A secret place........

When I first moved away from Minnesota to California,  joining Exile cycles and working on Discovery channel shows, I was a bit taken back and sometimes a little overwhelmed by the work load of on and off camera work.

I needed a place to hide....

I happened to run in to someone that told me about a very special place located in Los Angeles that would cheer me up and leave my brain twisted, the true location is low key and I don't know how much I should share but here is quick peek at one of the most happy places in the world for me!

My buddy Art, who use to work here moving stuff around,  now is on a Navy ship repairing jets and moving aerospace parts around just like when he worked here ( there you go Art, theres your fame for the month)

Remember I am an AeroSpace Welder and my love for NASA is very strong so this place is very special to me.....

This place is where NASA laid to rest so of its most well engineered " Space Race " projects of the late 1950 and 1960s.

You could call it a graveyard of Mercury, Apollo and Saturn rocket mission projects.

It is one of the only places that you can walk thru and NOT know what it does or what its used for.

There is about 40 rows in the building and two floors of just NASA stuff

over 20,000 feet of stuff!

Tanks and tanks and tanks

More tanks, complete rows of tanks

Titanium Tanks designed for fuel for NASA and the X projects

Rocketdyne J2 rocket used for the Saturn rocket and more Titanium tanks

One of the coolest things here!!

A back up rocket for the X-15 test projects 

This little beast pushed the plane to set the record of mach 6.7 - the fastest thing on earth 

North American X-15

Its only a dream to have it sitting in my living room

These are some of the tanks and parts used for the Apollo Command Module

This is a close up of the crazy Titanium welding that they did in the early 1960s 

Remember these guys wrote the book on Titanium welding, it was all trial and error

and what a project to learn on.....

 

Just looking at some of the prototypes they built makes my jaw drop

these guys did it all without computers and without crazy machines.

Nothing but a good set of hands and a smile

Control boards from the research centers and back up rockets

I worked at exile all weekend with Blake ( aka - random ), can't tell you what I am working on with these NASA tanks from 1958s Saturn project, but I can say its going to make a nice hot cup of wake me up in the morning... 

So many vistors....

Over the last weeks theres been all kinds of people swinging by the shop to say hello and give me a high five, which is super rad!

The other night I was very surprised to see at my shop door with his lady, multi-time World Champ Downhill Mountain Biker Greg Minnaar, I would also add hes super rad and knows motorcycles.

I had to twist his brain with the idea of going 120 mph on a bike with no fork ( I think it worked ). Then he told me about the old Honda Downhill bikes and all about the new rad Santa Cruz DH bikes hes riding to twist my mind,  then we were off to a music show in good old Oakland.

Theres a regular around MLS and his name is Noah Sakamoto. You might be one of the few million that have seen his videos or seen him on TV mashing some of the most crazy hills in the world both in competition and for fun. Hes one of the craziest fastest dudes in the world and a school teacher, even more radness!!

Noah and his classy speed-suit

                              
                    The best part about this is it was before GoPro cameras were super hip and it wouldn't have been the same kind of video if they didn't hand off the camera while going 50 MPH +

Noah dropped of a rad board for me to crash in the hills

Thanks dude.

Its against a new machine I was given as a gift from the All Power Labs in Berkeley - a 1940s Gorton Pantographer machine, just wait until I get it running!!! its so neat its like a crazy over built engraver/cutter from the 1940s, this one is very special as it came from the Navy during WW2. It needs some TLC but I will put her back in to service! Search it up if you want to understand how it works, its really neat!

Burningman

So, If you havn't heard about it.... Get with it and find out - Its crazy and amazing at the same time.

A 50,000 population city built in the desert for one week filled with all kinds of makers, designers, hippies, ravers, crafters and so on. Search up " Burningman "

My trip was very very last minute as normal, giving me about 3 days to get everything ready, and as being a fabricator and builder, you can't go to one of the biggest creative events in the world without something really cool and new to show..

So I started building..

