Autodesk University - MLS style....

Over the last year I have been getting more and more involved with advance machining, the more I get involved the more I fall in love with it... A true brain twister, one of the big companies out there noticed my love and they took me under the wing, they are the next generation of CAM ( aka - Computer Aided Manufacturing or Machining)... The company is called HSMworks, which is now owned by Autodesk. ( HSM in the machining world mean = High Speed Machining )

To give you a quick background of what CAM does and how important it is, you have to go a few steps backwards.

CAD or Computer Aided Design/Drawing software is all set up to draw in 3D now days right out of the box... but with all this crazy software you still have to somehow make real stuff and thats where CAM comes in.

CAM is the step that turns just a 3D drawing in to a crazy amount of numeric lines for a machine to understand where to move to make cuts and do operations, its also tells the machine what cutter tools to use and how to use them...

Without CAM we have to do it in our head and type it by hand, which by todays level of madness being drawn in 3D, its too complicated and time consuming to try to write out by hand but could be done, if you don't mind your life sucking for a lot of hours.

The really neat thing thats happening in the market currently is what all the hype is about... and that is the streamlined system between cam and cad which for all the years prior to the last one was something only thought about in CAD systems.

 The ablitiy to be able to do simple adjustments and fine tuning to a 3D model and have the system almost instantly correct the tool paths that CAM generated is such an amazing thing thats got everyone wondering why it took so long to get to this day.... Parts go from hours to minutes to get ready to cut on the machines, less mistakes, less transfers, less madness and possible errors due to so many normal day to day things.

This is a good photo example of what these thing do.

You have the part drawn in CAD - All 4 of these silver parts

But now we need to let the machine know what it needs to do to make these 4 parts

The blue means thats how the program recommends using a selected tool to cut the part.

The yellow lines mean thats where the tool is going go up and down to clear the part and the green shows that its not cutting anything but air because there is no material there so it can go a bit faster to save time. 

Its about time...

 I would say it was like, getting a amazing cake ( cad ) and getting a cup of frosting ( cam ) and some tools to put them together but they came separate for years... it took a lot of time and people made messes all the time but it just was the way it was done...

This is not a mess yet but it could be... Still a lot of work to be done...

Now with all these announcements the cake comes with the frosting already applied and no ones complaining plus extra things on top.... The only people complaining are making plain cakes and plain frosting still... No more messes, spilled frosting or wasted time!!!

I like this one better...

Same cake... just way easier !

Now I am hungry....

The coolest part is I have learned over the last 10 years as a machinist doing all the different styles...

1. Conventional - doing it the old way - by hand

2. Writing NC codes by hand and simple CAM systems to write basic CNC programs

3. The new Integrated CAD/CAM systems over the last year to design crazy complex projects.

I hope I look back at this post in a few years and laugh at how excited I am about this and how it took so long to get to this point.

So whats this post about?

Well its about me Partying of coarse.... What else do I really blog about !!!!

Well first things first.... The day I dragged that Bridgeport CNC back to the shop and got it all set up I knew I wanted to push it making stuff for me...

Every Red Bull trophy project I have done in the last year I have done mostly on the Bridgeport CNC...

I wish I had a Haas and maybe Mr. Haas will read this and feel like that lonely machine in the back of the Haas Oxnard factory needs a better home and MLS is the perfect place to send it too... but for some reason I feel like the Bridgeport is going to be the main machine in my shop for the next years but you never know...

I love my CNC Bridgeport.... Its got a fancy new brain now too with a touch screen. 

Your saying get to the point what are you rambling about....

Ok Ok ..... The last month around Halloween I was asked by some of the crew to team up and work on a cool project involving a prosthesis leg project for a girl that was hurt in live fire serving in the USA armed forces. This was a really neat project to give back to some of the people that make the USA such an amazing place so I had to do it... My dad is like 30 years military so its only more of an incentive to do it to make him proud.

My dad Casper Tiedeken with his tool of choice for 20+ years

The team at AMPd Gear lead by Bill near Santa Barbara, CA brought me in to help hammer on this project and Anthony from HSMworks made sure all the people were on board to make it happen. Heres a little video they did a year ago for HP computers showcasing both Bill and HSM

We decided that we would use Autodesk's new Fusion 360 program via the Cloud which is amazing for doing both CAM and CAD... We designed a really amazing leg for Catherine in a short time frame and it was very cool looking.

I did a lot of the design with Bill over web chatting services and bouncing files back and forth, we came up with some really fun designs but we were under the pressure to get it done quickly so we locked down on some designs that Bill and I had talked about using hydraulic dampening thats tune-able

These are some parts for the ankle I ran on the Bridgeport 

They are also adjuster knobs for the amount of movement. 

Anthony decided the best place to unveil this pilot project for both the Autodesk 360 software and the prosthesis leg project was at Autodesk University hosted in Las Vegas.

Autodesk throws its big yearly event in Las Vegas with over 10,000 Autodesk users showing up to learn about new products and take classes on the products. Its not free but worth the money if you decide to go, its truly a educational endurance test with like 400+ classes offered over a 5 day period.... How much you want to learn...???


