Mars or Bust...

Tonight it was offical ....    I was extremely proud to be an American ......

About 30 of the smart tech ind. kids from around the Berkeley,CA area decieded to have a " Martians Party " to celibrate the landing of the new NASA Mars rover, yep a Nerd Fest ....

And if you know anything about me..... NASA and Aerospace stuff is my favorite stuff ever and yes I am a total nerd.......  So damn right I am showing up at the party dressed as an Martian from outer space!

This landing is very rad and it shows that if you put your mind to it and do the work it will work.... Good work to everyone that helped make it possible in every department big or small, it was a sucess!

I hope things like this get kids back thinking of the future without limits and that it takes a team to make a crazy thing like this work, from the grunts to the scientist.... everyone plays an important part in a future changing thing!!!

I have heard thru the machinist grapevine that the wheels have "JPL" in Morris Code so as it drives across the Mars dirt it leave the code, the origianl design with the actual JPL logo was just to much party for the dirt ... so in a last minute ditch effort they put it in Morris Code which is super bad ass and kind of top secret....

Matt from Meka Robotics and I

Matts Solar helmet transmitter he was wearing was really cool, I should have got some better pictures.

I looked more like a scrap metal hauler with a welding helmet on.... I was shooting for the Alien look

NASA live TV on the Wall for the room filled with people

Everyone was stoked !

I come in peace.....

We have landed !

Last day at the day job

The last 2 years I have been up here in the San Francisco bay area I have been under contract from a company called Creative Viewpoint Machinery and the jobs have been amazing.

Its a really cool company of about 12 of the most efficient fabricators and crafters working on projects for Clorox's Research and development, Medical companies and Government labs.

Where else do you get to make crazy AIDs research projects, Xray machine prototypes, concept machines to test water around the world, concept machines for making the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and just straight inventing cool things, Its been a good time.

MLS has become so busy over the last year doing prototype work, that the time came to tell the boss it was time to roll solo again.

2 years of service completed at 100% of my skill level - Mission Complete

The project that I worked on when I was hired almost 2 years ago, was the project I modified on my last day.... How weird is that? feels like 2 years didn't even exist that day.

Found my old blog post of when I moved up here with Brie 2 years ago - kinda funny to have the blog for this reason, its my jornal.

MLS 2 years ago moving to San Francisco under contract to party and build stuff

Made in the USA with Pride !

Purge welding set up for doing threaded connectors with a .005 tolerance over all 

Still Got It!

Can't break that edge!

Proud to say I am a D17.1 Aerospace welder 

If your a craftsman, mechanic or what ever then you know this picture well.

Its the classic last day line up....

Truck - Tool box - and the Forklift 

Stay tuned to MLS we have some really exciting stuff happening.

pushing the limits of perfection

I received an email from a younger aged welder ( like myself ) with a bunch of questions. He was asking about different levels of measurement tolerances on welded parts I work on and tips about fixturing projects.

 Its really not a very specific question that I could give an answer to because every project I do is so very different and working with such a huge range of materials causes it to be always changing, especially being a prototype fabricator because its more sometimes about the look and relatively close tolerances for testing with great efforts to keep the cost of time and money down.

A good example is the Top Speed bike I am building. The tubes on that bike are first rolled with a slight curve then some how with my tricky ways, machines, a bit of magic and wacky bending dies, I am able to put tight bends on the long curved tube. This kind of bending is very complex in a lot of ways both in measuring and in manufacturing.
The odds of hitting exact numbers that Solidworks is giving me on the blueprint is next to impossible, I am close but never exact, it then become more visual and getting the look and flow of the frame then getting the exact numbers ( I would have a pile of bad chromoly tubes touching the moon if I tried to get it perfect like the computer model )

Love my Starrett stuff - worth every penny!! 

But when it comes to other projects for clients of the aerospace, medical, and science world, the level of expectations are very high so I then turn the attention to the numbers and getting it near or exactly what the customer expects.

Thats my job, and I think I do a good job at it !

Some projects come in that almost make me cry looking at the blue prints, because they expect near perfect things ( most of the time it seems these are not important things needing perfection and sometime are just errors on blueprints )
Learning from the old dudes over the years has stoked me out and stressed me out ( more on the stressed ) because there is those days where you build for days, weeks and months on a project only to find out things moved while welding, machining or handling and now you gotta fix them.