Mr. Dirt Rag him self Maurice ( owner of Dirt Rag and Bicycle Times magazine )

was out testing the new Santa Cruz and seen my pile of BS laying on the sidewalk so he had to stop by and give me a hard time as he always does!

First being the 36er 29er cargo bike to a point that it was ridable - this was the perfect place to get out there and test the machine and beat it up. I put on every part on it that I didn't care about because of the crazy dust and wear and tear I knew it would see.

Next being silverware and plates - I built a quick set up with a spork that wraps around the plate and bolts on. Very few people use any sort of disposable cups or plates out there due to trash so always having a plate and a spork is perfect.

I decided to build my truck in to a desert combat ready rig with canvas top over the bed ( for sleeping in ) and sitting on top of the canvas supports, I welded up a support to hold a 55 gallon water drum acting as a water tower, all plumbed in to a 1930s shower head attached to the side of the truck. This ended up being so nice to take showers in the desert, I found a old NASA temp gauge and mounted it on the side to watch the water temp, as well as a water level hose to watch my uses as the week went on.


 If you want a great way to meet people at Burningman - Just build a shower and they will be your friend all week !!!

With the help of Craig Johnson and his mad CAD skills in about few seconds, I had a blueprint for a sheet metal Conical hat made from .030 Aluminum and I made it just an hour before I left. This was so cool to ride around with ( not in the wind ), it kept me out of the sun and kept my head very cool.

Craig ( aka CJ $$$ ) making the flat layout for the hat on Solidworks

I was feeling lazy and he really wanted to draw it

here is the flat sheet before making the conical hat

The last thing I made was a custom Titanium wedding ring that I spun out on the Monarch lathe before jumping in the truck, using some of that great Titanium left over from Clorox prototype projects, I spun it up with the idea that I shouldn't leave home with out it, just incase something crazy happens and I find the lady of my dreams. ( by the way its back in my shop again )

yep, I hope her hands are cleaner then mine...

Add these things to the already long list of stuff needed to be built for others such as concept electric skateboards, art projects, concept bicycle stuff, and doing all the Clorox and Gov Lab stuff,  it didn't leave much time for a thing they call sleep...

I will keep the story short...

I left Thursday night headed east while talking to Blake ( Aka Random ) about how Dirty Dave was going to ride his Harley almost to 250 MPH at the BUB Speed Trials. My brain decided that would be way for fun to go to the speed trials then to burningman so I kept on driving thru the night headed for the Salt flats passing thru Reno and pass the turn off for Burningman. I stopped in Reno to go in the Casino and after walking in with 100.00 dollars and leaving up with 100.16 ( mostly found change on the floor ) I decided there was only one thing to do with all those profits and that was to go see some ladies dancing....

Back on the road now about 250 miles (400 KM for you metric kids) past my turn off for Burningman, I got an odd feeling to turn on to a small road and go back towards Burningman, why my brain decided with only 50 miles left to drive to the speed trials,  to turn around, it would be a mystery why I turned around but my brain told me to take a crazy gravel road that was 200+ miles long headed back west.

the death of a old Ford COE truck

the result of a new freeway years back..

Driving thru salt flats and gold mines, I got to a point where in every way I was 50 miles from everything.... I seen a man walking or more like dragging himself... I pulled up to see him out of water and in the last few hours before going in shock and maybe death.

I took this picture a few miles before finding the dude

being out here with no water seems like something out of a movie story

My brain is hurting now as I ask him why and how he got out to this point. He responds something about a hot spring... I put him in the truck, water him up and make him take a load off. He doesn't say anything to me but one last thing " you have beautiful welds " as he looks at the mega load of welded things filling my truck bed. Another 50 miles pass and not word was said, I drop him off at the sheriff station and tell him to have them help out, my brain was overwhelmed , and to finish it off - As soon as I dropped him off and everything was good I got back in my truck put it in drive and then had 4 flat tires......................................... My brain was done.....................

