountain
they are then flipped around and then moved along
along the conveyor belt to the brushes
the brushes
they're going to roll up the little bits
which will make them
like the ends of balloons
yes, very fun to watch
and incredible that it works at all
yes you can see here that's what it looked like, and that's what it will look like
and here's another view
of them being rolled up, it's like upside-down socks
this was invented by a man who had
troublesome socks
and then
oh my god, they've dipped it into very hot water
and they're just
floating away
they float away
and are raised back up
they are almost perfect balloons that machine
is very jumpy though because it's getting
a bit old
you can see it creaks a bit
they are very steamy
yes but by the time you buy them they will be ice cold
Did you see that, too? They went from
red to yellow in an instant
i didn't see that but i wish i had
it was pretty damn awesome
wow
so now they are dipped into milk
so that children gets healthy bones
while they are blowing up their balloons
and it also makes them shiny
it does, it's a bit like icing
maybe it actually was icing which isn't
so good for children
but delicious
these rollers are absolutely
cool
I know, the rollers you could say are
spellbinding
this machine now blows the balloons up
and they get shoomed off
into the future
they are actually rolled up through the rollers and
then go through the machine like this and they are stretched a little bit to make them more
stretchy
yes
now greg here has to pick up
thousands and thousands of balloons they
only give him the pink ones it's a
sort of inside joke at the factory they
call him Old Pink Greg
they are then spun around
for at least half an hour, and sprayed
with liquid goo
which will make them more gooey
this is to ensure that when you blow up the balloon
it is wet
they are then hung up by
Janet
to make sure they blow up a sufficient amount
you cannot blow up a balloon this big in real life
this machine is designed to make huge
balloons
it is very scary and I think it's a love heart
i think it is and they're her favourite kind because she is in lurve
she spins them around
and then she is done
there are some very silly shapes for balloons in
the world
let's hope we never have to encounter
any of them
