For my birthday... my gift.... making it another day....

Everyone always asks me ... Hey Jeff, Where does your Aerospace Party Animal name come from?

Well, I am a licenced Aerospace welder for a start and my love is airplanes and the second part is I love to party and wreck things...  Its as simple as that!

The last months I have been working extensively on projects for the Science museum in San Francisco which is to open to the public in days (I will be posting picutres ), I have also been working on some big projects for Red Bull and other big companies and finally I have been flying back and forth from LA about a possible TV Star deal which I hope comes true ( I will show some of that as more becomes avalible).

In between all that madness of the 5 months I had a birthday, I don't even know how old I am otherwise I would tell you... Or maybe its better a surprise... But this was when the " party animal" came out along side 60 of some of my closest Los Angeles friends who work in some of the coolest industries and trust me everyone brought a little piece of what they know and love to the party and made it unforgetable.

Every year this group plans a trip to Salton Sea located just miles north of the Mexico boarder in California. The place is very very odd.... to give you an idea of its history; it was a place that was to become a resort city in the 1960s next to this crazy salt lake in the middle of the desert which was fed by the Colorado River and as the city was built so was the need for water being tapped off the Colorado, so as soon as the resort city was built the river wasn't really feeding the sea anymore and the sea started to shrink by a lot leaving a resort city in the middle of a desert on not on the water front.

The smell of sulfur, fish and death fills the air and theres something amazing about this place, its a wild place to camp with really no limits on what goes.... The only catch is your miles from the Mexico Boarder Control and HomeLand Security doesn't really dig explosives very much....

Gabe and I didn't really plan to go early in the week, we talked about, but it was just a dream...  so Wednesday night we decieded we were going to go the next night and drive the 11 hours south in the truck with our gear and party for the weekend, complete last minute thought...

That night .... I recieved a really odd text messaged with a huge flame picture and it said " get ready, we got a flame thrower"

That sounded like a challenge - Build a flame thrower in hours notice... to battle the friend Larson in LA... using nothing more then a 100 dollar trip to the store and the help of baby Jesus to make this bad boy shoot.

Gabe and I collected everything we could find to build with around the shop.

An old NASA Stainless Steel Pressure Cylinder ..... became the holding tank for the Napalm

A tank of Argon from my little TIG became the anert pressure for the thrower as not to make the cylinder in to a bomb.


I had built an exhibit for the museum with a fan and didn't need the legs it came with so it became the back pack straps to weld to.

And a last minute run to the BIG BOX store supplied me with the valves, pressure washer sprayer and tubing needed.

We had already wasted 2 hours collecting the junk in to a pile... we were working in to thursday already and we wanted to leave.... Like normal ... My heart was broken by a girl and I decided not to go and throw it all away.... But knowing that Gabe needed to see the madness that the Salton sea could provid and knowing I needed too, we pressed on ....

Some people get to see me when I get in these almost like posessed fabrication states and its makes me wonder how my hands can keep up sometimes..

4 hours in to the build we took this picture to send as a scare to the other crew that had built a flame thrower.... it was about 4 AM when that text went out....

With the Napalm in the cylinder in the rear we decieded that it would be best to balance out the weight by putting the argon tank on the users chest on the front, it would make it easier to control the pressures as well.

From when that text came thru .... 5 hours later we had the design mocked up and most stuff welded. Its kinda not my best work... but I kinda expected it to blow up on my back so I didn't want to make it too nice...

With the sun just coming up and Gabe and I loading the truck, we decieded we needed a complete shot of the mocked up flame thrower.

 Gabe modeling it here with thee BLACK ON BLACK ON BLACK ARMY STYLE

While he was standing there, I applied the SKUNKWORKS and MLS stencils

With none of the fittings tight we rushed to the welding shop for a tank of argon and got on the road headed south... Zero leak testing and Zero testing.... Whoops... Maybe next time.

