Busy... Busy... Busy....

Its been a busy summer like I expected moving in to the new shop....

Between traveling around and working with High schools and various other projects to traveling for Haas/Autodesk for tradeshows its been a blast and with all these social media things its sometimes hard to get back to the blog and keep it updated so I figured its about time. 

I was pretty stoked about his photo...

I got a new Miller Dynasty 350 ( pictured in the back) for welding because once you use one you know how damn nice it is.... well I started to use it all the time and realized I got an idea... I am going to ship my older ( not really older) Miller Syncrowave back to my high school in New Ulm Minnesota without them knowing and see if they figure it out... 

Ha Ha.... Well my shop teacher knew right away it wasn't any mistake and called me crying in joy... 

That welder build me as an Aerospace welder and about 5 other top level fabricators I have trained as apprentices I can only hope it builds a few more being at the high school back in Minnesota.  

I was cleaning the 5 axis Haas UMC750 machine at Autodesk University out in Las Vegas.

Thats the "Kelly Handlebars/Stem combo" that we decided to use as a demo for cutting. ( see last post on the blog for some details about the kelly stem)

Gotta make that window picture perfect. 

I got a call out of the blue from some kids in a small community college in Hawaii asking for help....

They needed machining help on a project they were selected to be funded for, the project is super cool and called RockSat. Google it up and take a look, basically is a very simple version of satellites that shoot up to low orbit but fall back down to the earth without making an orbit, its more to teach students about getting every thing just right before you step in the next level which is Cubesats. 

I offered to machine up the housing for them out of that giant block of Aluminum pictured above..

I love just cutting massive blocks of aluminium, what I don't love is having to haul my metal chip recycling in and dealing with the meth heads and weirdos of oakland that hang at the scrap place. its a give and take i guess....

Just a lot of great things in this photo.... 

USA made Doringer saw and the best beer out there Grain Belt from my home town in Minnesota!

I am super pumped about this....

I was asked about 6 months ago if I wanted to be an advisor and part of a group that would write the next level of Nation Standards for high schools and college students looking to get in to metal working. To give you an idea the other people on the board are Nasa, Google X, Sandia National Labs, Mori DMG, Autodesk and myself along with 4 other teachers. Its a great honor to be able to be part of that and know my questions are making kids scratch their head across North America.. 

Just some good old Stainless Tig work.... I love building this stuff, this is my parts for my coffee maker for the shop but I do a ton of stuff like it for Ultra High Vacuum work for science labs and government labs. 

Well its up and running.... It was the first big machine in to the shop and the last running.

Getting the right 480v power from the city was a pain in the ass but its done now!

Its a 6 axis waterjet that uses 50,000 psi of water pressure to be able to cut up to about 12" (1 foot!!!!) thick metal with one pass, it also has a rotary for doing advanced level tubing notching and cutting. 

Such an amazing machine from Omax 

My little babies... yesterday the one in the front when to scrap.... I cried for a bit... well not really but i felt like i should.

The cool story is the machine in the front was used at the NHS skateboard factory in Santa Cruz since the beginnings and it was so cool to see that its whole life it spent cutting off the mold flashing on the skateboard wheels and the machine had all kinds of programs for cutting the wheels still in the computer. The little machine in the rear is my little Mori SL-0h, both of these machines for the last 3+ years have been making hip replacement parts so its neat to see that an old Mori like that can still make great parts.

I turned 28 this year... Old bastard... behind me is my baby blanchard grinder, its the crazy machine that puts that wild spiral grind you see on bicycle disc brake rotors and really flat metal parts. It can be scary to run because shit flys off all the time and hits you in the stomach.... Watch out !

One of the really cool projects I have been proud to be part of is the develoment and testing of Autodesk Fusion 360, its so need to be able to be the guy on the ground running testing the new CAM side of the program used for machining and manufacturing. The program is so awesome and Carl has made it a push to give it away to all students, teachers and start up companies to make sure innovation keeps happening!!

I will leave you with a video.... 

You know I love Aerospace.... Well heres a really cool concept and I have poured so much of my last year in to this awesome project because they scaled it up and are building a massive air borne wind turbine for generating this video is of the prototype small version, the new one is massive and generates about 600+ KW, watch the video and see what you think? Is it a pipe dream or will it work for a new way to generate wind power! I love it!

Well back to the madness... I will make some more blog updates soon, I got some really cool projects to show everyone.