working working working

sorry I have been so far behind on the blog because of a overload on school report papers


Here is a quick pict of me welding it the shop working on a project - Safety first !

Talisman tattoo machines

After a bunch of emails about the welding video I posted a while back, I totally forgot about posting up any pictures of the finished tattoo machines. 

The machines are a mix of all kinds of peoples talents from Aries Rhysing who is a top talent in the tattooing industry to top designers like my brother Jason Tiedeken who took the ideas from Aries and threw some of his design ideas on it to create one hell of a cool looking and performing  machines.

I just do the welding on the project, they come in all cut and cleaned from the laser cutter, making them ready to weld and perfect everytime. The designs are always changing largely due to the amount of R&D that goes in to the test/prototype machines, it seems like everytime I figure out how to weld something really really fast and well, they change the design and then we start over, at least it seems to become easier every time.

Check it out  talisman tattoo machines -  MADE IN THE USA

I weld the vertical spring perch where it has the 90 deg bend, that is 2 pieces welded together

every piece has to be almost perfect for the machine to run proper.

everyone of the washers is micro stainless welded - boxes and boxes of them :( they suck

San Diego Custom bicycle show

Well, year 2 of the San Diego Custom Bicycle show is coming up and I will be there. Its a really cool show and it doesn't get to crazy, plus its only an hour and a half down the road from me. Last year was a lot of fun except for the flat tires I got in a weird area of town at 4 am while night riding!

I think I am going to bring the

-  The big Penny Farthing bike
-   the speed downhill bike
-   Jeffs machine
-   Brie's hot rod and maybe the Unicycle I am working on.

Its a rad show so I invite everyone that wants to go to check it out and come drink some beers with us

I want to step it up for the show and build a rad display but I am guessing that will be last minute like normal.

Welding Class

When I was about 10 or 11 years old, (Some that know me are laughing because they know my age and are saying that was like a few years ago) but my dad fired up the old carbon stack ARC Stick welder and it was ON!

 With a welding mask that had a broken glass and covered in slag, I struck my first ARC and jumped. A bit confused on the concept, it seemed to go really move smoothly as opposed to the scary look of  welding with all the flying sparks and loud noise.

Every so often I get a chance to pass on my knowledge and return the favor. I hope that someone someday has as much of a love for welding as I do and becomes better then me so that I can just sit back and let someone do my work for me, I will do the money part of things. Don't worry, you will still get paid sometimes.

I got to pass on my quick skills the other day to Brie's little brother Justice who is 11 years old. Kinda cool to see how kids soak up stuff like that, teaching adults is like pulling teeth sometimes, everyone knows how to do it already but they need me to give them a brush up lesson because they forgot how to do it, ha ha yea right.

really really Top Secret Concept

I wish I could show more but.................


The machine is all Hydroformed 7005 Aerospace Spec tubing, It is a very special tubing that can only be welded to a small group of aluminum because it has a special mix of alloys. The worse is when you order a box of tubing that has a weight of 4 pounds and it costed you over $700 dollars. 

The Hydroform process is very special as well, it is the process of using a machine to fill the inside of the aluminum tubing with very very high pressure water ( 20,000 to 100,000 Psi ) and making the tubing expand in to a cavity mold of the shape you desire. The beauty in this process is the tubing doesn't go thru very stressful conditions as it would if a hard steel die formed the aluminum with raw force, the water forces the tubing in to the most unique shapes that once had to be made in multiple pieces in the past.

Well, anyways. Check it out or at least what you can see.

I wish I could show you, but you might win the race

Top Secret

Well,

Its finished and is being used for filming today so I think I can show a quick picture of what I have been working on, everyone keeps asking.

The great part about Hollywood - I have been luckey to get to build some really neat stuff as props from everything from a pile of junk in the back ground to an prototype air stunt ramp that throws Jackie Chan 40 feet across a stage. The air ramp has been my brother and I's best product for the movie industry but because of the level of engineering involved in it and the secrets inside it, you won't be seeing the guts.