 

 

While driving south in the desert, there was a place I needed to stop and show Gabe, Its one of the places that really inspires me no matter how many times I go there.

 

Lockheed Blackhawk Park - Palmdale, CA

This place is amazing..... Home to SR-71s - F-117s, U-2s B-52 and tons of other stuff,

 its all there for you to stare at...

But we were in a rush and we had to cut it short.... But I think Gabe got the point ...

 

We showed up at the Salton sea Friday at 5 AM ready for a full day of having fun...

Our friends had taken a old car and cut it up and created " the Shit Box " a sweet ride with no glass, no seats, nothing.... just a unibody, motor and wheels.... We all decieded to cruz to the aquaducts that morning for a quick swim... With about 50 people on 2 vehicles we cruzed there...

 

My truck seemed to be perfect to haul a good 30 people...

 

The other group took the Shit Box

America!!!!!

Home of the Free....

 

 

That night everyone rested up good...

With the plans for Saturday to be a complete hell raiser...

 

 

Gabe and I tested the flame thrower with water to check the fittings and function.

Who knows.... It would be the next night we would find out....

 

Saturday.... My birtday.... How I didn't Die.... Thanks Baby Jesus...

My buddy Larson and I decided to put down some Hot laps in the shit box....

With basiclly 2 teenage boys sharing the wheel ... we jumped and wrecked everything...

Challenge after challenge to have each other do something more dumb ....

 

I decieded if we were going to kill this car we need to drive it off a cliff...

The car has no seats.... I am sitting on a fold out lawn chair and hes sitting on a stack of cardboard

So I prep the lip for our jump..... I have spent a lot of time with my brother in the desert and as a test driver for Edelbrock and I didn't feel good about this idea at all.... but what the fuck why not...

So I drove the fucking shit box right off the cliff....

 Once over the drop off on the clif... i landed in the soft stuff below and stayed on the trottle Baja style and made the jumps before thrown a rod in the motor...

Thats Richie on the camera filming Gabe, Spencer and I about what would happen later that night...

 

 

So Larson did the honors of dead revin the simi blown motor it until she finally blew up....

We decieded to dig a hole and put in nose in first vertical...

The next part is when it gets good....

Gabe started to prep the flame thrower while the rest of the group was raising the car verticle...

Larson also when to prep his flame thrower...

I was loaded with Napalm mixture and larson was loaded with a diesel/Gas mixture....

 

LOS ANGELOPES | LA BIKE CULT | SS6 CAR + FLAMETHROWER from Richie Trimble on Vimeo.
 I always have my American Flag ..... 
Once we were done with burning the car.... Larson and I handed our flame throwers off to our buddys from TrenWay bike club to destroy thier beast....A  VeloDrome they had built about 2 years ago ... Heres the video

 

LOS ANGELOPES | LA BIKE CULT | TREN WAY | SS6 VELODROME + FLAMETHROWER from Richie Trimble on Vimeo.

The next morning....

yep... it got so hot it bent....

Gabe and I picked up our trash and packed out... we were trying to be out of there by 10 AM

As we start driving out at 10 AM we make it about 50 miles north when my F250 truck starts making noise...

What a ride and thank God for good friends... The whole bottom end of the 5.4 Ford engine blew apart throwing rods out of the engine and destroying it self 200 miles south of LA. Larson came to the rescue with the AAA long distance tow and my buddy Goose for letting me use his truck to drive back to Oakland...

 

Best birthday every.... Good friends, wrecking things, 3 visits from homeland security in military helicopters and drones, no deaths just hositptal visits, beer and pretty girls.... USA Baby !

 

JT

 

 

Full throttle until you see baby Jesus....

So I am always getting in trouble for MLS posting too much info and like normal I got caught...

I will shorten this up and fill you in later when more info and the filming is done...

I have been building camera rigs for a few years for all kinds of TV commercials / movies and one project that has come up over the last year is one for a very major vehicle manufacture for their commercials.

Let me give you the low down on the rig and some of the fun of build it.

