Southern Sweden, early spring, as the country emerges from another long, dark, and cold winter. With this climate its no surprise that the Swedes are pioneers of instant light and heat. This is the Swedish Match Industrys factory near Tidaholm. The Tidaholm factory churns out 250 million matches a day for export to 80 countries.

Every match starts life as a chunk of wood. A match that bends when you try to strike it would be useless, so they use hard 1)aspen wood to make rigid matchsticks.

Each log will become nearly 400,000 matches, enough to last the average Swede a thousand years. The problem is the logs are covered in soft 2)fibrous bark thats not stiff enough for making matches, so theyre fed into the stripping machine, which ruthlessly grinds away the bark. But the bare logs are still three meters long; too big for the processing machines. A circular saw makes short work of them, slicing the trunks into uniform 60 centimeter-long chunks called “3)billets.” If you tried chopping these chunks of hard wood into matches, youd be at it all year. So, instead of slicing the wood, they peal it with a specialist machine called a “rotary 4)lathe.” One by one the spinning logs are forced onto a blade which shaves them into sheets called “5)veneers,” just one matchstick thick. Veneers that pass 6)muster pile up against this unique machine. It chops the stack into 15 million tiny sticks or “splints” an hour.

The strangest thing about matchsticks is that theyve got to burn well when you need them to burn, and theyve got to go out and stay out when youve finished with them. So Thorsten Hobst pours flame 7)retardant 8)monoammonium phosphate into a giant blender. Here its mixed with water, then piped into these revolving chambers to soak the splints.

Thorsten makes sure theyve been properly dried out. He checks the woods humidity level is below 5%. Then he needs to see that the flame retardant is doing its job. As the wood burns the monoammonium phosphate in this five gram pile of matchsticks expands and chars. This stops the match burning any more once the flame is out. Hes hoping to see just 9)nought point six of a gram of ash remaining. Any less and the matches kept on 10)smoldering, but much more and the match hasnt burnt enough. If theyre burning right, the batch is ready to make the transformation from sticks to matchsticks.

This is the incredible continuous machine. Invented 150 years ago, by Swede Alexander Lagermann, this feat of engineering transforms two million splints into 40,000 boxes of matches every hour. With a bit of shaking and shoving each stick is aligned and dropped into holes in this metal conveyor belt.

Every match has to burn reliably first time, so first stop on the machine that never stops is the 11)paraffin. But even a stick soaked in paraffin wont just spontaneously 12)combust. Thats where the match head comes in. So over in the batching room Peder Johanssen is busy cooking up a mix to start a fire. A 13)squeegee of 14)gelatin works as glue to hold the burning stuff in place. The business end of the match is made from 15)potassium chlorate, also found in fireworks and gunpowder. This kick starts the burn, setting light to the paraffin in the splint. After a drop of red to make it pretty, the mixture is ready to go to the continuous machine. The splints are dipped in the head mixture 4,000 at a time. The trouble is, if they box them now, the 16)gloopy heads would stick together. This is where the continuous machine comes into its own. More than two thirds of its 150 meter length is actually one giant moving drying rack. For the hour it takes a match to move from dipping to packaging, its just airing.

The safety match was born.

這個(gè)國(guó)家剛剛走出了一個(gè)漫長(zhǎng)黑暗的寒冬，我們來(lái)到初春的瑞典南部。有這種氣候，也難怪瑞典人是瞬時(shí)照明與取暖方面的先驅(qū)。這是蒂達(dá)霍爾姆附近的瑞典火柴廠。蒂達(dá)霍爾姆工廠每天大批量制造兩億五千萬(wàn)根火柴，并外銷(xiāo)到80個(gè)國(guó)家。

每根火柴都從大塊木頭開(kāi)始。在點(diǎn)火時(shí)會(huì)彎曲的火柴是沒(méi)有用的，所以他們用堅(jiān)硬的山楊木來(lái)制造不易彎曲的火柴。