Here is a teaser video of me in very early testing using our prototype air ramp, all testing and development was assisted by the best stunt names in Hollywood.


Ok Ok, sorry a bit off of topic there....

So the project for the last few days other then my Culinary classes was to build a self operated gun. The quick idea behind the movie as I have been told is - The setting is like 2040 and the main role has found out how to make and use this crazy drug he developed but the catch is the best way for him to use the drug is injecting it in to his eye. So this is where the gun comes in.....

1. Fill the test tubes located on the top of the gun with the liquid drug.
2.You hold the gun to your eye with the brass end under your lower eyelid.
3. with your trigger finger pull the trigger and open your top eye lid.
4. Next you push your thumb to operate the bolt action and release the liquid, shooting your eye with a crazy 304 stainless needle injecting drug.
5. watch the test tube drug level drop
and so on and so on.

You get the point - The gun will be used on a fake head of the actors, I feel good about my work but no matter what, you can't replace an eye.

Check it and enjoy - these photos were taken when the gun was almost done, its got more details but this is the guns core elements. It took a lot longer to make then expected because I made every part by hand starting with a stack of brass bars, aluminum plate and rods, I think I used about 3 parts total that I didn't make myself, all rushed in about 2 and a half days

this is the eye lid lifter

Triggers for lifting the lid and the bolt action

when it was done it looked like a nice looking spray gun, ha ha

Oh the power of Hollywood and its money

Right side with all the sliding pieces and the drain tubes

USA made

Well, I just wanted to make a quick post about how HARD it is to find anything made in the USA.  I have been looking for a knife set for school and if I am going to get a good set and spend some money on it, I want it to be made in the USA.

Check these bad boys out - I think this is the one I am going with.....


Warther Cutlery makes some really cool knives and check out the design, its all engine turned.

It makes me sad to see all these companies that say MADE in the USA only to find out they only put 2 rivets in the handle and put it in a box. The blade is made in Japan and the handle is made in China and so are the rivets. In the end, an assembly person spends 30 seconds to put in 2 rivets making it MADE IN AMERICA. That is all BS.

I like to see companies like Warthers who are still stamping out every part in the USA and proud to say it !!

Thats Mr Ernest Warther making knives.

The video is Bob Kramer making knives - he is booked for over a year wait on a single knife

Bobs stuff is so in demand, it is crazy to see the processes and tools used to make knives

BUSY BUSY BUSY

Between working on Jeff's bike and helping Goose on some movie props, I have started my first week of Culinary school.

Soon I will be a crazy knife slinging ninja able to dice a carrot in to a million pieces.

The real goal is to learn a new skill and possibly cross pollinate some of my knowledge with metal working with my new skills in the kitchen and help possibly develop new tools and uses for things in the kitchen. We will see, its a lot of work but now is the time to do it. At a whopping $26 dollars a unit its hard to beat the schools in California, even if you need to sit next to some crazy poverty stricken person.


Check it in the next weeks, I might throw down some stuff and take some pictures of it.


I will post some pictures of the project for Goose and Jeff's bike maybe later today.

YouTube

So last night I was searching YouTube and found this video of my old boss Roland Sands and Donny Emler of FMF testing out the soapbox race car before the race downtown LA. The video was shot the night before the race when we just finished the chassis.

its got a funny ending -

We only put one 8 inch disc brake on it - on the driver side rear so stopping was not very easy because it would just lock up the driver side rear and keep going faster. Roland figured out real quick how to slow down the beast when he was headed for a busy cross street in Signal Hill.

Sputnik

I was waiting for Brie to come home from cruzin on her scooter to Hollywood and for the 45 minutes I waited, I decided to build something for the shop.

The mini Sputnik satallite

My version is about 1/5 sized  - it looks good hanging in the shop

A steel ball and some stainless rods

I put a washer on the back for the access port

and put some neat little clips over the welds on the antennas

There she is orbiting the shop, relaying to the Soviets what I am working on.