The final product will come months from now when I can link to the site.

Anyone that builds stuff knows the hardest part of designing something is where to start and what size to make it.

Lucky I had a left over door from a prototype project for Brita Water Filters that served as a perfect starting point using a nice square frame. I took the sheet metal off of it, that will be recycled in to metal canvases to paint for Ernest ( up coming blog post )  

Next was building some wheels and turning for it. 

Anyone that has been on movie sets knows,

A. it has to drive over power cords

B. it has to have the wheel enclosed because it hits everything

C. it needs to be super versatile 

Made a center sliding rail mount for the boom and some steering arm.

I took a break to go get some licence plates for the MLS rig #1

I needed new plates because of a pit maneuver I pulled on an out of control car on the freeway months back. Saved the couple from getting hurt but spooked them a bit I think. 

So I got new plates before I left last weekend....

Decided to test the rig with Patrick before leaving for LA

See the right angle drill to drive the fast turn acme threads and drive the camera up and down on the boom.

Custom made computer tray and goodies on there as well.

Once in LA like normal I forgot like 20 things on it...

So making the classic Will Call pick up at McMaster..

And a late night help from Blake at Exile cycles...

It was ready.

Yep I am tired...

Blake and Russell are finishing up the Exile Cycles Rockstar Dragster

I did the welding on this one about a month ago...

This thing is one of my favorites..

Someday, I will build an Exile for myself....

On the streets of LA durning a shoot with the rig

One of the weirdest sets I have ever been on...

Had a dude run across the hood of the car while we were filming

and everything else couldn't have went worse, but we got it done.

Melted plastic - Why you ask?

I was so bummed about the 16 hour shoot on saturday that I needed to bail and go back to Oakland.

I decided to leave with no sleep at midnight and drive all the way back up.

As I was climbing the mountain leaving LA in the MLS rig #1, I drove in to a cloud or what I thought was a cloud at the summit.

As I slowed down thru the smoke, I noticed it was from a car that was on fire and there was people in the road trying to get things out of the car.

Knowing that if I wouldn't have slowed down, I would have hit this car...

I yelled at the people in the free way trying to get stuff out of the blazing car..

" get on the shoulder, get on the shoulder!!!!"

I kicked my F150 down in to low and rammed the huge ball of flames in the #2 lane as the people ran to the shoulder...

Pushing it 100 feet proved to be a mission because the car was in park but  to add to the rad factor - the ground was covered in burning gas, which became a flame thrower as the rear tires on my truck burned out across it while pushing the car...

As this madness was happening a fellow big rig driver with a crazy powerful fire extinguisher put out the inferno and that was the end - minutes later the highway patrol rolled up to the fun being over. 

Over all everyone was safe

 - my truck didn't burn - 

my licence plate and truck front end is covered in melted plastic

 and no one died on Easter morning

Job well done...

perfect end to a stressful weekend back at the Skunkworks

  

Late night ........

Dear Kyle,

Why am I making bike racks all thru the night? I am tired, but I know I told you they would be there for the grand opening of Golden Saddle Cyclery.

Lucky man.....

Thats only a few of the wheel trays on the floor.

Cane Creek sent over some wheels for the Top Speed Project!!!! ( just a teaser for you kids )

Side profile

Mid-angle

Front

The neat design with these racks is based on how many bikes you have in stock, you will always have an appearence of a full showroom, the more bicycles you have in stock the more they can be straight out, the less bikes on the rack the more angle to fill in the gaps.

My first design when I designed Jims racks for Cranky's bikes, was to link all of the racks together and put them on a slow under-driven gear motor that was on a timer, so as the day goes on the bikes angle, it would be a sneaky way to tell the time for shop and sales workers or just always keep your bike shop changing in looks. I never forgot the idea, I just put it on the back burner.

A quick sketch looking overhead on what the racks might do as the day goes on.

Never really seen anything like it - tell your friends and your mom you seen it first here @ MLS