Pod Casts for your daily commute

Yo everyone....

Its been crazy the last weeks and I will fill you in on all the projects leading up to Autodesk University in the next few days and post up some pictures but while I round that up I figured this is a good chance to post up a Pod Cast I did last week at Vegas.

Its a good listen if you got some time and want to know about what I do, where I see things going and whats happening right now with making follow the link below.

A Maker Tale - Jeff Tiedeken

We were sitting across from the Autodesk Cam booth while recording this so you get our view looking at some of my bikes scattered across the booth both unfinished and unfinished.... someday I will finish them all.... ha ha yeah right... 

JT 

if you think your in control... your going to slow....

Over the last weeks my life has been shifting in to 5 gear... or maybe I was already in 5th gear and now for some reason I am just noticing it?

Between bouncing off the walls working on projects for Google X, Oakley, Make magazine, getting ready to go to Italy for Red Bull and one of the main things happening to me -  MOVING TO A NEW SHOP IN BERKELEY !!!!

I will have more info about all this madness when I take a breath of air in less then a month.... I mean as an example of my life lately - its like 4 am right now and I am waiting for the CNC to finish cutting so I can take a quick nap while it runs the next parts, this is becoming more normal the more I do prototyping work, I feel like I haven't slept in years because theres too much stuff to do.

Peace and quite at 4am... well maybe... the streets of Oakland always have some odd activity going on 24/7, you hear some noises that kinda resemble a animal but it is clearly a human making those noises, I think you can figure out the rest.


One of the cool projects I forgot about that I did last month because I kicked it out so fast was these trophies for Red Bull Ride N' Style a bicycle race event they were putting on in San Francisco, the call came in to make something quick, cheap and cool looking so I fired up the computer and put my brain in to Sheet metal mode, by the time I finished that call I had a concept modeled up and emailed to Clayton at Red Bull.

Some times I get in to Autodesk Inventor and go crazy with the sheet metal...

Don't ask how my brain lays stuff out or anything like that....

I had Ryan over at SeaportStainless.com cut it up about an hour later after I had modeled it and it was on to bending up this puzzle

 

I love sheet metal, did I say that?

That next day... 

I decided to cut up one of the Velocity prototype rims Matt had sent me long time ago because really it was my only 700c rim laying around... I may regret that later 

 

First place with some San Francisco Action happening in the back and a mini chain in the front

Custom bent sheet metal Hub!

My mad skills with the 24k gold spray pain has hit an all time High - insert joke here

Check out that cross profile for the tech nerds !

 

 

Escape before Rampage....

As many know now from all the posts and watching Instagram that I have basically turned in to a shop that produces trophies.... Not really what I was expecting but kinda fun at the same time... Its kinda like building a little museum exhibit and theres two ways to put it....

I am either a over payed artist or a under paid designer/prototyper..... I will let you make the pick....


Either way it has been a good year and don't think I only built trophies, this year was all full of madness for the medical prototype world, new bicycle product designs for the "major" brands, a new patent for myself, some aerospace work, science museum fun and a hell of a lot of trophies....

The one thing that always bums me out about the blog is its really not a place where I can show some of the stuff that happens in my shop, secrets, secrets and more secrets and I never get the show them or talk about them. I just feel bad sometimes only getting to post stuff that I know I can post which is trophies. Don't worry because this next year you can expect some really rad stuff to come along that blows minds, if theres one thing I can say that the trophies have helped with, its been it has pushed me test the limits of my machines, test my thinking and do it in a even faster rate then I have before.

I got the call a few months ago that I would be the dude to make the Red Bull Rampage trophies but about a day before I got the word I had booked tickets to join Greg Minnaar in Europe with his lady for the finish of the world cup downhill series, so I knew I wanted to do both and I would just have to hammer on it as soon as I returned from Germany.

Before I left I had to make sure what I was going to build so I started brainstorming....

