the little leagues...

Well before I had customers like Google, Red Bull, Boeing ....

I had customers like Larry the BMXican, Sonkway and all the other BMX punk kids in my hometown of New Ulm,MN....

I am guessing I was about 11 or 12 years old and I was getting in to metal working thanks to my Dad, Brother and my school/city by making it easy to go for it...

My town is a very special place..or maybe it is just to me but when I look back at it now I see a lot of my roots strong in what I do now based on that foundation that was built by what was around me.

The town I am from in Minnesota is a little one of about 15,000 called New Ulm, its very very strong in its German heritage and it shows it in work ethic as well. The name New Ulm comes from the Germans that landed in the Minnesota river valley in the late 1800s and when deciding on the name they said... This is just like ULM, Germany both in weather and land... Just to give you an idea in Germany what Ulm is known for - its a little city not far from the big city of Stuttgart which is known for Porsche and Mercedes Benz just to name a few... the metal working runs strong in the heritage.

My school as well had great teachers that were super focused to show us about the worlds of crafts and trades, one I will always remember was the tool and die workers that fill New Ulm because of a mega 3M plant there best know for these little bad boys...

The famous 3M wire connectors ...

 

All of us as a full school classes would snake thru the 3M factories every so often stopping to say hi to parents of fellow classmates working in the factory, but we got to see some really cool stuff that got me hooked on making stuff... It was truly an incubator for my making addiction.

Lines of Injection Molding machines...

At age 12 this was the coolest thing seeing a 300 ton Arburg press clamp down and fill...

Waiting seconds later to an opening mold and 150 wire connectors falling out on to a belt system to be hauled to the next step.

This isn't the 3M shop in the photo above but it gives you an idea about what we seen as kids and how cool the feed tubes with all the colors were!

 

My Dad who is a jack of all trades was also one of the people that really helped me get rolling.

With all this curiosity in making stuff it was a blessing to have some tools in the shop.  

 

Far from what I use today my dad taught me on the old Miller Thunderbolt, I would watch him then he would yell at me to quick go crank up the top for more amp, if you have used one of these you know what I am talking about, its kinda cool to crank it up. Then I would watch him burn a giant quarter sized hole in part and then he would yell at me to quick go turn it down so I would run and uncrank it to about half what I turned it before.

It was a slow process.... but I learned a ton...

My dad Casper in his Man Cave

 

As I got handy in the shop fixing and doing stuff I got more ideas based on being in love with riding bicycles, both bmx and mountain bike. I raced non stop and I wanted a make bike parts... so I asked my dad to help out.

 

 this was the Azonic Headlock designed to pull the front end together on an 1 1/8 threadless set up...

By this time I was about 14 and these had just hit the market but I was going to copy it and sell it to all my friends.

 

So I did....

Using threaded rod and a cartage bolt, my dad and I came up with a copy of it.

Pretty ghetto but it worked and worked well and I made like 30 them with my dad and they sold plus you could use your existing headset cap.

I would have them all cut and ready and when my dad would come home for lunch during the summer he would help me weld them all up with the thunderbolt and then I would paint them with crappy callers like off green and browns... Colors you didn't want on your bike...

 

 

It was clear I was going to be rich off my business so I would need to start a company...

The company of the future... It said it in our tag line...

"Parts to beat"

 

Later down the road we would see a full integration in to the MLS family for Weasel Fab, but that would take years of struggling for Weasel fab before the buyout, mostly because I was still in high school and I had to worry about hanging out with girls, plus I was the only person of both companies so who would I rather hire then myself... Now I am confusing everyone...

 

That's enough ranting about myself and making up stories of MLS corporate buyouts

 

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

 

 

The 20 hour work day.....

Tired...... But its worth it......  I will show you real soon.....

 

“Find what you love and let it kill you.” ― Charles Bukowski

 

 

 

 

I am not an Artist .... I am a machinist....

It happens a lot....

People call me an artist and think I live in a studio....

NOPE.... Wrong.....

I am a machinist that lives in a cold machine shop that smells of coolent...

But every so often I gotta venture in to the art world and throw it down for the kids using some metal...

This time days before the opening, I was asked to make a mini art exhibit to be placed in to the wall, that would serve as a mini art gallery for people to peek in to a hole and see something fun in miniature

( the cool part is - the small window in the wall is a lens that makes the mini gallery appear even smaller, so it looks to be 2x2 inch, but really is about 6x6 when you build it.)

The Compound Art Gallery located in Oakland asked me to do the wall piece, so like normal I waited until the day before the show and then had to rush the concept...

So heres what I came up with in about 2 or 3 hours, didn't even take any pictures I built it so fast, sorry...

So the idea was to make a small stainless steel  cat that said " ART " so I could say I make art...

I designed the tail to make a loop so it can be put on your key chain without it falling off

With the 1 hour old design ready for the laser.....  about 3 minutes later 50 cats were cut....

