- Rated: Not Rated
- Run Time: 50 minutes
- Video: Color
- Released: December 16, 2008
- Originally Released: 2008
- Label: A&E Home Video
- Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
- Packaging: Keep Case
- Aspect Ratio: Full Frame - 1.33
- Dolby Digital 2.0 - English
- Interactive Features:
- Scene Selection
- Interactive Menu
Performers, Cast and Crew:
This entry in the History Channel's Toolbox series looks at the evolution of two fixtures in modern construction: the hammer and the blowtorch. Tracing each instrument back to its ancient roots, the program highlights the turning points in their trajectory from crude objects to sophisticated pieces of technology.
Description by New Video Group:
The Egyptians blew through reeds to reach temperatures hot enough to melt gold. Early American silversmiths used crude proto-blowtorches powered by human breath and alcohol.
Now, TOOLBOX offers an exhaustive account of the blowtorch, tracing key moments in the evolution of the tool and examining the newest high-tech models, including one that re-creates temperatures found at the earth's core. Next, HAMMER digs into the long and fascinating history of the "King of Tools," from the earliest Stone Age manifestations to its latest uses, and from the invention of nails - when the hammer took on its modern application - to innovative new hammering machines. The program also surveys the tool's alternate functions, such as the Olympic hammer
throw, that emerged along the way.
Detailed and absorbing, BLOWTORCH and HAMMER take viewers deep into the histories of two of world's most imperative tools.
Ancient Civilizations |