I will only show you the one concept, because I might have to use the others next year, but this was the quick photo I sent over to Todd telling him this is what I am thinking... Giant cranks and a chainring... He kinda approved, I will leave it at that....

With that info I packed my bags for Germany, knowing when I returned I would have just days to finish it. That kind of scared me so I knew I had to call in the big guns...

Master mind designer - My brother Jason Tiedeken. I knew he would be able to take the concept to a whole new level and make some really sick awards.  I just let him go crazy and make what ever, knowing he wouldn't let me down in the style department.

Working at a science museum is the love of my life and don't think its like cheating on your love by going and checking out other museums around the world, thats what makes yours better !

What better place to go then the world famous Deutsches museum , by far one of the greatest musuems in the world when it comes to science and technology. Its floor after floor of everything mechanical with half of the stuff cut in half so you really know whats going on. This musuem is the KING of cutting stuff in half and showing you the workings, everything were talking, from cameras to kitchen faucets to complete engines they do it and they do it right... I will give you a little taste of the madness.

I walk in and have a melt down over this little Traub A25 screw machine....

I love these things, I just sold mine before the trip to pay for some of the trip...

Maybe it was a sign or something about keeping it but out of the whole museum I kept on coming back to this little Traub machine, it was working making little Munich Olympic towers for the guests out of brass... soooo cool to see kids loving these machines, it made my day.. 

It made me realize watching the instructor/guide, I am not alone as a teacher in a odd way,  when kids hang over the rail and talk to me while I am on the lathe in the museum machine shop... I may be talking to the next inventor of the lathe and changes industry... Who knows... Never doubt

As you walk around the museum you see its really well laid out, starting from one end in a time era.

This floor was all about making fabrics, starting in the 1700s working by hand then as you walk down the hall way you start to go in to todays modern CNC machines with crazy paterns. One of the coolest things they do is take the motors off and make you crank the machines in replacement of the motor, these machines can work at any speed making fabric so cranking by hand works exactly the same just really really slow, but it gives kids and guests a chance to really see what kind of crazy madness is going on to make these complex mills work. 

How about a cut in half airbag steering wheel?

Or camera lens?

or water heaters..?

Radial Engines from an airplane? 

forged titanium fighter Jet wing backbones..? 

How about a cut apart AirBus 300 series with GE turbines?

The German kids were loving this turbine..

Think it was all the sharp parts and the colors that really draw them in.

for all you Steampunk kids out there...

You want to know about steam engines and turbines..

This is the place! Everything is here !

I don't even know how to start about this one...

Its a complete working mini brick factory !!!!

Its all PLC controlled automation and just pumps out mini brick all day for an unknown reason but its amazing!!!! Kids stuck to the glass on this one...

One more shot of the Traub making parts in the visitor shop, all the machines run and they show you how they work!

I stayed with some good crew over in Munich. 

Clemens, who worked for Deckel Maho CNC and now is on his own making crazy CNC silicon cutting and laser etching machines was the one of the cool dudes that let me crash at his place.

The other super rad dude was Lorenz who also worked with Clemens on crazy CNC stuff but now works in Aerospace designing Satellites in Munich. Really cool to hang with these guys and realize that Germany is just like the USA and good machinists are hard to find anywhere....

I left Munich and headed to Austria to hang out with Greg and the rest of the Santa Cruz kids at the world cup mountain bike race. 

During some of the practice runs on Friday Greg grabbed a root in a super tight section and hyper-extended his knee which put him out for the weekend. 

Good for partying, but bad for racing

He ended up finishing 3rd overall in points and because of the epic win in South Africa, he kept his World Champ rainbow jersey. It ended up being a torn ACL which just the other day got taken care of but it doesn't sound like much fun right now for him.

I went back to Germany after World Cups and decieded I wanted to go to Stuttgart, home of Porsche and Benz to see what this city is all about. 

