hey what's up everybody and welcome back to the channel it's Kyle and today we've
got a special video because I am in Germany I am here with my friends at
Sibylla at the corporate headquarters and they
are going to do their best to share with me the process of how the level is made
and more importantly how Stabila maintains the reputation for having the
best most precise and accurate measuring tools in the world since day one my
first level was an 8 foot stabile a level and I love that I still use it you
guys see it in my build series videos and so now I'm gonna go and I'm gonna
hang out with stabile it for the day and hopefully learn a little bit about
levels
so back here in the back is where a lot of these aluminum blanks are coming in
and this is right here what is going to be making the actual frame of the level
they aren't made here in the factory but they are made here in Germany over in
Landau so it's still a hundred percent made here in Germany once the blanks
come in here you can see behind me they're all stacked up and unfortunately
we're here during Sibelius holiday so they're basically on break there are
some people here they're doing maintenance getting ready for production
to ramp back up but I did see some of the process this machine here is
basically punching out holes and then here behind me this machine that they're
working on right now it's a CNC so it's actually perfectly
milling out the spots for the level vials so not gonna be able to show you
that but we'll keep going so once all of these just raw aluminum they've been
punched this powder coating process they used to have manually have to move you
know carts of levels from one spot to the next
now they just get loaded up on these racks and that was well over a million
dollar investment but I think it's paying off because it's much much less
labor-intensive so you can see here all the racks this is what the levels are
getting clipped on here on these little hook notice that there's not just yellow
paint there's some green some red you know they have a couple different colors
especially over here in Europe but US Americans were used to seeing yellow now
after we kind of leave that milling and painting process coming over here into
this area and it's getting printed all the levels nothing on them
and so depending on where they're going or what language it's in they'll print
right on them right here these are all of the I guess forms or printing
templates and these are a lot of the different levels that they print you
might only see a handful of levels but they make them
or you know many different countries so therefore a lot of different designs
specialty purposes that I don't typically see in the US
these are all the rains and these are manually inserted by hand which i think
is crazy but they're gonna let me try this so
this is it's pretty cool and the important thing is they say you can't
scratch the inside of the file
oh I got one I got one
they also tell me that the people that do this full-time they do two of these
every ten seconds so I'm not going to be getting any money from Sibylla on this
deal oh man Oh got it
next thing I got to do is just make sure right here this ring
the opening is not in the way
so there we go so I don't know if that's going to show up but the openings of the
Ring are now not going to be visible here
there we go I just made sense entities so right here behind me I can't show you
the actual process because it's top secret
one thing that's to be loved really does above and beyond and that is with their
vile checking and making sure every vial that goes into a level meets a certain
code and it's pretty cool it's definitely more thought-out than
anything I would have expected yeah it's just it's crazy the amount of level of
just and thought that goes into this so here
where I'm at now once the vials have been checked by the Machine they're
actually going to be every single vial is visually inspected now by a person
just for any other impurities that a machine might even miss and I'll show
you a couple that were missed but caught by the people here and it's pretty crazy
all right now this this area behind me is pretty cool because once again
there's a human being involved in making sure that your vial is placed perfectly
level inside your level now the tolerance on these levels is going to be
point zero five however when they're setting them in
here they're actually looking for point zero three or less and that allows any
temperature changes or things within your level to still stay within the
manufacturers you know really fact I guess that really tight high quality
tolerance that stabile is known for and it's done by hand and it's more accurate
done by hand and the machinery is pretty cool I can't show you but I can show you
this a little bit of a video here in this process on how the bubble is moved
and then maybe I'll show you kind of visually with by hand how it's done but
I can't show you on the machine so once we leave the factory here and everything
is packaged then it's coming out here into the warehouse and what's crazy to
think about is that every spirit level rotary laser and just about everything
but the personal digital measuring tools is made right here in Sibylla factory
over ten thousand levels a day more than two million a year right here in the
small town in Germany obviously Sibylla is so precise in their
measuring tools and what that means is they've got technology that they're not
really wanting me to share because it's their proprietary technology so a lot of
the process I wasn't really able to fully get it you would think how
complicated can it be to make a level you just have a straight edge and you
throw this bubble in here to make sure that your level right it's so much more
than that and I I personally didn't even understand it until I came here and was
explained but this is where it gets a lot more hairy and I can't show you guys
a lot of the video and that is the vial so the vial is the most important part
you can have the straightest edge but if your vial is not inserted correctly it's
not tension free it's not connect did to the level itself so now when I'm
referring to tension free basically the most important part about that is that
it's leaning up against the wall it's riding around in your trailer and if you
have tension here on the viol through temperature change or by simply dropping
your level you can move even ever so slightly a fraction of an inch a
hundredth of an inch it makes a difference when this moves just the most
minut amount when you go out to the end of a three-foot level an 8-foot level I
can't show you guys exactly the interior or the inner workings of this specific I
guess cartridge but this is what is slid from the end into the level and
positioned right where you guys are going to see it here in this one and the
most important part is that when you look at this thing the vial is is not
snapped into place it's not glued into place and you'll see this system right
here is the key key factor in making a precise leveling device because there's
an epoxy resin that is inserted into this and maybe I'll tag a youtube video
that stabile a made that shows this process in more of a rendering so once
this module is inserted into the level they have a machine that allows them to
be accurate within 0.5 millimeters per meter in accuracy but that's not what
they try to do they're doing it within 0 to 0.1 millimeters and I watched this
happen it was really amazing and they have this machine that they can zero in
measure the bubble within the two rings they just slightly move this one way or
the other and then 24 hours later this system is fully cured hard and will
never move for the life of the tool and that's the most important thing and then
what differentiates Stabila from mostly any other factory
that makes a level and I'll be honest I was skeptical it's quite impressive my
hat goes off to Stabilo because there is a lot more cost and labor involved in
making sure that that vial is perfect if you're really curious I'm sure you can
find some older levels or really any other brand and if you want to have fun
cut it open and look at how other level brands are securing the most important
thing to level one thing that was great was you know they gave us a tour of the
factory we saw this stuff they said now let's go to our warranty department and
I think it was almost a joke because there's a couple offices there's a
couple shelves and I think one level in sight there was rotary lasers but
warranty wise they said worldwide they received back point zero three percent
across-the-board that's their return rate on warranty issues and most of that
is because you know electronics are playing a big part and needing to be
recalibrated they want returned customers not return products and that
is pretty cool I will say that I've never met a company everybody here
believes yellow that is for sure and it was a great great opportunity to come
over here and I hope you guys enjoyed the video anytime you got questions you
can always drop them down below in the down below in the comments and I will
get any answers I can we've always been a huge believer of the
stabile of precision and I will continue to use to be lab because it's the best
well it was a great trip here and you can see maybe behind me the stabile a--
offices got to go home can't be here forever what a great honor to come over
to germany and hang out with all these great people as to Beal and have the
opportunity to learn more about the precision and the thought process that
goes into the production of a level something that I took for granted to be
honest I just always knew Sibylla was the best but I didn't know why now I
know why so that's I think the best thing education is power knowledge is
power and if you're not learning you're dying so thanks a lot for the
hospitality everybody else to bila and we'll see you guys on the next video
you