Some of the ideas we come up with to fix them scare or surprise me, thats when the years of experience come in...
Thats will be a great blog post of another day...

On a normal day to day I find myself holding very tight tolerances of measurements mostly because I make a lot of laboratory stuff where mishaps can throw everything off.  Some times the worst looking weld seems to be the straightest and strongest and other days when you don't drink 15 cups of coffee and 2 cans of Mt. Dew at 5 AM before welding, things look great and are some times straight too.

Either way the lesson is " Metal loves to move " ( people in to having fun in large groups while drinking a lot of beer (  if you read that without the punctuation, it covered 2 lessons in one))

These Titanium Elbows have very tight measurements in all ways so the fixturing is design  to be very restrictive to hold them in to the shape while welding and cooling. That leads to another problem of being able to get the torch in there to weld the parts and preform good quality welds.

 If you seen the fixture that I use to weld these, you would ask how do you even weld it all in there, there is no room for the torch ? I was kinda happy with the welds for how restrictive the fixture was to welding, no show winners but defiantly not leakers and thats what matters to the customer.  The tolerance is .008 +/-

I should have put a penny next to these Titanium parts so you know how small they are!

The Ti tube going in to and the bottom is a bit smaller then a wood pencil.

 the part on the left is boarder line being to short 

the part on the right is board line being to long

They both pass but on the limits

 ( side by side makes it easier to compare for the photo)

The measurement tolerance on these Titanium parts is .003" +/- or about 0.08 mm +/-

For you kids out there - thats the thickness of a piece of paper

 Titanium tubes with 2 - 360 deg. welds holding parts to the blueprint specs while being leak-free

I love these... I do thousands of them in all different sizes and shapes

Skill testers and good time to listen to books on tape!

Well that didn't answer any questions so now that I am done writing I see its kinda a waste of a post.

But its getting posted anyways regardless.

Enjoy 

Espresso Machine build is coming soon!!! 

Get ready

Talisman tattoo machines

After a bunch of emails about the welding video I posted a while back, I totally forgot about posting up any pictures of the finished tattoo machines. 

The machines are a mix of all kinds of peoples talents from Aries Rhysing who is a top talent in the tattooing industry to top designers like my brother Jason Tiedeken who took the ideas from Aries and threw some of his design ideas on it to create one hell of a cool looking and performing  machines.

I just do the welding on the project, they come in all cut and cleaned from the laser cutter, making them ready to weld and perfect everytime. The designs are always changing largely due to the amount of R&D that goes in to the test/prototype machines, it seems like everytime I figure out how to weld something really really fast and well, they change the design and then we start over, at least it seems to become easier every time.

Check it out  talisman tattoo machines -  MADE IN THE USA

I weld the vertical spring perch where it has the 90 deg bend, that is 2 pieces welded together

every piece has to be almost perfect for the machine to run proper.

everyone of the washers is micro stainless welded - boxes and boxes of them :( they suck

really really Top Secret Concept

I wish I could show more but.................


The machine is all Hydroformed 7005 Aerospace Spec tubing, It is a very special tubing that can only be welded to a small group of aluminum because it has a special mix of alloys. The worse is when you order a box of tubing that has a weight of 4 pounds and it costed you over $700 dollars. 

The Hydroform process is very special as well, it is the process of using a machine to fill the inside of the aluminum tubing with very very high pressure water ( 20,000 to 100,000 Psi ) and making the tubing expand in to a cavity mold of the shape you desire. The beauty in this process is the tubing doesn't go thru very stressful conditions as it would if a hard steel die formed the aluminum with raw force, the water forces the tubing in to the most unique shapes that once had to be made in multiple pieces in the past.

Well, anyways. Check it out or at least what you can see.

I wish I could show you, but you might win the race

My Helmet Hall of Fame

As a welder, your helmet is like your second face.

Personalized helmets are cool and tell something about the person welding and who or what industry they work in. Stickers or pinstriping are always a cool thing.

 Each helmet is a bit different, if you wear it most of the day comfort is everything. I have tested almost every brand of helmets out there over the years, some of the worse helmets I had to wear for TV show sponsors and such others were pass downs from old welders who believed they had the best helmet and wanted to give it to me.

I have about 5 helmets at my shop, mostly for teaching welding as student helmets, but some are my old helmets from production or TV shows.