每根圓木都會(huì)變成近四十萬(wàn)根火柴，足以讓一個(gè)瑞典人用上一千年。問(wèn)題在于包著圓木的是多纖維的軟樹(shù)皮，其硬度不適合做火柴。于是它們被投入剝皮機(jī)里，這臺(tái)機(jī)器會(huì)毫不留情地磨掉樹(shù)皮，但剝皮后的圓木依然有三米長(zhǎng)，對(duì)加工機(jī)器來(lái)說(shuō)太大了。一臺(tái)圓鋸迅速地把圓木統(tǒng)一鋸成60厘米長(zhǎng)的短圓木。如果你要把這些硬木塊砍成火柴，你會(huì)忙上一整年，所以小圓木不是被直接切片，而是用一種叫旋切機(jī)的專門(mén)機(jī)器進(jìn)行切割。一條條旋轉(zhuǎn)著的圓木被推到刀片上，刨成只有一根火柴那么厚的薄木片。經(jīng)檢驗(yàn)合格的薄板堆起來(lái)，放在這臺(tái)特殊的機(jī)器上，它每小時(shí)可將一堆堆的薄板切成1500萬(wàn)根細(xì)棒，這些細(xì)棒叫“木梗”。

火柴棒最奇異的地方在于當(dāng)你需要時(shí)，它們必須良好燃燒，等你用完時(shí)，它們又必須永遠(yuǎn)熄滅。所以托森·霍布斯特要把阻燃材料磷酸二氫銨倒入一個(gè)巨大的攪拌機(jī)里，將它與水混合，然后輸送到這些旋轉(zhuǎn)室里去浸泡火柴梗。

托森要確認(rèn)浸泡后的火柴梗確實(shí)已經(jīng)烘干。他檢查木頭的濕度是否低于5%，然后他要檢查阻燃劑是否有效。隨著木頭燃燒，這堆五克火柴梗里的磷酸二氫銨會(huì)膨脹并燒成炭，這樣火柴在火焰熄滅后就不會(huì)再燃燒。他希望最后只剩下0.6克的灰燼。如果不夠這個(gè)重量，火柴會(huì)繼續(xù)悶燒；比這重則表示火柴沒(méi)有燒盡。如果燃燒適當(dāng)?shù)脑挘@批材料就準(zhǔn)備好要從木棒變成火柴棒了。

這就是不可思議的連續(xù)機(jī)，150年前由瑞典人亞歷山大·拉格曼發(fā)明，這個(gè)工程設(shè)計(jì)上的杰作能每小時(shí)將200萬(wàn)根木梗變成四萬(wàn)盒火柴。經(jīng)過(guò)機(jī)器稍微搖晃推擠，每根火柴都對(duì)準(zhǔn)并落入這條金屬輸送帶的孔洞里。

每根火柴第一次劃著時(shí)都要可靠地一次便燒起來(lái)，所以在這臺(tái)永不停止的機(jī)器上的第一站是石蠟。但就算是浸了石蠟的木棒也不會(huì)自己點(diǎn)燃。那就該火柴頭出場(chǎng)了。在配料室里，佩德·約翰森正忙著配制可燃的混合物，其中的明膠是粘著劑，其作用是固定燃燒物。火柴的使用端用氯酸鉀做成，它也用于制造煙火和火藥。它會(huì)啟動(dòng)燃燒，點(diǎn)燃木梗上的石蠟。在加了一點(diǎn)起裝飾作用的紅色后，混合料就可以送入連續(xù)機(jī)了。一次會(huì)有四千根木梗一起被浸入火柴頭混料里。問(wèn)題是，如果現(xiàn)在火柴就裝盒，濕粘的火柴頭會(huì)粘在一起。這就是連續(xù)機(jī)發(fā)揮作用的時(shí)候了。機(jī)器150米長(zhǎng)，其中三分之二以上的部分其實(shí)是一個(gè)巨大的移動(dòng)干燥架?；鸩駨慕吹桨b所需的一個(gè)小時(shí)，都只是在風(fēng)干。

安全火柴就這樣誕生了。