Like normal I fell in love with it... its like a modern fancy Detroit with lots of fast cars everywhere. 

My mission was to tour as much stuff as possible and just wonder until I got in trouble.

I some how got in to a very special place for a personal tour, I was so happy to get a tour...

All you have to do is walk around the building and jump the fence and bang on the window....

I love making stuff and this is one of those places in the world where making stuff is very important and doing it right is more important. Behind me is a big Schuler Automovtive 300 ton Stamping Press, one of the badass machines that almost all automaker relies on and they are not made far from Stuttgart. 

These big machines are one of the hearts of Detroit, the Schuler has been one of the big players for a long time in the sheet metal stamping business. If you have one in your shop that is a dead giveaway your a big player...

I ended up at Porsche the next morning... Searching for something other then a car...

I kinda had a feeling I might meet a lovely girl that was a cnc machinist and wisk her away to the USA.... Ha Ha, well Porsche did a good job at convincing me I would find her because they posted this photo of a model on a CNC lathe and had me so stoked I had to go get a personal tour of the full factory to find her...

Well..... At least I got a really special tour of the whole Porsche factory from Chris my buddy at Porsche....

I think it was well deserved tour because I traveled 5,000 miles to find this girl or some machinist chick, this Germany trip started with this photo and a dare from a friend to find her...

After a 14 hour stop in Amsterdam that I don't remember I was back in the USA!

I Love the good old USA.. !

While I was gone my brother had got most of the drawings done of all the trophies and I was really happy with them... time to make them!

The concept was done and the idea of colored crank arms

I scored this super huge chunk of Aluminium from a Navy Ship that was be fixed, it was left overs from building a motor mount so I figured it would be perfect. 

Gabe loading it on the K&T mill to cut it in to small blocks to run on the CNC. 

With small bite size blocks of the aluminum, I put the Bridgeport CNC to work cutting the crankarms while I moved on to getting other parts ready. 

Plus I scored a bunch of green lab coats in Germany that I love to wear.

Side one of the monster 250+mm cranks

Side 2 all cut off and ready to go to MetalCo anodizing

Once I got all the cranks done I was on to the bases made out of California Walnut.

My brother had made all the solidworks files for everything so I was able to do HSM works CAM toolpaths on everything so I could just hammer them out on the CNC and they would all be the same. 

BAM ! 

Red Bull Rampage Trophies 

Thanks to MetalCo anodize for doing the silver in a few hours, we did a silver ano with the tool paths showing, I wanted to leave them raw but when you photograph it the sliver looks so nice because it doesn't reflect. 

I always have Mr. Minnaar come over and make sure the trophies look good.

He has held more trophies then I will ever so his opinion counts. 

                                            

Viewers Choice 

First place - each trophy has colors for their places like bronze and silver. 

Welcome to Vegas!

My homies at Hertz rental cars throw it down for me with this sweet Mazda for 22 dollars fully insured... Good to have friends that read the blog and realize I like to smoke the tires in just about anything... I will keep the photos off the blog... Dares gone wrong...

I crashed out with the Rampage builders in the Rampage HQ house in Virgin, UT and woke in the morning to a fleet of 4 wheelers that would take us to the top.

Welcome to Zion National Park - Beautiful 

The fleet of machines that the builders uses to rip around and build everything for the event. 

Getting to see people jump the 72 foot gap blew my mind... 

Would you jump this at 8 am?

This is one of the other mega jumps they built..

So huge to no where you could even see unless you were half way off the jump

Mr Steve Blick from Oakley talking to the Camera crew of NBC about the crazy Oakley Sender jump we were sitting on... any person crazy enough to jump off it deserves a trophy

I had to cut it short on my trip and I only got to see the qualifying 

The phone was ringing off the hook for me to start the next project and my machines were still warm from this job so I jumped a flight that night and flew back to Oakland. 