Check out this video with Carl Bass CEO of Autodesk talking about the new products and he talks about the leg project as well as Monkey Likes Shiny !


If you have time watch it all because its really neat otherwise fast forward to about 9:00 to see the leg project. Its way easier to show you this because Carl does such a rad job talking about the project.

Carl is a buddy of mine and one of the most rad builder dudes, truly a very rare dude that runs a 2+ billion dollar company pushing his own product to the limits on his free time and when he catches a problem... He fixes it himself.... This is what a CEO should be like.... Take notes CEOs

Carl Bass the CEO of Autodesk is not only just a good friend ... but a frequent visitor to the MLS skunkworks shop where he picks up trade secrets, ha ha I wish I could take credit for that....

Limo ride from the airport - Fuck yeah 

Machinist don't get these cars dirty very often so I made sure to grease up the buttons and doors and let them know just a average Joe has been in the back....

let me tell you about how wild I can get in Las Vegas....

Me the morning after about 5 gallons of free drinks.... No comment....

I had to pull it together because it was show time!

Thanks to Bill for this memory.... trust me I didn't forget....

I do remember watching the tv show "how its made " in the high stakes room big screen and drinking shots of whiskey without playing any games... yep that got Bill and I kicked out of the high stakes for trying to learn about how they make frozen pizzas. 

Thats Bill from Amp'd Gear with the Leg project in the case

I had to get a rad photo of Bill walking in to the opening moment of the event..

there was well over 6,000 people in this hall that morning for Carls talk.

If you watch the video above you will see this in video but I was so stoked to see it I had to take a picture... then they turned the cameras on me and I wasn't ready....

Everyone knows I love a good laugh....

I had to make 3 of them the night I left for Autodesk University....

Carl got a kick out of the shirt and the fact I made a custom screen printed shirt just for him. 

MLS original that no one can get unless you run a 2+ billion dollar company and make it happen!

This was Antony talking from HSM/Autodesk and Carl Bass next to him.

This was the VIP CAM experience I got to be part off...

The whole week was filled with amazing stuff for all the guests...

Haas brought in 2 machines and like normal I was banned from the Haas area...

There was too much drool from me and they were tired of mopping it all up...  I just stood there and dreamed like normal...

After day 3 I was pissed... I had basically been banned from the Haas area because of trying to work too many deals...
Like my idea of financing a CNC mold milling machine for 106 years at $100 bucks a month with $0 down !

So we took it to the race track - Fuck it ..... I may have to buy a Haas with Cash due to my aggressive driving around the Haas big wigs but I can say I did win some races but did cause some ( non Intentional ) accidents with people I shouldn't pick on if I want to get a machine....

The HSM, Autodesk, and Haas boys... 

Thanks for the race... It was too rad!

My arms hurt for 2 days after that.

These are just some of the crew that makes amazing products, its so amazing to have these guys working on this big project of CAM integration, because they love machining and making as much as they like the computer side of things! The knowledge these guys have is so amazing, truly a great team Carl has at Autodesk and I only see really good stuff coming in the next years on the CAM side of the company. 

I had this 3 roomed kick ass penthouse pad over looking Vegas 35+ floors up

this was the living room overlooking Treasure Island 

Like normal ...

I got messy at a VIP party and almost got tossed but not after taking about

 50 sheet photos X 4 little photos per page = 200+ photos

Its true... 

Thats Jon ( orange cone on his head ) a reader of MLS blog and wind turbine mastermind from out by Boston, Mass. 

I guess I was easy to pick me out of a crowd as JT from MLS

As you can see on the name badge I was trying to drop the "A" word " MLS Aerospace" 

So I could hang with the big dogs and not get made fun. 

If you had about 30 beers and 5 pounds of fish you would be this happy when you meet a pretty girl.... Thanks Autodesk for the free beer.... The girl ran away long before the last beer was drank

catch and release program....

Don't think I didn't have to pull some weight around the event...

Well, If talking about what you love is called working... then I love my job...

I was so stoked to get to speak to a few classes about where the manufacturing industry is going and how its going there. 

Addressing some issues I see from a young maker view point.... I don't give my age away a lot but I felt pretty special to be 26 and be up there with some of the big names in the machining world and having them listen to a different point of view that they don't normally hear.

 I know I hit it when I get the perked up looks like " shit.... thats a good point.... I guess hes not just an Aerospace welder Party Animal, he actually cares about what he does and how its going to get there for everyone " . 

Over the whole week I had about 40 people come up to me and say they read the blog and follow me, even had a dude tell me that I made a difference in their life by opening their eyes to getting their hands dirty and cranking hand wheels on the milling machines. 

I love that and its the reason I wake up everyday.... I can't build everything but I can help get people to build everything by showing them how special it is to be able to transform your brains idea in to a physical object...

Working with your hands is for everyone.... we got them.... use them... 

