The payment - A race to a race

Over the last months, MLS has become so busy doing all kinds of crazy projects for the Government DARPA stuff, U of Minnesota and other big companies, I haven't even got a second to stop and enjoy why I truly do this stuff.

I get in these work trances that make me forget sometimes, I love every second of doing metal crafting but its crazy when I get the opportunity to take a step back in the past and show someone what I have learned over the years. 

18 year old Gabe is my new helper/ apprentice around the shop, he gets to do all the fun jobs like making sure the shop is getting ready for the TV show pilot and all the layout is kept clean. All his hard work can't just go unnoticed so every once in a while its good to have some fun building a fun project. 

The project we decided to tackel in days notice of the Maker Fair event was a concept we had created after some spinning around in a parking lot....

We found one of those Green Machines and decided to have some fun that day.....

After looking at the MLS 36x29er shop runner.....

We decided it needed to be a Green Machine on steroids using the 36" Coker front wheel.....

Luckily we found this blueprint on the internet with all the main details to build this thing.

So I did a concept sketch with Gabe and made him set it all up and dial in a building area. 

Using a classic real Ames chair and the 36 front, Gabe started figuring out the points and measurements

The basic layout with the 20mm MTB 26" inch wheels on the rear

Gabe is still working on his Tig skills 

you learn by mistakes and lots of burned holes......

We decided to go classic hotrod style with a square frame 

We wanted to add some style so we put a 1 inch tube slip fit into the 1.25 tube

Check it.... Style....

Those Stronghand clamps and magnets work so well for this stuff to get it mocked up

We quick slid this in to the work load,

a custom wet work station for Performance Machine Research and Development

Being my apprentice means you have to travel and hammer out the jobs with me.

I had to go to LA for a day and weld Harley swingarms

Lucky I get to use that BuildPro welding table, makes life easy for fixturing so I can get done quick.

Gabe can't hang after a 36 hour work day including the 6 hour drive to LA.

Next stop for the weekend was Exile cycles to finish hammering out some welding

on some projects going out. 

We bent up some tubing for the rear end of the race machine

Back at MLS World HQ

I did a sketch on the welding table for young Gabe so he knew what we needed to build

With the rear end in hand, notching is made easy on the 1940s K&T horz. mill and some Starrett holesaws.

Part of building at MLS is knowing and getting to run all the machines

Gabe bending up the brackets for the shocks on the rear. 

A day before the event ....

World Champ Mountain biker Greg Minnaar decided he needed to lend a hand before jetting out to the world cup races that next day so we put him to work.....

I don't want to add any more details about his measuring and the metric conversion and the errors that happened that night due to my American tape measures......

He got us all fired up and brought the energy to the last day that it was lacking, so it was well worth it. 

Gabe got to give some pointers to Greg about welding

Really cool time seeing everyone having a good time.

We had a roller by about 4 AM

All smiles from Gabe....

I had to check his work......

My new Pepples Donut sponsor will love that logo hit.....

You can also see the Rock Shox sid shocks on the rear of the cart. 

Well that stance is on point....

We ended up not getting the steering linkage done for the race....

But the machine did go to the race and even if it didn't race it was kinda a wake up call to eveyone there.... that they should be ready for when this thing hits the figure 8 track. 

Trust me...

This bad boy will get done with a great green paint job and you will see some videos coming.

Enjoy...