Now for the real history -

Oct 4, 1957 - The Soviet Union rocket was launched with the 190 pound beach ball sized satallite named Sputnik 1

98 minutes later Sputnik 1 had made one orbit around the earth

About a month later, to strike even more fear in the world, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 which carried a Dog named Laika. ( Note - Soviet Scientist used stray dogs from Moskow, it was said that if a stray dog could survive in Moskow it could survive in space.)

The USA launched Explorer about 2 months later to show the Soviets they were in the space race and close behind.

Tall Tall Tall bike

Dan and I a while back wanted to build a tall bike that followed track bike specs but had a bit longer wheel base.

The idea was to use the seatpost tube to house a complete 12 pack of beer and operate like a Pez despenser when lifting the seat.

5 or so hours later we were cruzin the streets of South Central Los Angeles

running next to the beast while Dan rides

We got lazy and never finished the beer tube but the bike was a ton of fun to ride and really really unsafe when getting on and off of it.

Sarah Sitkin took the photos.  Sarah Sitkin Photos

Finish line photo -  full aero bars

Dan Berlant still cruzin

the odd creature from South Central LA

The video that started it all

This video got me so pumped up when I was about 10 or 12 years old, I wanted to build, build and build. I bet I watched it a million times.......

Check it - First year of the Yeti Lawwill 4 inch DH bike. It was the most rad DH bike you could get designed by none other then my favorite motorcycle racer of all time Mert Lawwill.

I WILL SUE YOU !

Well, I got a few questions about why I took a few day for me to post some stuff up.

Other then a crazy Asian women looking me in the eyes and telling me she will sue me if I build anything for her husband.

Long story short, I started building this quick golf bag rack for this bike, the guy said "my wife doesn't like when I drive to and from the golf coarse" ( I assumed that he drinks a lot and maybe got in some trouble from a prior trip home from golfing ).

It was going to be a quick build with a mounting pad behind the rear wheel for the bag and a holder off of the seat post, then connect them on the non drive side to make it strong.  Quick job and some quick money to pay for my college classes.

The lady flipped out on me downtown in front of my favorite place to eat for starters, then when I handed my business card to the man and told him we should talk about this later when he has a moment because I was pretending to be rush back to the restraunt, she proceeded in grabbing my business card from his hand and said I will need this, for your information when you get the rack done and I am ready to sue you.

I bet I heard the word SUE about 10 times in the 5 minutes we met, In the end the bike was pushed off a cliff and landed back in his garage where it started and forgot about it.

This morning was another great adventure - I took apart Brie's Honda Scooter 2 times, complete body removal, carb rebuild, fuel flush and cleaning, Not once but twice to find the reason the bike wouldn't start.  The answer - a 10 cent check valve inside the chassis that stops fuel from going backwards if the pumps not running. I cleaned it out and now it runs like a champ. A lot of work for nothing.

I made most of the rear end for Jeff's bike, I think ?  I have made the rear end parts about 5 times now all different, I just want it to look and work great. Check it out - Stainless Steel

Sprocket brake for your Fixie

I made some goodies for the day.       Check-em

The idea is to use a stainless steel chainring and attach a disc brake caliper to the chainstay to grab the chainring as if it was a disc brake rotor. The rear wheel must be a fixed gear set up in order for the brake to work.

first I took a Surly stainless steel sprocket and machined it so it didn't have a lip on the back side. My first idea about 2 years ago, was just laser cutting a sprocket and for the last 2 years the 3D model has been sitting in my Solidworks software file waiting to be cut. I forgot all about the Surly Chainring and how perfect it would work for this project.

The mounts for the Avid Juicy caliper was super easy to make and weld on, plus it adds a lot of stiffness to the non drive chainstays because of its link to the bottom bracket.

I havn't done any of the routing for the hose because I didn't know how well the sprocket brake would work so for now the good old electrical tape will have to work.

This is on the frame I built for Brie before Christmas ( see older post ) so its will be my test bike and I will keep you kids up to date on the progress.