Here are some of my lists of stuff that is the most important in order when picking out a helmet.

1. how the headgear fits around your head and the shape of it. #1 - if your not feeling good, you won't weld good.

2. How easy is it to flip up? Does your hand have something to grab in a split second to lift it up?
This is VERY important in a production environment where speed is everything. If you need to lift 6 times per part, at the end of the day you could have welded a few more parts because of the seconds you lost lifting which could land you on the unemployeed line.

3. If the welding helmet is auto darkening, is it adjustable for the shade?    9-12 or is a 9 or 10 only.  Depending on how much welding you do, a helmet with a 9 lens can cause eye problems, just running a 10 shade can fix this up to about 150 amps, then you should amost go to a 11 darker lens for anything over 150 amps

4. If you use a MIG or ARC ( stick ) welder, the front area of the helmet shouldn't have a low spot. For example - if you are welding the exhaust on your car laying on your back, if sparks fall while welding and lands on the helmet you don't want to give them a place to sit and melt your helmet, you want them to fall off the face of the helmet before causing damage.


Here is a bunch of pictures of my helmets in my Hall of Fame - each helmet has over 20,000 arc strikes, TV filmings and stories.

The Miller Elite Big Window

Cool looking helmet but felt weird

I kept it at Edelbrock for welding concept projects

Grain belt, D&M cycles, and Taco John's stickers all over

I had a ton of stickers on this one for fiming a few Discovery Channel shows and friends companies.

The old company before Monkey like Shiny - Metal Morphosis Cycles

This helment is the fastest fliping helmet out there, I think.

Because there is a lip above the solar panel, you can grab it in a flash.

It feels more natural to flip above the solar panel then below my chin at the bottom of the helmet.

My current baby

The Lincoln Electric Trackside Platium

I can wear it for days and never know its on my head !

I have Peter Fonda (Easyrider) and a good old Wyoming Sticker for the kids

Nothing makes you feel like a pedifile at a new job more then a Hanna Montana Sticker

All the pinstriping on the bottom with my name wore off - my hommie Thick put it down for me years back.

Hope my years of good and bad helmets helps in your quest for a new helmet.

Now go weld !

The good old days........

Well, I think I was like 16 or 17 when I first seen the BIKER BUILD OFF - Discovery Channel shows. I was pumped, then the show BUILD OR BUST came out on Speed Channel....

I remember the intro to the show was kinda like this one, but its close to this one so you get the idea.....



I was in Cleveland doing my Aerospace welding school and 18 years old when I finished it up. I returned to Minneapolis, a few months later I recieved a phone call on my drive home from my newer job, the call was from Russell Mitchel of Exile cycles asking if I would like to be the fabricator for Exile cycles.Oh, and the twist was there was 2 weeks to move all my tools and stuff from Minnesota because Discovery wanted to film the next Biker Build Off against Billy Lane......  

Its funny to watch those old videos and remember what I was thinking or doing at the time........

Never expected to end up where I did........... Makes me Smile

Thanks goes to Jake, Dylan, and the crew for making it happen for me.....

To Rodney and Friends about Welding

Here is the lesson for today as requested by Rodney -

Magnesium welding and general info

8th most abundant element in earths
melting point - 1200 deg f


Welding and Prep tips

One quick way to test the base metal to double check and verify its Magnesium and not Aluminum is to apply a small tea spoon of Vinegar to the metal and watch for any reaction. The base metal should get a dark spot and bubbles to form if it is magnesium, as the vinegar reacts to the base metal. If the base metal is Aluminum the small amount of Vinegar will NOT change from the water like clear. This is a quick and cheap way to test, it won't tell you any specifics on grade but at least you are pointed in the correct direction on welding and prep.

Use non chlorinated brake cleaner for the cleaning

Use stainless steel wool on clean metal - use of a wire brush may cause scratching where dirt or other contaminates may hide when cleaning. Use of a Stainless Steel brush may be used when the Mag has paint or high levels of oxide on the surface.