Soon I will have a good video up about the leg project we built, its still not ready to show but it will give you a good idea about the madness that went in to building this thing. 

This is a link to more talks from Autodesk and one from Anthony about where CAM is going in the next years 

Autodesk University Talks

If you have solidworks or autodesk products you can download a 2.5D version of HSM which doesn't do the super wild 3D tool paths but is enough to do almost every thing most of the time.
Its a good way to try it out as well and find out how easy it really is...
Free download of HSMxpress

Thanks Again Autodesk for everything...

Giving me Cad and Cam has opened so many door for madness and kept me up even later making stuff then before.. 

which mean I don't sleep at all because I am so stoked to build !

Learning from the big kids....

If you have followed the blog for a while you have got to see Gabe learn all kinds of stuff over the 2 years he has been with me, pretty rad to think this kid that wondered in to the shop 2 years ago was some punk with no drivers license or GED...

Amazing what a little swift boot in the ass can do for a kid and how just trusting and believing can make someone push themselves to get all the things needed to keep them wheels amoving... Now hes becoming a good fabricator with a GED and a drivers license and going to school to become a machinist so then I can retire and do nothing but write blog post so I can quit getting emails from people about how little I blog because what they don't know is that I am doing secret projects for companies that would strangle me to death if they found out I was talking about their project...

 Ok back to Gabe ha ha because this post is about him and his skills so he can look back and use the blog like myself, to see how silly he was and how much he has grown over the years.

One of the biggest challenges when becoming a prototype fabricator is just understanding things in 3D and what it take to make something work.... Its not always you get to work on flat things that just land perfect 90 degs to each other and a tape measure just hooks too perfectly... I wish, and I am guessing he and every other fabricator out there do to.

But like most of the time, the twisting tubes and odd corners make it more of a brain and eye measurement and truly test your brains understanding of whats missing or whats not straight.

Teaching Gabe is fun, if I didn't enjoy teaching him these skills I wouldn't be making this post. I can't say its been quick either teaching him to think in this Dot to Dot idea, but hes getting it and I am slowly letting him take the wheel on these projects.

Training is one of the biggest things that makes anyone the best ( no news to you, I am hoping), training in the metal working industry basically sounds like a fancy word for WORK but really when it comes down to it, its important in 2 ways the way I look at it....

1. That when you build a lot of stuff and do it start to finish you generate a very rapid thinking and processing and that leads to getting it done quick for when it really matters, for example. -  a customer walks in to your shop with a rush project that you know he has been quoted high on but because you have built a lot of stuff like it, you know the tricks to do it fast and very well which means a returning customer and a good profit margin.

This also helps a lot with quoting which is one of the biggest problems with fabrication and where people fail, if you have built it then you sure as hell know that it takes you X amount of time to do it... Plus tacking on a few extra because you know your buddy is going to swing thru and bug you and that will slow you down plus other factors but for the most part you are very close in the ball park.

2. Just being good at what you do gets Chicks !  I don't think I need to go in to details about that....

Over the last 2 years I have had Gabe making frames out of steel tubing, doing sheet metal, welding, machining and just being an all around fabricator/machinist and builder. I don't know if he will stay around forever but thats not really the reason I teach, I teach so I can learn and be a better teacher of my craft.

The other day we did a warm up set of frames to see what he could think up on his own and kick out to really fancy stuff for the shop. The idea was thrown out there about doing tool box holders and making them based off some designs I had seen at Boeing in their fab shop, but it was his idea and his thinking so I just let him roll on the project.

Heres what we got in about 2 days.

The frames were sent off to powdercoating right away... 

Mostly because the tool boxes were everywhere and unmovable.

Pretty well done !

Boxes are in ! 

Mine are the green ones and his is the orange one. 

One is machining and one for fabrication. 

This is my machining one custom built for tool holder shelves

I can't wait to finish it and get it running!

My favorite color is Kermit the Frog Green 

I made him remove the Jegs sticker if he was to put this stencil on the bottom

As according to proper Boeing style - AEROSPACE DIV. stencil is painted on

This was the warm up for the next project which would test his skills a bit harder...

The project is to build a crazy dirt bike stand for a company ( no name given yet ) that will be for Virtual Reality Dirt Bike Racing and the real bike will be bolted to the stand with a computer inside the stand to run the VR equipment.

I will talk more about this soon when we get more in to the project for right now its just a concept.

I think we did about 50/50 on the work for this beast...

I did most of the layout and design and he did all the tubing bending, nothing and fit up.

Hes pretty stoked...

He did the steel Tig root pass and then I went over it with a single pass with bronze

This is the Aluminum door to access the computer inside. 

There is a lock on it to prevent anyone from messing with it inside.

Not too bad for some wild tubing fabrication

Its only going to keep getting better.....

Hes landed a really rad new job as a fab kid at a famous Hot Rod shop in the Bay Area.... Not going to blow it up yet and talk about it until he at least has a few months in and feeling good... So far things are looking really good !

Enjoy the fruits of learning....