Todd Barber of H5 Events - the man that makes Rampage happen on the left 

Kelly McGarry holding his 2 trophies on the right, Second place and Viewers Choice

This is his run below that earned him these bad boys... Well deserved !

This is what kind of run you have to hit in order to get the viewers choice award !

Thanks to my brother Jason ( Metal Morphosis Engineering) for helping me get these bad boys done on the design and Gabe like normal who stays up extra late to put things together.

Red Bull Youth America's Cup Trophy Madness ....

About 9 months ago I was approached by the some of the big dogs at Red Bull asking if I would be willing to help design and build the trophy for the America's Cup Youth Race sponsored by Red Bull happening in San Francisco...

A tall order because there is a lot of eyes watching these million dollar plus boats. One of the main reasons I was asked is because I am close to the same age as a lot of the racers, just 2 years older then most of the racers so it would be extra special to have a young person design and build the trophy to really cater to our age group.

Let me give you some background on the racing and Red Bulls involvement in a nutshell.

There is 10 AC45 sail boats with the main sponsor Red Bull funding a lot of boat cost but the racers really have to step up their business game and collect the other sponsors to cover race fees which can be a tall order on itself.

The racers are all 18-24 years old and have to race for the country that they are a resident of, as opposed to the AC72 whose team can be built of racers not of the country they are representing

The MLS in a nutshell decription of the Youth Races is  - Its like giving a group of kids Corvette Rental cars and telling them... " its really expensive, don't crash it but don't forget to have fun with it"

One of my first tasks was just to not even think of the classic priceless 100+  year old America's Cup trophy because no matter what I build it will have no way to compete with something like that, so think different and think RED BULL .....

The original America's Cup Trophy

Anyone that knows me knows that one of my main goals in life is teaching the masses....  There is a reason I find myself at the Exploratorium Science museum about 60+ hours a week... I love teaching science and I have found I can do it well working with my hands.

 I may not get to build the rocket to go to Mars in my lifetime, but I feel like I might impact the little 10 year old walking in the museum and learning something so interesting and new that they have to learn more, they grow up and become scientist and push the limits resulting in the first foot steps on the Mars surface, maybe I will be alive maybe not but either way I do it for the love.

 Thats success to me and I may never know if I achieve it ...  even if its a super simple exhibit that I giggle about how simple it is ... It can make a impact, that can last a lifetime...

With that idea in my brain, I have this tool to get peoples attention... A trophy, not just a simple trophy for your uncles bowling reunion, this bad boy is across the TV on ESPN, ABC, NBC and don't forget the good old internet.

So I ask why not use it as a teaching tool, lets show people something they don't know because they have never seen it or maybe from out of town and just visiting San Francisco, just maybe it will be seen by that one kid or adult that realizes they want to know mOre .....

All that goes thru my mind everyday when I build so when I grabbed my sketch pad with the Red Bull crew watching, I said lets make something that shows the Bay and lets make it something that shows so much detail about where this race is happening but is so simple that it makes you scratch your head and say .... I know what it is, and man is that neat... ( or at you can replace " neat " with Rad or KickAss )

Using a piece of sheet metal and a parts bin I did a 5 minute mock up...

I always present this because its always the most photographed way the trophy will be seen so when doing a quick mock up its very important to make sure your happy with the look. 

I didn't really stray far from my design... I knew what I wanted to build and it was kinda final, sometimes I really like whats in my head when I am in the right place, about 16 Red Bulls helps get there quicker.

Some people think that because I am a pretty good welder and machinist, that I should be good at drawing... Ha ha ... Damn ... fooled you.... I suck at drawing unless theres a pretty girl around to show off to...

10 minutes or so in each sketch... Proof of concept 

Nothing crazy just making the point to draw it as we talk about it.

I know I shouldn't show these drawings because they are not very good but it proves a point it doesn't take a perfect drawing to make good work. More detailed drawings were done after the meeting with Red Bull and these would get sent off for rendering. 