Before I did all the welding, I milled the bracket to save some weight

Underside showing the mounts

Done and done

Enjoy

The rain is done

Time to ride -

The old Schwinn Manta Ray

Cutting a Classic

Its so hard to hold a grinder to a Lightspeed Titanium Bicycle and start cutting.

The frame had already been welded after being hit by a vehicle so making the cuts was a bit easier, knowing she would have been headed to the recycling bin.

Check it out

Titanium throws some rad sparks

Check it

The dropouts have a hanger on it just incase you want to throw some gears back on it

And how could we forget the bottle opener on the left side.

SPEED DOWNHILL - Forking good time

For some reason, I really wanted to build a supension fork for the downhill speed bike. I could have done a rigid fork and called it a day but why, thats the easy way out. Or just gone on ebay and bought a Cannondale Lefty fork.

 I like making my life hard.

Here is what I have and made so far. It is going to use the Cannondale Lefty wheels both front and rear but not on the left side but on the right side, so lets call it a Righty.

Ok check it, some red triple clamps from a Rock Shox Boxxer fork

Some Bronze bushings I made on the lathe

A slider tube and a outside tube and an axle

Here is the little offset axle for the lefty wheel

I made it a 2 piece part to save time because I don't get paid working on my own stuff I found out

The axle needs to be offset to a leading axle on the fork to make the bicycle turn and control correctly

Heres a better picture of all the little parts I made.

Ok, here is the axle and all the goodies welded up, you will see whats next.

No downhill speed bike would be complete without a little HD camcorder

I made all of the parts removable so you don't have to leave it on the fork if you don't want it

Here is a good picture of the one sided wheel with all the stuff mounted.

I am stoked to use the little HD camcorder with the SD memory card because when I crash up in the canyons, I don't think it will damage the memory card so I should be able to post video from my hospital bed.

"THE FORK"   TO BE CONTIUNUED------------

My last RSD project

Here is the last project I worked on while at Roland Sands Design. It was a 2009 Honda CBR1000 that we took all the body work off of and made some custom stuff for the naked street fighter look. It turned out really cool and now the time has come to WIN THE BIKE.

It benfits the Ride For Kids and tickets can be bought online or during the motorcycle expos around the USA. 

Its a stupid fast bike and I would love to have it, but I can't win it even if I tried. So I am one less person that you need to worry about when buying tickets to win it.

http://www.rideforkids.org/

How to pay the bills

People ask me a lot of the time how I make money to have fun. 

Good question.

Answer - I don't know?

Here is a good example that brings money in the door.

These are swing arms ( rear end ) for Harley Davidson Softails. Some times its like a factory around here. I don't post a lot of that stuff on my blog cause I feel like a sweat shop doing production stuff and I wouldn't want to bore anyone.

Behind the swingarms is a red case filled with crazy expensive inverter Tig welder that I use for doing repairs at restraunts around LA. The best part of this job fixing kitchens is I can trade welding for food. Then I take Brie out and look like a high roller, ha ha.

I have fun doing all the jobs.

The New Kid in the shop

Here is the new beast I have added to the shop.

Long story short - I made a visit to a Sears Outlet center and bought this little CNC machine for $125 dollars because they thought it was a planner for surfacing wood.

I saved about $1700, not bad, I don't win lottery tickets or anything else but every so often something good comes my way.

I ran it for the first time the other day and was super impressed. Its loud but really fast. Expect to see some cool projects coming.

Check out the video for the machine.

She is half done Jeff

My project for Jeff Thrasher is coming along

I got all the Reynolds tubes notched and cleaned. Its only a 58cm but its one of the bigger bikes I have built, I keep on thinking I have measured something wrong because the Downhill Speed bike is so small ( BMX ) sized, seeing all this open space is really throwing me off.

So far, everything is looking good. 

