Rockin Chairs !!!!!

People always wonder what I do to make money to stay alive because everyone thinks all I do is build crazy projects for myself all day.... Then I explain I don't really make any money and am poor because I am addicted to what I do and spend all the money on cutters and more material to build more stuff...

Then they understand and offer to foot the bill for dinner...

End of story....


But when it comes down to what gets me that little bits of money to move to the next personal project here is a good example of concept to reality and working with designers and engineers to make it happen.

I teamed up with Lukas of Shibuleru Designs out of San Francisco about a new type of outdoor chair he had designed. He had the design and drawings pretty much fully locked down but it was on to me to do a lot of the little tweaks in the prototype and to do all the parts to allow it to be broken down to fit in a box and lay flat.

Just a really cool example of putting the cherry on top working with the designer/engineer to make a product just a little bit more rad but not straying from the original design plus it kept me alive and building another month....

Turned out super rad and glad to be part of the building....

Bent up the first set of parts without the arm rests.

If Gabe is going to take my job then hes gotta to learn...

Plus I like taking photos..

Hes welding in the connector pieces

On to the K&T mill to put the holes in for the arm rest bars...

This is the first prototype so its all learning for everyone at this point...

Lukas showed up once we had the first prototype welded up with the prototype cloth.

Its kinda fun when you get to this point in the concept to see all the things come together...

Its always a guess if you got the number right and the feel correct....

This time... we were soooo close but some adjustments to the geometry would prove the perfect fix.

I started the next group of adjusted geometry chairs that would also break down for shipping to Italy

 

Lukas finished up all the arm rest design and then I realized he only wanted them on the inside of the frame ( as you can see in the photo they are on both sides of the arm rest) so I had to cut off the one side of the laser cut sheet metal arm rest... no worries, small details...

The bolt together design is really neat...

It is a total of 5 steel pieces per chair and the fabric, then shipping all flat in a box designed for bicycle frames makes it really easy for everyone.

This is a close up of my welding, root pass with steel rod and Bronze over for the big radius.

I put a long bolt in it to show the hardware location all hidden under.

SOOOOO COOL

Love the black!

Close up of the bolted together pieces..

can't even tell...

Also a close up of the aluminum pieces SeaPort Laser Service cut and Metalco Anodized in a flash for us. Looks great.

The yellow was really neat!

Took me a bit to really like the color but I was sold with the fabric on it.

Quick drawing of how the seats work with the fabric.

 

Enjoy!!!

heres the link again

www.shibuleru.com

 

CAM Mania... The 10 hour rush job....

When the phone rings most of the time for rush work there is normally a time line to get the work done like 2+ days or so... Like normal it was Anthony from HSMworks on the phone with the request to design and build a quick trophy to give away at the event the next day for the launch party of Autodesk Inventor HSM 3D ( the intergrated CAD/CAM for designing and then machining parts in the same program).... I just laughed and said " you got to be serious Anthony, you can't call me the day before, your crazy!"

So like normal I said let me give it a shot and lets see what I can kick out by tomorrow....

I really owe HSMworks, Autodesk and NextGen and all the kids tied in a bunch of favors, really when I look back, meeting this crew has truly changed the shape of my business, skills and built a good amount of my reputation in the concept world because of the ability to kick out crazy 3D machined masterpieces in hours not days or weeks, I can't even imagine what I would be doing, who I would know, and where I would be had I not run in to Anthony while filming a TV show in LA, oh yea, plus I stilled owed Anthony like 50 bucks from Autodesk University in Las Vegas when I ran out of money and needed to eat, so I kinda owed him some favors....

With the clock ticking and less then 20 hours to complete.... I started to round up materials at the same time as my brain was trying to process what I was actually going to build.

Here goes nothing....

This was laying on the floor in my shop...

3x6x12 block of aluminum

I did a quick model of the idea in Inventor and did all the tool paths for it

Roughing with a 3ft 3/4 endmill

Making "Roaster Tail chips"

Time for the 1/2 3ft ball endmill and a lot of surfacing

When making a trophy for a contest that involves toolpaths and the idea of machining you know "EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT THE MACHINING"

The flip to side 2... I tried to only have to use 2 tools

My design really could have been done with a 1/2 endmill but I figured to rough it with the 3/4 to save a ton of time.

I used a 4-5-6 block as my stop for side 2

Almost done then on to the other parts.

I like to do all the 3D contouring then make one final pass around the part with a trace to make sure all the faces look perfect.

Because I had no time to make anything special or time to send anything to anodizing and with the event less then 8 hours away, I searched my shop for anything that was black anodized. The only thing I found was... A test piece for Red Bull Rampage trophies, another HSMworks project a few months back around August.  