Aaron at Red Bull was quick to make the call to his crew up at Roundhouse designs in Portland to do some clean up on my mess of drawings and make it so the main Red Bull crew in Austria had an understanding what we wanted to build... Always gets you pumped when you see your idea in your brain become more of a reality in 3D plus the Roundhouse crew threw a little extra flair on it to put the cherry on the top.

Roundhouse really put together a bunch of good drawings from my sketches

I was so busy working on other concept projects it was a real lifesaver for them to do this part of the project. 

With the OK from the crew at Red Bull to build it... The madness started... The stuff Roundhouse did was just a very simple model for selling the idea but now it was time to put it to reality and make some real CAD models we could build off.

Proof of concept I machined and testing the Acrylic on top.

Easy to get your results really quick... Prototyping full speed ahead....

Like normal I hit up Matt Carney the master mind CAD man that hides at either MIT or somewhere in the San Fran area,  I knew this one was not something I could tackle by myself because of the layout I knew it would be a costly mistake if it wasn't right. Matt and I watched and researched everything we could find about the San Francisco Bay using Gov. Data and other things, we came up with a very simple idea and how to give it a really smooth look without all the crazy details that over power the eyes...

With the little mini model and many cups of coffee Matt and I hammer out the design.

First we took the Google Image of the bay and made it in to a layered CAD drawing with each layer being 3/8 inches apart and the max layers to stack no higher then 4.5 inches. Next was to lay out how we wanted to machine it and how we would make the layered stack up, in the past doing things like this such as the Red Bull Rampage trophy we stacked layers of laser cut wood and metal and we got the height that way but this one needed to be a bit different.

The laser is almost to precise sometimes, creating sharp aggressive angles that are sometimes not very appealing to the eye when bunched together, it makes you think of things like SPIKE strips that the cops use or something you don't want to hold because your affraid of getting cut, so it became a backup plan to laser cut it if we ran out of time, we decieded it would need to be machined out of a SOLID block of aluminum...

A 110 LB block of Aluminum...

Scrap piece from an aerospace company that didn't need it...

Recycling...

As if my buddy Anthony from HSMWorks / Autodesk ears were burning or something, he called me out of the blue asking whats new.... I said " I am looking at a 110 block of aluminum and thinking about making something with it but I think I want to freestyle machine it on my manual mill because I am old school and I want to know if I can do it and make it look good "

his reply was great - " Oh F#^k NO, what the hell is wrong with you?  We are going to make some rooster tail aluminum chip on the CNC mill and run the hell out of one of our new super fast CAM programs and show everyone how easy it is, its 2013 buddy I can't watch you suffer like this"

I had to put a picture of Anthony up here so he could be embarrassed and you could imagine him saying that full excitement over the phone with tons of cussing...

Within about 30 minutes I was doing a online conference call with Anthony and Al one of their top programmer/developers for HSMworks talking about how their new FREE CAM software could tackle this mess of a machining job with about 30 clicks of the mouse and make it look like the most simple task... They were right.... about 30 clicks plus about 700 more in disbelief because I couldn't believe how easy it was compared to the thing we call Master something that I have suffered with for years...

\
That next day with the help of Liam from LightSail Energy, we loaded the 110 lb block in to the Haas and loaded up the G code we had just made using the HSMworks, next we loaded the tools and the rooster tail aluminum chips started flying minutes later.

Start

milling away..

You get to watch it upside down...

Finish

The next project after the base was done was the mini AC45 wing, this time Matt and I did the drawing and within about an hour of finishing the drawing we had the G code to run it on my Bridgeport CNC in my MLS Skunkworks shop. I hate to sound like a spokes model for the programming software but I am still amazed they are giving it away for free and it does everything so smoothly for Solidworks and for Autodesk Inventor, its worth testing if you CNC machine stuff.