To the shop to build the box and hammer it out.....

This was the finished product...

A mini power plant that is powered and is designed to be fueled off of " Art Pussy " 

Its designed using Free Range Vegan Steel so I can brag to Artist Chicks about being hip.

Overall .... As it didn't sell at the opening and offended about 40 people, I think it was a success !

Think more then anything I was stoked on the laser drop from cutting the cats...

Was able to make a sweet American flag on my weld shop door. 

That is the Puritan Stitch machine next to it... So damn rad ! 

All this art made me get wild and make some personal projects like this one....

I call it " Light Bulb Scrap "

Its a symbol of an American's boys dream to take over the world but is tragically denied due to fiscal troubles..... Its really to intense to try to describe on my blog.... If you would like to purchase this or other pieces described on this blog post contact my agent..... 

The unknowing drive..... for something......

My life is an odd one somedays and leads me in odd way.... I think living day to day is the key to my sucess and not being alarmed by any suprises that I encounter because of this poor planning....

But on the other hand it makes for a fun and exciting road with so many corners you can't see around that your bound for consitant surprises with lots of ups and downs....

I love my craft and my dreams.... Sometimes I feel like a snowplow pushing anything that gets in the way to the side and moving forward...

 Its stressful....

Sometimes I see things get pushed to the side that I feel could have helped me keep in control or move forward faster but my brain is this agressive plow born to push and make new tracks.... where those tracks lead to on that crazy road is still unknown, as life is full of surprises.....

I set a bunch of goals every year and write them all down on a piece of paper, then cover them with clear tape and put them on my wall leading to my bed room so that I have to look at them everyday....

 This shitty looking piece of yellow paper covered with written goals for that year looks really nasty on the wall, but is totally needed ... I hit a few goals and they made me smile.

Time to set new goals for 2013.... Holy shit talk about raising the bar for myself.... I slept on average about 4 hours a night this year just to make some of the goals that I feel are totally worth it. This next year for the MLS company and myself personally are going to be setting the bar even higher with some bigger projects that are going to twist some brains...

Get ready ....

When I get super busy working on stuff that feeds my shop, I sometimes forget about why I do this stuff and the need to stop take a moment and do something for myself....
Sometimes it takes someone to tell me that... Someone I actually listen to and respect..

Tom Lipton is a dude that I respect.. Hes done the time in the shop and knows his shit! Its good to see these crafters out there and know that after 20+ years in metal crafting you can still do the same thing for your job as you do for your hobby and not get them all mixed up. So when he told me, get back to building that espresso machine because you need to hammer it out and finish it, he was right, sometimes I need that kick in the ass from someone that knows its value to remind me I got it I just gotta hang in there and finish it.

Some background on Tom ( if you want more info check out the rad blog "Nothing to strong ever broke "). Hes one of the best metal crafters I know and the US government thinks so too and thats why hes in charge of some big concept projects at one of the coolest US Gov. labs.

His metal working background leads back to making some cool stuff, such as the first prototype Independent trucks for skateboards, to crazy machines that produced products that are most likely in everyones houses reading this. Doing 20+ years of work in just about every industry leads to some really cool storys too, some of these are on his blog... I first heard about Tom while doing work for Clorox and all the stuff he and the crew built, so like expected it was my job to hunt him down and ask a million questions about making stuff...

His blog might give MLS a run for its money.... We might have to get more half dressed girls around the shop to get the hit counter going again...

The espresso machine has been my personal project for the last months.... I am not going to show you all of it yet because thats some of the surprise in it... But how about some teasers.

All the sweet USA made parts

from left to right

Copper - USA Pen - 800 watt heater - theromstat - high temp float switch

I go off of whats in my brain and what shape I want as I am spinning it

 

Because copper is such a crazy conductor of heat its super important to get rid of a lot of the material so it doesn't require so much amps to weld and also just reducing the weight and making more volume is a bonus for the little extra time spent machining it out.

Using a big 1" NPT tap, I put the treads in for the heater.

Notice using the tail stock to hold the tap straight... Just a tip... Thats why they put the dip on the end of the tap, just for the exact reason.

The spun copper parts of the boiler are 8 inch diameter but I don't have a hole saw that big so I will have to make a bunch of notches with the biggest hole saw I had. I love doing this work on the K&T mill.

still in the quest for more material removal ....

I decieded to mill out.

I did a quick mock up of the legs and everything to figure out where the best place for the heater,float and stuff would be before making the cuts in to the spun parts.

Windows in it and LED light ports ready to go.

 

One problem that welders do all the time

when preforming very important welds....

 

CLEAN THE DAMN FILLER ROD !!!!

 

Good way to mess up a million dollar project... or make something fall from the sky and hurt someone...

 

CLEAN IT !

 

 

Part safety is very important when you get to a point like this on a project..

