Hammer Time part 3 or something like that....

Gabe and I keep working on the Little Giant power hammer and all the other projects around the shop.... 

Well.....

Like normal I am out having fun while he keeps working , its summer time..... cut me a break.....

Downhill MTB champ Greg Minnaar decided to give us a quick tour of Santa Cruz bicycles the other day which was super rad, we all drove down from Oakland to go to hang out in Santa Cruz, CA for the weekend.

These are Greg and Steve Peat's test bike swingarms from years back

We got to meet the Syndicate Race team mechanic Doug, who was getting all Greg's race bikes ready for the next World Cup races overseas in a few days and we also got to see the rad research and development dept, where all the custom creatures are designed and built by the cool cats around the shop.

The next stop for us crew was New Belgium Beers Clips of Faith movie tour, which was raising money for a rad group with a cool idea in the Santa Cruz, CA area.

This is the set up New Belgium brought to show the movie shorts for the night in the empty field.

Hundreds of people showed up to have a good time and drink beer.

The non-profit project is called Santa Cruz Project Bike Trip, which in a nut shell, its a group dedicated to bringing bicycle mechanics and repair classes back to high schools. Its neat to see a big company like New Belgium getting with small groups with a good cause and get kids turning wrenches again...

Gabe and I decided if we had the Little Giant apart we needed to replace the clutch

So with the new upgrade clutch material we wrapped it.

The way to learn to rig and lift stuff is by doing so I make Gabe do it.

Gabe has a blast driving that forklift.  

Here is front without the spring and nothing tight

The front isn't painted because it needs a guard welded

The guard protects you from the spring.

And thats the spring...

Don't want that blowing out hitting you in the face.

These hammers are known for springs blasting out if over hit.

SCARY!

OK OK....

This is just a teaser for what showed up on a pallet at MLS the other day.....

Just wait.....

Oh.... July..... Summer time & Projects ......

The last month has been a wide open cluster of projects filling the shop on a daily basis...

I have had to take a few brakes from everything here and there to enjoy the great West Coast summer and work on some personal projects.

The little giant hammer is coming along with a fresh coat of paint and some retro-fit pieces to make it run a little bit better. Theres a strong following to these Little Giant PowerHammers around and luckly they love the share the love and show how to do some of the rebuilds on them and make them run a little better.

So heres a update of the rebuild....

Thats the old connecting rod from 1927 on the right.

So using 2 giant bolts, I cut the heads off of them and used the cut off to make new safe and adjustable connecting rods. The old ones were really beat up and not adjustable like the new ones are.

This is a very important upgrade to the LG hammers that is a "must have" if your are rebuilding it.

The finished product.

Custom Tig welded and bolted " for extra safety " connecting rods

The old hammer adjusters limit the movement but making these connectors will double the amount of adjustment, making it possible to work some very large billets of steel safely.

This is the slide assembly with the 2 adjusters and all the retrofit bearing set up on it.

I am getting excited....

This assembly is about 200 lb of steel as you see it on the table. Solid !

The 1927 Little Giant 100LB power hammer is looking better everyday..

My arms and hands are trembling thinking about this thing running....

I am sure I will have to move as soon as the people on the block hear this thing...

Exile Cycles.... Another day at work.

Somedays I get a kick out of classing the place up by parking my sweet truck in the shop to stoke out Russell, he loves when my $500 dollar truck sits in the middle of the shop leaking oil and smelling like gas...

MLS is always growing

These are production punch presses that can hit 135 hits per minute with 25 tons per hit.

Almost 3,000 lb that punch weighs

Gabe has been learning to Tig weld and do sheet metal at the shop and is having a blast doing it.

This was a project for science museums to use Ipads for exhibits.

Really cool way to have a touch screen on the exhibit and a camera as well.

With a fresh white powercoat the Ipad displays are ready for action!

With all the orders for robots, displays and madness filled...

Jen and I jumped in to the New Belgium Beer van and headed north to Portland...

Time to relax and see the friends.

This is Robert the mad chef behind Chris King's in house kitchen for the employees.

We spent the weekend cruzin Portland with Nick, and Matt from King.

Then on Monday we made them and also Kyle at King give us a full tour of every square inch of Chris King, even got to stop in the frame shop and give Buck and the welders a hard time as they were welding the Celio frames. I had to QC the frames for errors.... But I couldn't find any.....

Jen and I both know Chris but he happened to not be in that day which was a bummer but we will be back soon to talk machines, biking, trains or what ever madness we have to offer.

This is Chris Kings in house " tooling dept " on this end of the building.

Theres about 90 employees making some really rad parts and doing a great job to show USA can still keep them machines spinning.

I don't know how I managed to snap this photo during our coaster brake race thur Portland...

Trust me, there was heavy tire smoke from all the heavy power skids around the corners.

Mr. Poe is still holding the shop down..

Sometimes I find poop behind the machines and I have to be a mean to him...

He wasn't stoked to get told to quit shitting behind the press brake....

