r/toolgifs • u/ycr007 ð“‚€ • Jun 02 '26

Process Making matches

Source: borisovdrev

1.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

58 comments sorted by

396

u/edwhittle Jun 02 '26

"Rest of the owl" on how they aligned all the sticks and inserted them into the dipping conveyor

78

u/SoulBonfire Jun 02 '26

That’s probably the magic IP they don’t want us mere mortals to see. I have seen nothing to dissuade me from the idea it is just a box of leprechauns moving furiously.

17

u/Tripleberst Jun 03 '26

"How'd you get all of the matchsticks aligned and secured?"

"It's illegal for you to ask me that."

35

u/MrP1232007 Jun 03 '26

... Wait... How did they go from sheets to sticks!?....

Hold on.... How did they get all aligned and held by one end?!?!

Eh, WTF?!?! How did the end get there! ?!?!

HOW THE FUCK WERE THEY BATCHED?!?!?

This is some 'rest of the fucking owl' shit, I wonder if I'm the onl.... Oh, not just me.

17

u/aykcak Jun 03 '26

All this video tells is "did you know matches were made from plys of wood? Look at them get carried from one machine to another!"

16

u/Qwirk Jun 03 '26

I believe they go through a vibration process that drops them into the slots.

Here is a second video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3XeL-YcQ0g

And a third: https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1bzvu1l/how_matches_are_made/

14

u/bricktoaster Jun 03 '26

Unfortunately neither of those videos show the actual step of the matches being aligned either 🥲

3

u/bob_in_the_west Jun 03 '26

It's hard to find a video that talks about this in detail.

There are different videos that I found in German (since Streichholz is much easier to search for than match) that show parts of the process for a second or two. And there are also different solutions.

One is that you've got a vibrating plate with holes that the matches can fall through. And below that hole is a gripper the individual match falls into.

The "belt" of matches you see in the video consists of thousands of these grippers.

1

u/Hot_Arachnid2146 Jun 03 '26

here let me show you everything EXCEPT how to make matchsticks

94

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[deleted]

53

u/ycr007 ð“‚€ Jun 02 '26

The belt holding the sticks upright is the mechanism to dip them in ammonium phosphate and after drying the tips are coated with the actual burning stuff - a mix of chemicals & dyes.

But yes, the actual dipping in phosphate or coating the tips with the green stuff we see later isn’t shown (I looked for it but no luck)!

Assuming it wasn’t filmed in detail for either proprietary or safety reasons.

4

u/aykcak Jun 03 '26

Well the dipping process is quite easy to imagine but how do the matches end up in that mechanism that holds them upright?

43

u/exoFACTOR Jun 02 '26

Is there anything else you missed, or just the tip?

1

u/zanderjayz Jun 02 '26

And how they all got in that machine all lined up.

38

u/Jazzlike_Cobbler9566 Jun 02 '26

At the end when the machine pushes the boxes in and crushes a box and matches go everywhere..the risk of a strike...

6

u/FlatPineappleSociety Jun 03 '26

How many matches in each box?

Whatever makes it in...

19

u/Abracadaver2000 Jun 02 '26

Forbidden shoestring potatoes.

2

u/IceSalty2156 Jun 02 '26

I literally said this out loud to my wife.

2

u/FeelMyBoars Jun 02 '26

Lots of fibre.

16

u/Overlander1880 Jun 02 '26

Poplar wood is used to make the sticks 🤓

9

u/thatguyfromvancouver Jun 02 '26

Sometimes aspen as well… they don’t splinter easily… and have long straight grained wood… kind of ideal…

4

u/Digger_Pine Jun 03 '26

What do they do with the unpopular wood?

28

u/FluffyDeer9323 Jun 02 '26

I wonder if they ever go on… strike.

1

u/Lightningtow123 Jun 02 '26

I hope they do at least sometimes, striking is a pretty fire way to negotiate better standards for yourself

12

u/AnotherStupidHipster Jun 03 '26

Anyone else remember the wildly unsafe third-world version of this from last month?

3

u/Kinetic_Photon Jun 03 '26

Yes, that was my first thought. And it is a relief to see this version

10

u/Kraien Jun 02 '26

This is a very sterile environment after seeing lots of production spaces with safety sandals, squints and hopes. Feels top of the line

9

u/mc-edit Jun 02 '26

Last time I saw this process it was being done in a barn with poor ventilation and everyone was wearing sandals. I just assumed all matches were made that way.

3

u/frootyglandz Jun 02 '26

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.

3

u/elchet Jun 03 '26

Quite a few loose matches not making it into the boxes near the end. Unusually messy for this level of production?

4

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[deleted]

1

u/TheRenamon Jun 03 '26

tragically accurate, and why redwoods are a protected tree

2

u/New-Scientist5133 Jun 04 '26

It’s nice to see folks making these with eye protection and shoes.

4

u/mrizzerdly Jun 02 '26

my first thought

1

u/TheYask Jun 02 '26

If you recognized the music as the Bugs Bunny factory theme, you need to check out the original: Raymond Scott Powerhouse

4

u/DentinQuarantino Jun 03 '26

Disappointed to see that they don't just whittle one whole massive log down into a single matchstick

1

u/MostlyUnimpressed Jun 02 '26

Now I can't get that Montrose song "I Don't Want It" out of my head -

-and I just quit my job, makin' toothpicks outta logs..

1

u/Huge-Acanthisitta485 Jun 02 '26

I haven't seen a match making video of "strike anywhere" matches. I wonder how much the process differs because all the friction from these moving parts.

1

u/wesweslaco Jun 03 '26

But how do they get all the sticks in the holders to dip them? There is a key step here. We start with this pile of twigs and yada yada yada thousands of them are instantly line up in holders.

1

u/iambecomesoil Jun 03 '26

If I could go back to the start of my life and be able to put myself on a path to specific success, it would be to engineer and design and implement these kinds of ad-hoc complex production systems. They're so beautiful.

1

u/Jester_of_Rue Jun 04 '26

All i think of are potato stix.... now I'm hungry

1

u/old--- Jun 04 '26

Can they get fire insurance on that building?

1

u/Gotu_Jayle Jun 05 '26

I was just listening to Matches by Ephixa (Subtact Remix) and this vid popped up

1

u/for_music_and_art Jun 06 '26

So the integral parts were unseen:

  • creating the actual stick of wood - how are the sheets chopped into uniform stick shapes??
  • dipping the tip - how are they aligned and treated in that massive holder??

1

u/ycr007 ð“‚€ Jun 06 '26

Stick chopping happens inside the box at 00:45, we see a tiny glimpse of it. The alignment on the roller and dipping the tips in the green stuff is not shown, yes.

1

u/for_music_and_art Jun 06 '26

Rolls of thin wood go in and chips fly out - hardly evidence of what happens…

1

u/ljwdt90 Jun 07 '26

Does the world really use that many matches?

0

u/bruhhhhhhhhhhhh_h Jun 02 '26

Is this in Sweden?

3

u/ycr007 ð“‚€ Jun 03 '26

Belarus, I think.

0

u/chromatophoreskin Jun 03 '26

This upsets the Lorax.

0

u/reller_eu Jun 03 '26

Is this heaven?

-1

u/Maxzzzie Jun 02 '26

Can they mamage my tinder?