Before I cut out the circle on the backside I engraved the Autodesk logo, I knew that I could keep moving all over the part until I got the logo just right. Once I got the logo just right, I cut it out roughly on the K&T horz. mill and then turned it perfectly round on the lathe.

As you can see the sun is coming up and the event was at 2pm so my time was ticking.

I put the logo in with a .001 press fit and did some locking nicks with a small chisel to really lock it in without any visible hardware or glue.  I also put on the little feet that I had laying around from an only Exploratorium project.

 

I needed some blue Acrylic, then I looked up on the wall and seen a left over piece from the Americas Cup Red Bull's Youth Cup trophy I had used HSMworks on as well about 8 months ago.

Ghetto machinist style I put a 2x4 wood board in the vise on the CNC and made a quick 3D sketch of the cut out it needed to fit, screwed down the oddly shaped piece to the board and cut it out. Quick and dirty

This photo is at about 10:30am... Completely smoked... but it was done..

Truly the software and my drive are the only reasons this thing can get done in that amount of time.

Its a advanced piece of machining you can throw a calipers on and measure if you don't believe me, with a turnaround of less then 15 hours from start to finish...

 

I arrived at the contest...

3 people that had held the fastest time at Autodesk University in Vegas for doing Cam Mania, a timed contest to see who could cnc program on HSM the fastest. All 3 of these guys happened not to be machinist or even have any background in machining, they all were Autodesk users in someway but not really on the manufacturing side of things. Think that made the story way better!

 

Then I jumped in on the photo and photo bombed it...

Because I don't care....

 

Enjoy

 

 

 

Instructables ..... HOW TO.... Do WHAT?

About a month ago I was selected to be a sponsored monkey for Instructables, the online " How To - Show and Tell " website where people can add their own How Tos  on to a large data base of crazy projects for others to enjoy and build from.

If you havn't went to the website, I encourage you to take a look ...

Instructables.com

The program I am getting involved with is called the AIR program or Artist in Residence .... Which because I am not a Artist, I have changed the name to MIR, way more space age sounding and stands for Machinist in Residence.

So either way I am taking my MIR timeslot in the amazing shop to write some really cool How Tos and also just classic Tips and Trick for the shop.

Here is one of my Instructables I have make so far, take a look around the site and see all the other cool things people are building. Just do a random search for something and see what turns up, some really good food stuff on there and always really neat contests going on.

How to bend thin tubing - this is one of my first Instructables that really has taken off, I really watched the search hits on the MLS blog and seen what people were always coming to my blog to check out so I figured I would write an Instructable on it and it happened to make the home page as a featured article.

Some days I feel more like a photographer and writer then a fabricator...

Gabe gets to have all the fun these days....

Expect some really cool projects coming up from me... I am building them now.... So warm up the welding torch I will be posting them little by little so add me to your Instructable follow list!

And if you think you got what it takes to make it to the next level of building and want instructables to help you fund building the madness... Check out the page here to apply for the MIR ( AIR ) program and maybe you can come join me and the rest of the monkeys building away in a mind blowing shop in San Francisco.

Instructables AIR details




 

Red Bull Youth America's Cup Trophy Madness ....

About 9 months ago I was approached by the some of the big dogs at Red Bull asking if I would be willing to help design and build the trophy for the America's Cup Youth Race sponsored by Red Bull happening in San Francisco...

A tall order because there is a lot of eyes watching these million dollar plus boats. One of the main reasons I was asked is because I am close to the same age as a lot of the racers, just 2 years older then most of the racers so it would be extra special to have a young person design and build the trophy to really cater to our age group.

Let me give you some background on the racing and Red Bulls involvement in a nutshell.

There is 10 AC45 sail boats with the main sponsor Red Bull funding a lot of boat cost but the racers really have to step up their business game and collect the other sponsors to cover race fees which can be a tall order on itself.

The racers are all 18-24 years old and have to race for the country that they are a resident of, as opposed to the AC72 whose team can be built of racers not of the country they are representing

The MLS in a nutshell decription of the Youth Races is  - Its like giving a group of kids Corvette Rental cars and telling them... " its really expensive, don't crash it but don't forget to have fun with it"

One of my first tasks was just to not even think of the classic priceless 100+  year old America's Cup trophy because no matter what I build it will have no way to compete with something like that, so think different and think RED BULL .....

The original America's Cup Trophy

Anyone that knows me knows that one of my main goals in life is teaching the masses....  There is a reason I find myself at the Exploratorium Science museum about 60+ hours a week... I love teaching science and I have found I can do it well working with my hands.

 I may not get to build the rocket to go to Mars in my lifetime, but I feel like I might impact the little 10 year old walking in the museum and learning something so interesting and new that they have to learn more, they grow up and become scientist and push the limits resulting in the first foot steps on the Mars surface, maybe I will be alive maybe not but either way I do it for the love.

