Oh.... July..... Summer time & Projects ......

The last month has been a wide open cluster of projects filling the shop on a daily basis...

I have had to take a few brakes from everything here and there to enjoy the great West Coast summer and work on some personal projects.

The little giant hammer is coming along with a fresh coat of paint and some retro-fit pieces to make it run a little bit better. Theres a strong following to these Little Giant PowerHammers around and luckly they love the share the love and show how to do some of the rebuilds on them and make them run a little better.

So heres a update of the rebuild....

Thats the old connecting rod from 1927 on the right.

So using 2 giant bolts, I cut the heads off of them and used the cut off to make new safe and adjustable connecting rods. The old ones were really beat up and not adjustable like the new ones are.

This is a very important upgrade to the LG hammers that is a "must have" if your are rebuilding it.

The finished product.

Custom Tig welded and bolted " for extra safety " connecting rods

The old hammer adjusters limit the movement but making these connectors will double the amount of adjustment, making it possible to work some very large billets of steel safely.

This is the slide assembly with the 2 adjusters and all the retrofit bearing set up on it.

I am getting excited....

This assembly is about 200 lb of steel as you see it on the table. Solid !

The 1927 Little Giant 100LB power hammer is looking better everyday..

My arms and hands are trembling thinking about this thing running....

I am sure I will have to move as soon as the people on the block hear this thing...

Exile Cycles.... Another day at work.

Somedays I get a kick out of classing the place up by parking my sweet truck in the shop to stoke out Russell, he loves when my $500 dollar truck sits in the middle of the shop leaking oil and smelling like gas...

MLS is always growing

These are production punch presses that can hit 135 hits per minute with 25 tons per hit.

Almost 3,000 lb that punch weighs

Gabe has been learning to Tig weld and do sheet metal at the shop and is having a blast doing it.

This was a project for science museums to use Ipads for exhibits.

Really cool way to have a touch screen on the exhibit and a camera as well.

With a fresh white powercoat the Ipad displays are ready for action!

With all the orders for robots, displays and madness filled...

Jen and I jumped in to the New Belgium Beer van and headed north to Portland...

Time to relax and see the friends.

This is Robert the mad chef behind Chris King's in house kitchen for the employees.

We spent the weekend cruzin Portland with Nick, and Matt from King.

Then on Monday we made them and also Kyle at King give us a full tour of every square inch of Chris King, even got to stop in the frame shop and give Buck and the welders a hard time as they were welding the Celio frames. I had to QC the frames for errors.... But I couldn't find any.....

Jen and I both know Chris but he happened to not be in that day which was a bummer but we will be back soon to talk machines, biking, trains or what ever madness we have to offer.

This is Chris Kings in house " tooling dept " on this end of the building.

Theres about 90 employees making some really rad parts and doing a great job to show USA can still keep them machines spinning.

I don't know how I managed to snap this photo during our coaster brake race thur Portland...

Trust me, there was heavy tire smoke from all the heavy power skids around the corners.

Mr. Poe is still holding the shop down..

Sometimes I find poop behind the machines and I have to be a mean to him...

He wasn't stoked to get told to quit shitting behind the press brake....

Jen and I had some crazy box seats to the Oakland A's game...

( what ever value they hold )

But it came with a chef..... With style..... Plus for some unknown reason...

The A's happened to win... thats a rare statement.

Back to the grind of designing and building...

Theres some really cool stuff showing up at the shop to build so stay tuned