DO NOT USE - ALUMINUM FILLER MATERIAL !!! This will create cracking upon the weld cooling. It may appear to be welded but it is NOT! This is very common is shops that have both filler materials available for the welder, the welder will grab the Aluminum filler rod and use it on Magnesium because of the look and weight of the rod, it is very hard to tell. All filler material is stamped with the info about the rod but it happens where the end with the info is used and no one knows what material it is. DON'T USE IT IF YOU DON'T KNOW

The material that is most used for filler rods are AZ-61A or AZ92-A

ER AZ61-A is used for welding wrought products
ER AZ92-A is used for welding castings ( less crack sensitive )

Most Mag is weldable but proper filler material is VERY important


WHAT DOES ALL THESE NUMBERS MEAN - AZ92, AZ61 WHAT?

Heres the breakdown for the Rodney and the kids

Magnesium alloys are designated by a combination letter / number system composed of four parts

1. A - Aluminum
2. E - Rare Earth
3. H - Thorium
4. K - Zirconium
5. M - Manganese
6. Q - Silver
7. Z - Zinc

OK here is the info that is important

AZ63A-T6 for an example is a common material used for all kinds of machining and molds, lets break it done for Rodney to understand.

A above is Aluminum
Z about is ZINC

6 is the first number
3 is the second

Equals

6% Alumium and 3% Zinc

Now what does the A behind 63 mean?

Each metal has an assigned letter to distinguish how many changes the alloy had while it was made.

A = 1st Alloy Made
B = 2nd Alloy Made
C = 3rd Alloy Made
So our example was made only once as the letter " A " follows the 63

and the last part is the dash T1 - T10 and just like aluminum is the designation of the finishing of the material such examples are heat treating, aging and so on. ( i will do a lesson about what all the Ts mean some other day )

SAFETY - VERY IMPORTANT

MAGNESIUM Will BURN !!!!!!!!!!! They make fire starters out of it for a reason

NEVER USE WATER on a mag fire - it will combine with the oxygen in the water as well as the CO2, it can also react with the nitrogen in the atmoshere.

If there is a fire use a CLASS D, most aerospace shops have these that work with all kinds of metals, Titanium and Magnesium can both start fires in machining and a Class D can put it out.

Sand can be used but the amount of sand it takes is crazy, its like 5 pounds of sand to a pound of metal, it needs to be very dry as well.

Hope that helps out to the kids out there trying to have fun with MAG !


Thanks to Bill West from Lincoln Electric, one of the most knowledgeable welders in the welding field and an great welder as well. My teacher and friend. RIP Buddy

Pipes of Steel - Wait thats Titanium

Here is your metal shop welding info for the day;

Welding Titanium and stainless applications requires surrounding the weld area with inert gas ( non flammable stable gas such as Argon, which is used the most often because it is very easy to control. ) both front and back of the weld area building a micro atmosphere.

When welding bicycles as an example; both the inside of the tube needs to be completely filled with the inert gas and then use of a large gas cup is needed on your tig torch as to cover the complete weld zone on the front side and allow no atmosphere air to enter the weld area. Here is a glass lens on a tig torch, this is the one I use for all my Titanium or stainless work as it covers a large area but doesn't block your view.
If atmosphere air enters the weld zone it will react with the molten metal and create impurities, depending on what kind of air hits the molten weld area it can cause things such as underling cracks cause by hydrogen or it can mess up the grain structure of the weld area causing a weak zone. The easy way to tell on titanium, how your weld turned out and the FAA approved way by aerospace testing procedures is by color ( this only applies to titanium ), any color other then a light gold color called Hay is considered contaminated and needs to be removed or redone.
Here is a picture of " Stainless Steel Sugaring " - This is a term from the aerospace industry. This will happen on just about any metal that is welded but it is very very critical that it is not present when welding stainless or titanium. If it is present well start cutting it out and starting over!



If you have a lot of work to do or it is very windy ( as this might blow the inert gas from the weld area and cause a welding failure ) some people use these bad boys. They are expensive but super nice, it is a complete purge welding balloon and you can also get fixed boxes with windows for production runs.



Other ways titanium can develop color in the weld area is from oil or other chemicals. If you ever visit a shop that specializes in titanium for aerospace or other industries, the shops are cleaner then most hospitals with most employees using cotton or rubber gloves for everything in the shop.
Here is an example of a color code chart for titanium - as you can see all the color plates are bad, the top left is very good and had the correct purge but second to the left is on the edge of being accepted.

NOTE - IF any one of these plates was cleaned with steel wool or sanded the color would disappear and the weld would be perfect looking - beeeeeeeee VERY CAREFUL it is possible to fool even the most experienced welding inspector if it is lightly cleaned.