Jen and I had some crazy box seats to the Oakland A's game...

( what ever value they hold )

But it came with a chef..... With style..... Plus for some unknown reason...

The A's happened to win... thats a rare statement.

Back to the grind of designing and building...

Theres some really cool stuff showing up at the shop to build so stay tuned

A early Christmas gift...

I have been super in to forging over the last year and have been doing all kinds of studying about doing aluminum forging and steel forging so why not give it a try......

The power hammer work is something I have just started and taking the classes ( Old MLS post about the classes) that the California BlackSmith group offers gave me a little more insight in to everything.

While I was at class I noticed a cool little machine sitting in the corner not being used.

It happened to be a early 1900s Little Giant Power Hammer made in Minnesota, but not some random town I don't know of, it happened to be a few miles from where I grew up in a small city named Mankato. Just miles from New Ulm,MN which is my home town. So automaticly I was drawn to the brand and needed one... I have driven my truck by this address in Mankato hundreds of times and even know the building....

The ad from 1931 with a 100lb machine

Since I have have been hammering the last months non stop on robots, science museum stuff, gov. stuff and all power labs stuff, I knew I owe it to myself to buy a gift for me and my desire to learn.

This machine came up for sale a month back and once the dude Carl selling it, knew it was going to a good home.... He made the price right !

Carl was so stoked on his free forklift he wanted a picture with it...

I would like to show the picture of it in the rental truck but I am sure I would be blacklisted for destroying the floor in the rental box truck from hauling this thing, so just pretend theres a box truck in this photo too.

My new addition to MLS 

1927 Little Giant 100 LB Trip PowerHammer

Here is the pile of parts, as you can tell from the forklift photo, I have already done some major cleaning on it and getting it ready for the motor mount and paint.

The name plate says it all.

Mankato, MN

This is a video to show you how and what it does.

For my Birthday I went to school

Between doing crazy concept jobs around the clock for companies changing the world... I happened to slip out the back gate for a bit to grab some new knowledge from some old sources, were talking really old....

I have always been hooked on metal forging and its possibilities for making things are. Just the idea of taking a piece of 4140 chromoly steel and moving the structural graining in the metal to make it stronger then the way the steel mill made it, just twist your mind because you can't see it move...

Its all in the brain of the person holding the red hot block of metal..... all pure metal-crafter knowledge with every hit of the hammer.

The whole blacksmith / forger thing is very new to me and its super hard to sit in class because my brain runs wild with prototype parts I have always dreamed of making.....

 Being in class also has it draw backs.... One of the main ones is I am always the youngest by about 40 years so using an Iphone in class is really not really cool or talking about building things that blow up or go fast isn't really either...

 So most of the time, you won't hear this ever again... I hide from my MLS identity for safety of harassment and over questions of why I am here...

Trust me, being an Aerospace kid at a Blacksmith class doesn't go down well.... Its like cats and dogs sometimes....

come along for a quick run of the last weeks, I wish I could show you some of the concept things I have been working on.... don't worry you will very soon.

This is Toby the teacher of the class

This is a round bar (1.5 inch dia.) piece of 4140 he was making square, that could later be used for 

a press brake die or another forging tool. The idea is to move the grain structure from running long wise down the bar as its made or "drawn" at the steel mill, to grain that now runs in all kinds of directions in the now square blick, making this piece of 4140 chromoly steel very strong in all directions when at room temp. Thats kind of my quick in a nut shell description. 

This class is SOOOO loud

Class had 6 giant forging power hammers running all day

Ready for the MLS forging project?

Here we go....

Quick projects for my buddy Rodney and one for Sarah.

Rodney's gift is a exchange for a custom MLS brass head badge he made for my speed bike.

My buddy Matt had these rad bottle opener blanks all cut out so it was a great starting point. 

I had a cheap adjustable wrench ready to help in the project. 

I cut a few inches off both of them and Tig them together 

If you have an MLS t-Shirt with a vise on the sleeve.... Thats what you helped me get, and thank you...

A classic USA made " Pattern-makers vise or sheet metal vise ". If you love sheet metal like I do then you know all about these vises and you know why they are the best. ( do your research they are really cool )

I did this over at my buddy Matt's shop and all by hand

Small parts like these really don't require a power hammer for blending the metal.

Its a weird one to hold with the tongs to get the shape you want. 

One broken hammer and a Dads root beer later ..

We had a custom MLS bottle opener.

Also works great for taking off those hard to reach bolts on your hotrod or home appliance.

Enjoy a beer for getting those bolt off.

Made Sarah a custom Kissing Lockness Monster opener 

This shows a few techniques such as splitting the metal to form 2 legs and then rounding and curving.

This is how pitch forks are made from a solid piece, they are flattened, then split in to 4 sections which are made into small rounds. This is why they are so strong because of the metal grain structure. You never removed metal you just moved it around. 

Ok, back to the shop. I need to toughen up, damn my arm is sore....

Making light titanium parts all the time doesn't make you very strong.

Enjoy.