 Thats success to me and I may never know if I achieve it ...  even if its a super simple exhibit that I giggle about how simple it is ... It can make a impact, that can last a lifetime...

With that idea in my brain, I have this tool to get peoples attention... A trophy, not just a simple trophy for your uncles bowling reunion, this bad boy is across the TV on ESPN, ABC, NBC and don't forget the good old internet.

So I ask why not use it as a teaching tool, lets show people something they don't know because they have never seen it or maybe from out of town and just visiting San Francisco, just maybe it will be seen by that one kid or adult that realizes they want to know mOre .....

All that goes thru my mind everyday when I build so when I grabbed my sketch pad with the Red Bull crew watching, I said lets make something that shows the Bay and lets make it something that shows so much detail about where this race is happening but is so simple that it makes you scratch your head and say .... I know what it is, and man is that neat... ( or at you can replace " neat " with Rad or KickAss )

Using a piece of sheet metal and a parts bin I did a 5 minute mock up...

I always present this because its always the most photographed way the trophy will be seen so when doing a quick mock up its very important to make sure your happy with the look. 

I didn't really stray far from my design... I knew what I wanted to build and it was kinda final, sometimes I really like whats in my head when I am in the right place, about 16 Red Bulls helps get there quicker.

Some people think that because I am a pretty good welder and machinist, that I should be good at drawing... Ha ha ... Damn ... fooled you.... I suck at drawing unless theres a pretty girl around to show off to...

10 minutes or so in each sketch... Proof of concept 

Nothing crazy just making the point to draw it as we talk about it.

I know I shouldn't show these drawings because they are not very good but it proves a point it doesn't take a perfect drawing to make good work. More detailed drawings were done after the meeting with Red Bull and these would get sent off for rendering. 

Aaron at Red Bull was quick to make the call to his crew up at Roundhouse designs in Portland to do some clean up on my mess of drawings and make it so the main Red Bull crew in Austria had an understanding what we wanted to build... Always gets you pumped when you see your idea in your brain become more of a reality in 3D plus the Roundhouse crew threw a little extra flair on it to put the cherry on the top.

Roundhouse really put together a bunch of good drawings from my sketches

I was so busy working on other concept projects it was a real lifesaver for them to do this part of the project. 

With the OK from the crew at Red Bull to build it... The madness started... The stuff Roundhouse did was just a very simple model for selling the idea but now it was time to put it to reality and make some real CAD models we could build off.

Proof of concept I machined and testing the Acrylic on top.

Easy to get your results really quick... Prototyping full speed ahead....

Like normal I hit up Matt Carney the master mind CAD man that hides at either MIT or somewhere in the San Fran area,  I knew this one was not something I could tackle by myself because of the layout I knew it would be a costly mistake if it wasn't right. Matt and I watched and researched everything we could find about the San Francisco Bay using Gov. Data and other things, we came up with a very simple idea and how to give it a really smooth look without all the crazy details that over power the eyes...

With the little mini model and many cups of coffee Matt and I hammer out the design.

First we took the Google Image of the bay and made it in to a layered CAD drawing with each layer being 3/8 inches apart and the max layers to stack no higher then 4.5 inches. Next was to lay out how we wanted to machine it and how we would make the layered stack up, in the past doing things like this such as the Red Bull Rampage trophy we stacked layers of laser cut wood and metal and we got the height that way but this one needed to be a bit different.

The laser is almost to precise sometimes, creating sharp aggressive angles that are sometimes not very appealing to the eye when bunched together, it makes you think of things like SPIKE strips that the cops use or something you don't want to hold because your affraid of getting cut, so it became a backup plan to laser cut it if we ran out of time, we decieded it would need to be machined out of a SOLID block of aluminum...

A 110 LB block of Aluminum...

Scrap piece from an aerospace company that didn't need it...

Recycling...

As if my buddy Anthony from HSMWorks / Autodesk ears were burning or something, he called me out of the blue asking whats new.... I said " I am looking at a 110 block of aluminum and thinking about making something with it but I think I want to freestyle machine it on my manual mill because I am old school and I want to know if I can do it and make it look good "

his reply was great - " Oh F#^k NO, what the hell is wrong with you?  We are going to make some rooster tail aluminum chip on the CNC mill and run the hell out of one of our new super fast CAM programs and show everyone how easy it is, its 2013 buddy I can't watch you suffer like this"

I had to put a picture of Anthony up here so he could be embarrassed and you could imagine him saying that full excitement over the phone with tons of cussing...

Within about 30 minutes I was doing a online conference call with Anthony and Al one of their top programmer/developers for HSMworks talking about how their new FREE CAM software could tackle this mess of a machining job with about 30 clicks of the mouse and make it look like the most simple task... They were right.... about 30 clicks plus about 700 more in disbelief because I couldn't believe how easy it was compared to the thing we call Master something that I have suffered with for years...