I gimped my truck in to the burn and aired up one slow leaking tire and put on the only spare to at least hold the heavy load of water, food and metal things in my truck and just drove it with the 2 fronts flat. I got to my camp and set up, I also got ready to work as I am an employee of the event, checking tickets and searching cars at the entrance.

I had to take this picture because it about made me cry

On the drive back I ended up blowing out my wheel bearing and having to ride the 36er cargo bike over 10 miles down the freeway to the auto parts store to buy a complete front wheel assembly to rebuild my truck on the freeway, it sucked.

the temple took months to build and was a great model of craftsmanship and then 

they burn it down, along with all the things people wrote, added, or put in the temple to burn memories and start clean again...

The story goes on and on but in a nutshell, the week was amazing and there is really no way to describe the fun I had - being with some of the most interesting people and personalities made the week fly by and not think a single bit about my shop, jobs, love, or anything that existed miles away in the real world.

Don't hate on it until you try it......

Poe

My little dog Poe at the Oakland Port - Photo by Kane Lynch

Wired - Gravity Speed Bike

Well,

Caught off guard again by a cool write up from Wired.com

This time about the Gravity Speed bike....

Soooo Rad - Thanks Wired Crew!!

Heres the link to the article - Wired Magazine

Last time MLS was in Wired was the U-Lock tool last year

This was the U-lock post for Wired Magazine

Thanks to Kyle from Tracko for all the great pictures of the gravity bike and U-lock tool

Some quick updates on the progress of other projects - 

Matt started filming for the 120mph Track Race Bike and its looking SICK

Building weird Burningman projects, including stuff for myself because I was given a ticket!!!!

So look for an update tomorrow on what I am building.....

Some fun for you while I work hard

So when I build motorcycles I really only have one guy take photos of my bikes because he is one of the best and most recognized motorcycle photographers in the world.

If you have picked up a Harley magazine of some type you have for sure seen photos of Steve Kelly.

So over the last few years I have done many shoots with him both for my own bikes, Exile and other builds...

Here is small slice of the many shoots I have been involved in, see what you think.....

Oh, and if your wondering what I am working on - like every year its that time again for Burningman and my shop is filled with odd creatures and projects from everyone and their twin brother.....

Remember about 2 months ago when I built the gas tank and welded this rusty machine with Blake at Exile Cycles

See my older post ( 2 months ago )

As many of you know - I am like a star in every other country but the USA 

I feel your pain David Hasselhoff and your over seas popularity 

This is photos of my Pabst Blue Ribbon Harly Dragster.

Heres an good old photo of my brother Jason Tiedeken and I

This was the good old Metal Morphosis days when we built motorcycles in Minnesota

I was really young in the photo and using my fake ID to take those twins out on dates

My brother still runs Metal Morphosis Engineering and I have MLS as a separate company but in the end we are still working together and building some crazy things... 

The Harley Twins with our Metal Morphosis Cycles 1968 Harley Sportster.

This was both of our first attempts at building Harleys - caught some of the right eyes in the industry 

The thing also had one of the craziest vintage Harley race motors I have riden and you shifted it with your hand behind your ass, Jockey Shifting Death Machine

This is a Exile Hot Rod with reproduction 1970s Harley Shovel motor we built at Exile like 4 years ago

The girls not bad either.

This was a bike we built on Discovery Channel's Biker Build off for Exile to battle against Billy Lane's Choppers Inc. 

This was the first time I really got thrown in front of the lights and cameras full time, then told to build stuff and don't look like a idiot because the WORLD is watching!!!

Dylan and I made those pipes in like a few hours - I am still proud of them

This is a bike that I built a few years ago for Adam Stark from Hollywood.

He is shorter and needed something special without the look of having a small bike so I did a drop seat Harley Sportster. At the time I was doing research and development for Edelbrock (the auto company) and so I got a crazy deal on the motor which kicked out about 100 HP, also one of the first bikes my brother made me build completely by myself which really sucked. 

Ok with about 100 HP its easy to get in trouble, I remember doing this photo shoot burnout down the main street in Malibu, CA and saying S%*# as this photo was taken because there was a cop sitting right there!!