Talking with the HSMworks crew on the phone about dialin in the Bridgeport Boss 10 for the next project which is the wing

running the wing on my new CNC

3D machining the sail - 159,000 lines of code per side

The wing ran on my Bridgeport CNC for a few hours as I slept above in my loft... I am good at sleeping thru a CNC running long cycle times... I dream of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$  ha ha or the YG*IU*(U*(Y*(YH*YH&AYF&^WT*FY&  as the spindle crashes in to the table..... lets hope that one I wake up and realize it was just a dream...

Ladies.... A key Chain model of an AC45 sail

With the main machining parts all done it was back to the crew up at Seaport Stainless who have mastered laser cutting just about anything that you can some how laser thru, Ryan and Jason cut some blue acrylic and a few other parts for the trophy like the compass and the little logo plate for the sail my brother helped me do the layout on, then the other side job was cutting some parts that I offered to build as a volunteer for the non profit group that restored the USS Potomac ( President Roosevelt's "White House on Water" Presidential Yacht )

Jason at Seaport Stainless setting up the laser to cut out blue water plus spares for sandblasting

The next stop was out to ACP Composites in Livermore,CA only to find that they were slammed with work on America's Cup AC72 parts for a few teams, making the lower fins of the boat due to rule changes but seeing the fins all over made me realize these guys are very good and I need to do more carbon stuff, I picked up a few chunks of Carbon to use on the trophy for inserts to add that carbon style to it. That crew out there is some of the best carbon fiber fabricators I have seen, Boeing calls them so I think thats all I have to say.

The main thing is with something of this level of expectations I really love very simple finishes and easy to clean, so all the land was sand blasted and Gabe did the blasting on the land and then I took over finishing off the trophy sandblasting with Ghost Red Bull logos all over it.... Ha ha no one even knows they are there most of the time.... Sneaky...

Then I sent the trophy over to the boys at MetalCo Anodizing in Emeryville because they specialize in Dye-less Anodizing which turns out very different from normal ano and gives it a very smooth and sleek appearance, I use them for a lot of projects. Its not for every project but they do a hell of a job when its the right finish for the job plus they do it quick and sometimes that means the world in the prototyping sector.

You don't even know how stoked they were to know they were doing the anodizing for the trophy plus all the other parts for the big AC72 boats from various teams.

Its really neat to see extra money and fun coming in to the bay area industry because of these races, its kinda like aerospace without the rules... They are like airplanes on the water....

Doing some of the details now... Late nights...

Remember in the early pictures - Holding over your head is one of the most important things...

LOGO HITS = Happy Customers 

Carbon Fiber = Everyone is happy

Its very important as well to make sure its facing the right way if they hold it up over their head

Perfect bottom that you will likely never see

I designed and a little compass with San Francisco cut in it...

Details ....

Time to put the wing on it and finish it

proud of it

I got a good team of people that makes it happen!

In exchange for building some stuff for a non-profit group that restored the USS Potomac they took Liam and I out to watch the Red Bull Youth America's Cup race... So rad...

The Potomac was built for President Roosevelt and was called the White House on the Water.

It was later own by Elvis ... And the story goes on... We had it for the afternoon and it was so cool

Cruzin full throttle 

President Roosevelt knew whats up with the 2 Chris Craft boats on board, someday I will get one

You can see the racers in the background and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Best parts of making stuff for the Potomac is we got to go down in the engine room while it was full throttle with is only 400 RPM but if your a boat/ship person you know how rad these 1930s vessels are with the crazy wood bearings on the drive shafts.

The bridges are both closed this week causing madness around the bay for driving

The span on the left is being tore down and the new span on the right is ready to replace it starting Tuesday after labor day.

The lead skipper of each team did a quick photo by the trophy for the RBYAC trophy

I was stoked to see it finally ready for someone to hold above their head because they are one of the best sailors in the world...

Enjoy...

The races were really rad with all 10 boats out at the same time. Watch this video and it gives you an idea whats going on.