One drop of the boiler and your done...

Tricks I have learned over the years in medical and aerospace work, is working inside shop traveler boxes so you don't have parts roll off your bench.

Tom has tricks too for doing small stuff by working in clear bags so you don't loose screws or small parts.  

I do a lot of the tacking and fit up with the part in the blue box for safety.

 

Old Timer photo of the copper welds

 

Getting stoked on it....

100% USA made so far and proud of it.

 

building a monster in a moments notice

During the Red Bull trophie build, I recieved a call from Chris the owner of Farley's Coffee. Over the last 10 years or so Farley's has been one of the big players in the bay area for coffee shops, having locations in San Francisco, Oakland and Emeryville and staying super involved with the community makes these places really neat.

The question Chris had for me was if I could build a giant 30 foot mini park to be placed on the side of the street taking up 3 parking stalls, and providing all the things that a normal park has to offer packed in to a tight little steel chassis.

Like normal.... There was a catch..... It needed to be done in a very short time... and by short I mean under 2 weeks with the Mayor of Oakland waiting its arrival for a press release on "National Parklet day"

You ask what is a " Parklet "?

It is a small PUBLIC urban park, often created by replacing several parallel parking spots with a patio, planters, trees, benches, café tables with chairs, fountain(s), artwork, sculptures and/or bicycle parking.

The prints showed up and Gabe and I placed the order for steel and fired up the welder.

100 % USA made steel

2" x 6" tube and 3" x 4" Angle for the flooring

The MLS large scale fabrication annex ready for building

 

After I had most of the cuts all dialed in, Gabe started to tack it up as I did the squaring.

When doing these big frames, my secret is using clamps all over on it and using the clamps as points to attach Ratchet Straps to them and pulling them to square them up. Really easy way to get what you want when making it square.

 

No one said being a welder was a clean job

Putting the steel angles in for the wood flooring to sit on.

 

Hours later on day one....

We had most of the chassis hammered out.

 

With cut pieces of 1.5 square steel tube, I held while Gabe tacked in the verticals for the railing.

Having this covered area next to my shop is so rad, even in rain we can work outside, its so rad.

 

I made a bunch of fixtures to hold the railing together with the correct spacing.

Sometimes spending the 20 minutes making the fixture pays off big in the end, saving time, money and mistakes when your moving this fast.

 

Next was doing the bike rack.

With myself being such an avid rider, I had to make the rack hold 6 bikes not the 4 like people thought it should hold, I put the 2 extras inside the parklet.

Using my daily riden 1938 Schwinn Superior for testing the fit

Next for the wood for the floor.

Jesse setting it all up with lovely green treated lumber.

next is the big flower planters out of 3/16 sheet steel on the far end and near the middle.

 

 The next step was Jesse and I went out and did some shopping for slabs of redwood lumber

These would become the benches and table.

Once you find the piece you want...

They spray it with a bit of water to show you what it will look like once you do a coat of finish on it.

Really neat shopping for big slabs of wood.
This Redwood tree was from around the Bay Area.

 

 

By taking that single piece and cutting it down the center we made a matching back rest to the bench.

Matt to the right and Jesse on the left helping test the fresh cut wood.

 

With no time left, and a day before the mayor was due to arrive to talk about the city of Oakland and how it kicks ass, it was time to get the parklet out of the door. I put down a sweet paint job on it with some Epoxy black paint and it was ready to go out, with or without Jesse's finished wood benches. They would need to be installed at the site due to the time frame with getting the parking permets for the street for the install.

With a madman behind the wheel.....

Nothing else needs to be said .....

 

Trust me...

Hes becoming a better forklift driver everyday....

This just wasn't his day.....

 

Just for a photo and prove a point....

That two people can build a monster in just DAYS....

With a saw and a welder, the world is your playground....

 

As we do it in Oakland....

Work by night.....

With the flatbed down and the winch hooked up... we pulled it up on the rig.

showing up to Chris the owner laughing at us for doing this at midnight....

MLS style 24/7/365

 

Now for the hard part....

The unloading...

 

If anyone is going to drop it... I would rather it be me

Lucky we wore our brightest colored clothing for the drop off

On the ground and looking good

A beer was needed after that...

That next morning Jesse put some more finish on the Redwood.

It would need to be installed that day to ready for the Mayor the next morning

 

As planned the Mayor of Oakland showed up to a parklet with no grass because it didn't show up on time like normal. But it really didn't matter, there was a mini super tinny mirco sample on the table for people to get the idea about the grass which really didn't work that day but it really didn't matter, people were stoked.

With any parklet is the need for a giant banner.

If you want to see it....

Grand Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland.

Farley's East coffee shop.

Proof that the grass did get put down....

 

 

 Go Enjoy it....

 

You need more info and need one built and shipped out ASAP?

Email me - jefftiedeken@hotmail.com

JT