\
That next day with the help of Liam from LightSail Energy, we loaded the 110 lb block in to the Haas and loaded up the G code we had just made using the HSMworks, next we loaded the tools and the rooster tail aluminum chips started flying minutes later.

Start

milling away..

You get to watch it upside down...

Finish

The next project after the base was done was the mini AC45 wing, this time Matt and I did the drawing and within about an hour of finishing the drawing we had the G code to run it on my Bridgeport CNC in my MLS Skunkworks shop. I hate to sound like a spokes model for the programming software but I am still amazed they are giving it away for free and it does everything so smoothly for Solidworks and for Autodesk Inventor, its worth testing if you CNC machine stuff.

Talking with the HSMworks crew on the phone about dialin in the Bridgeport Boss 10 for the next project which is the wing

running the wing on my new CNC

3D machining the sail - 159,000 lines of code per side

The wing ran on my Bridgeport CNC for a few hours as I slept above in my loft... I am good at sleeping thru a CNC running long cycle times... I dream of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$  ha ha or the YG*IU*(U*(Y*(YH*YH&AYF&^WT*FY&  as the spindle crashes in to the table..... lets hope that one I wake up and realize it was just a dream...

Ladies.... A key Chain model of an AC45 sail

With the main machining parts all done it was back to the crew up at Seaport Stainless who have mastered laser cutting just about anything that you can some how laser thru, Ryan and Jason cut some blue acrylic and a few other parts for the trophy like the compass and the little logo plate for the sail my brother helped me do the layout on, then the other side job was cutting some parts that I offered to build as a volunteer for the non profit group that restored the USS Potomac ( President Roosevelt's "White House on Water" Presidential Yacht )

Jason at Seaport Stainless setting up the laser to cut out blue water plus spares for sandblasting

The next stop was out to ACP Composites in Livermore,CA only to find that they were slammed with work on America's Cup AC72 parts for a few teams, making the lower fins of the boat due to rule changes but seeing the fins all over made me realize these guys are very good and I need to do more carbon stuff, I picked up a few chunks of Carbon to use on the trophy for inserts to add that carbon style to it. That crew out there is some of the best carbon fiber fabricators I have seen, Boeing calls them so I think thats all I have to say.

The main thing is with something of this level of expectations I really love very simple finishes and easy to clean, so all the land was sand blasted and Gabe did the blasting on the land and then I took over finishing off the trophy sandblasting with Ghost Red Bull logos all over it.... Ha ha no one even knows they are there most of the time.... Sneaky...

Then I sent the trophy over to the boys at MetalCo Anodizing in Emeryville because they specialize in Dye-less Anodizing which turns out very different from normal ano and gives it a very smooth and sleek appearance, I use them for a lot of projects. Its not for every project but they do a hell of a job when its the right finish for the job plus they do it quick and sometimes that means the world in the prototyping sector.

You don't even know how stoked they were to know they were doing the anodizing for the trophy plus all the other parts for the big AC72 boats from various teams.

Its really neat to see extra money and fun coming in to the bay area industry because of these races, its kinda like aerospace without the rules... They are like airplanes on the water....

Doing some of the details now... Late nights...

Remember in the early pictures - Holding over your head is one of the most important things...

LOGO HITS = Happy Customers 

Carbon Fiber = Everyone is happy

Its very important as well to make sure its facing the right way if they hold it up over their head

Perfect bottom that you will likely never see

I designed and a little compass with San Francisco cut in it...

Details ....

Time to put the wing on it and finish it

proud of it

I got a good team of people that makes it happen!

In exchange for building some stuff for a non-profit group that restored the USS Potomac they took Liam and I out to watch the Red Bull Youth America's Cup race... So rad...

The Potomac was built for President Roosevelt and was called the White House on the Water.

It was later own by Elvis ... And the story goes on... We had it for the afternoon and it was so cool

Cruzin full throttle 

President Roosevelt knew whats up with the 2 Chris Craft boats on board, someday I will get one

You can see the racers in the background and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Best parts of making stuff for the Potomac is we got to go down in the engine room while it was full throttle with is only 400 RPM but if your a boat/ship person you know how rad these 1930s vessels are with the crazy wood bearings on the drive shafts.

The bridges are both closed this week causing madness around the bay for driving

The span on the left is being tore down and the new span on the right is ready to replace it starting Tuesday after labor day.

The lead skipper of each team did a quick photo by the trophy for the RBYAC trophy

I was stoked to see it finally ready for someone to hold above their head because they are one of the best sailors in the world...

Enjoy...

The races were really rad with all 10 boats out at the same time. Watch this video and it gives you an idea whats going on.