All these photos were shot by Steve Kelly and are copy written.

Success......!

Thanks first of all to the people that came out and gave me a high 5 !!

I was really taken back by the people that drove hours to come say hi, see the bikes and art, I hope I didn't let anyone down...

Over the whole night we had almost 400 people come thru the good old Actual Cafe!!!!

The employees loved those tips!!!!

Like I told you in the last post that I would be easy to find with my used car salesman brown suite, and let me tell you, I know it was a fire hazard but it was well worth wearing it!!

Jon Suzuki sold a whole bunch of great photos he took around Oakland and else where, some of the photos were very cool like the old Schwinn photos..
                                      

Jon Suzuki had some great photos up on display

My personal favorite was the one in the middle of the chainguard on the Schwinn Racer

The big Penny Farthing up on display for the kids and it is still at the Cafe if you are in the area.

The speed bike is still up on display until my body heals up from the last crash.

Setting up for the show while we waited to see what Mike Cleaver who rolled up with a super rad late night build - A kick ass BMX CycleTruck cargo bike that could do bar spins !!! He also rolled up with a super cool bright Pink cargo bike.

 I also had my custom 1938 Schwinn New World track racer with a custom race mechanic stand ( I need to do a photo shoot with that set up).

To close this post - Let me show you the best USED CAR SALESMAN in the Bay Area and for you Californians, NO its not Cal Worthington

Just rolled up on the 1938 Schwinn Superior to a photo by the Oakland North news, Matt Ducot is in the background locking up laughing at me like normal.

Want more info and pictures check out the Oakland North they are hip with the news

A night on the town..... Oakland style .....

Well, tonight is the Bicycle Art Show at Actual Cafe in Oakland,CA.

I stayed up all night working on everything and I am tired....


Come out if your in the area, its going to be a good time - look for the dude in the one piece 1970s tux, thats me!!!

This 36-29er Coker machine is going to be sooooooooo much fun !!!!! I took the solar panel off for the photos, the rack is only tacked ( i still need to do a lot of tweeking on it to get it looking right ) and i need to make the stand for parking it which will also be the fork brace when your riding.

How to " bump it "

Lets try something new, how about some "how to" videos....?

If you don't have a 90 ton sheet metal press brake at your house well then just follow along and at least you can talk about bumping it to your friends and pets!

This piece of aluminum would later become the skid plate for the BRD electric motorcycle.

If this video doesn't have text then go to the movie page for more info

Craig shot this sick video - I owe you now Craig maybe some Taco Bell but nothing over 3 dollars

Holy $#!+ where have I been.....

July at MLS is always a mad month for many reasons and so this is my complete July post in a nut shell...

1.Interbike is coming up
2. New product releases for 2012 for various companies
3. Prototype medical stuff
4. Bike Expo in San Francisco is coming up
5. Doing a Kickstarter.com grant for the 120 mph Speed bicycle project for filming
6. Working with 2 electric motorcycle companies
7. Designing home decor and gardening products for a few new companies
8. Working with a green company that produces generators that run 100% off of wood chip and biomass
9. Doing R&D machines for Clorox and its brands
10. Making various research projects for donut making
11. Still making more designs for the video game console project
12. Threw MLS prom at the machine shop
13. Getting ready for an art show coming up in a week, here in Oakland.
14. Also pulled a high speed chase with the cops for fun.... first time I have gotten caught.... sucks..... $$$$ :(
15. Working in LA and helping my brother on the turbocharged Honda race concept project
16. Its summer and you know how it goes... This is my first full Oakland summer and its been amazing with all the stuff to do and people to meet. It reminds me of back in Minneapolis with September weather, but all year round.
17. Almost forgot - Had personal lunch with famous designer Pierre Terblanche who designed all the Ducati motorcycles for the last like 15+ years, kinda stoked me out to say the least.

so where do I even start....

How about the fun stuff.... wait its all fun.....

This blurry pictures seems to stoke me out so much - its my summer and its been a blur of good times.
Matt leading the cruz on his custom Traffic cross bike to the hidden lake in the Oakland hills. Swimming at midnight is EPIC after a long ride!!

The new MLS Laboratory Home decor line will be coming out soon...
Made from recycled Lab materials and goodies these should stoke out your mom and have her asking for more. I bend them up on the big 90 ton press shown in the MLS video and the flowers are not included.

This is Jay (Chemical Engineer/designer/good looking smart girl) and myself hanging out after our meeting at All Power Labs in Berkeley. This company designs, builds and test a system called Gasifiers, which in a nut shell - take wood chips, chars them, extracts the gases from the charring process then uses that to run a natural gas engine. Running completely 100% on wood chips - sooooo cool to see it all happen.

This is one of the prototype systems that gets tested around the clock with various different things, if you ask them what they have run in the machine other then wood chips, this list will go for days, they have even run cigs for a full tobacco running gas engine you could drive a car with. That is Abrim the Fabricator/Shipping bitch standing in the blue hat.

I spend about 60+ hours a week working in my shop and other shops, but every once and a while I just have to shut it down and relax. we made a Santa Cruz run to swim in the river with the friends, Mr. Poe the dog is always down to relax it seems....?

Don't feed me coffee at 10 PM or else you will have a set of bars to ride down the street to the local bar for last call.

For real don't do it, now the 1938 Schwinn New World is a racing machine in under an hour.

PROM  at Monkey Likes Shiny -  "a moment in time" theme prom

The idea was to dress as a couple in a matching period correct clothing, we went as Steampunk....

My lovely dates for the night - Louise Chen and Mr. Poe

I fired up the sheet metal press and made her a fan out of aluminum using a clear plastic protractor in the middle so she could measure the degrees.

The punch was so spiked it almost evaporated.... need I say more

Thats Matt up front dancing to Kenneth's hit single " Girl check your signal" 

We had a list of celebs show up which stoked me out, also a live performance from  Kenneth Ronquillo and with over 70+ couples attending, the MLS headquarters was hopping with fun. When no one wanted to leave because of all the fun, I decided to take things in to my own hands by doing a 4th gear burnout and donuts on the dance floor with my dirt bike, in my own place destroying the hardwood floors and smoking the place out ( please don't tell the landlords) 

This is the Show coming up in Oakland if your in the area 

Also I have asked Mike Cleaver of Cleaver Bikes to join me in displaying some oddness brewed in Oakland.

To finish up this post I think the electric motorcycle will do the trick.

Jeff Sand of Sand Studios contacted me about doing some odd fab work on his top secret project.

The idea was to build a concept 100% electric motorcycle that looks good and rides even better.

Using his odd  1 to 1 scaled blue prints and no numbers given ( all by eye ) I some how made the bash guard out of 1/8 thick aluminum all cold worked on the big press and all my sheet metal tools. With little to no time left before the date to unveil I put the last minute polish on the bash guard ( its the aluminum part around the orange battery box, it protect the batteries from stuff hitting the frame, batteries or underside of the bike) I receive an email from him asking for more things to be made. This use to be my life doing this last minute BS when I was fabricating on air for Discovery Channel shows and also when I was working for Roland Sands Design, so to say the least I don't really even get upset or frustrated like most people do when this stuff comes in hours before the big event. 

The email said " hey make this stand for the bike and make it pretty" 

BAM!!!

done, the only problem is now my track bike only has one grip because I put the other one on the handle for the stand as you can see in the lower left of the picture. 

The photos is in Derek's shop in San Francisco which is sooooo sick, its called Moss Machine and they build some neat stuff there, even parts for the cable cars in San Francisco.

This photos is like taken an hour before we were to show the bike to a fully packed press release.

The BRD Redshift Electric Motorcycle with my bash guard left in the raw aluminum

It got painted black for press release. 

If you want to read more about it here is some info from the press release

 MX action  or  for some cool photos from the night( pictures )

Thanks everyone - This July has been fun !!!!!