The plan - To build a new aged Iver Johnson looking Track Bike that folds up to fit in a suite case so it is easy to travel with, no more oversized fees at the airport

The Catch - It needs to look like it doesn't fold and needs to follow the lines of a classic Iver.

As I get closer to putting the rear end on the bike, it will make a bit more sence, how the folding will work.

I welded the bottom bracket on already

This is a buddy of mine's Iver in his bicycle collection - I am using this photo for the frame design

It is a late 1800's Iver Johnson Custom Track race bicycle

 Heard of Iver Johnson or the name ring a bell? 

           Thats because they were one of the biggest firearms manufacturers from the mid 1800s to the early 1990s well over 100 years.

 For a while, from the late 1800s to the 1940s they produced bicycles  and motorcycles due to their great knowedge in manufacturing. You can thank Major Taylor in the late 1800s for putting the Iver Johnson bicycles on the map. Major Marshall Taylor was the fastest racer at the time, to top it off he happened to be one of the only African-American bicycle racers during a very strong racial time. He was so fast that he lapped on the track, every one of the pro racers during a 1/2 mile race.

A few years later he became the world champ on his Iver in 1899.

Iver Johnson Firearms, Motorcycles, Bicycles , Toys and so on are still around today because of the fine craftsmanship in every detail, they go down in my book as a inspiring company because of of many reasons. If you want to read more search it up, its a really cool when you read about all the patents and ideas they had over 100 years ago. They were ahead of their time in idea and product.

The little machine that could.

Here is a picture from a photo shoot I did a while back. I was doing a burnout downtown Malibu for a European magazine.

The bike was built for Adam Stark, It took me about 6 months to finish it up. It makes a little under 100 horsepower and doesn't have a problem spinning the tire, not bad for a Harley Sportster.

Running From The Heat

Some time back a " friend - no name given" decided to run from the cops on a beach cruiser = access denied

He made a good run for it - but do to his KICK ASS shirt he was spotted by cops and later bagged

Custom Hat

Check this bad boy out.

Custom !!

My Helmet Hall of Fame

As a welder, your helmet is like your second face.

Personalized helmets are cool and tell something about the person welding and who or what industry they work in. Stickers or pinstriping are always a cool thing.

 Each helmet is a bit different, if you wear it most of the day comfort is everything. I have tested almost every brand of helmets out there over the years, some of the worse helmets I had to wear for TV show sponsors and such others were pass downs from old welders who believed they had the best helmet and wanted to give it to me.

I have about 5 helmets at my shop, mostly for teaching welding as student helmets, but some are my old helmets from production or TV shows.

Here are some of my lists of stuff that is the most important in order when picking out a helmet.

1. how the headgear fits around your head and the shape of it. #1 - if your not feeling good, you won't weld good.

2. How easy is it to flip up? Does your hand have something to grab in a split second to lift it up?
This is VERY important in a production environment where speed is everything. If you need to lift 6 times per part, at the end of the day you could have welded a few more parts because of the seconds you lost lifting which could land you on the unemployeed line.

3. If the welding helmet is auto darkening, is it adjustable for the shade?    9-12 or is a 9 or 10 only.  Depending on how much welding you do, a helmet with a 9 lens can cause eye problems, just running a 10 shade can fix this up to about 150 amps, then you should amost go to a 11 darker lens for anything over 150 amps

4. If you use a MIG or ARC ( stick ) welder, the front area of the helmet shouldn't have a low spot. For example - if you are welding the exhaust on your car laying on your back, if sparks fall while welding and lands on the helmet you don't want to give them a place to sit and melt your helmet, you want them to fall off the face of the helmet before causing damage.


Here is a bunch of pictures of my helmets in my Hall of Fame - each helmet has over 20,000 arc strikes, TV filmings and stories.

The Miller Elite Big Window

Cool looking helmet but felt weird

I kept it at Edelbrock for welding concept projects

Grain belt, D&M cycles, and Taco John's stickers all over

I had a ton of stickers on this one for fiming a few Discovery Channel shows and friends companies.

The old company before Monkey like Shiny - Metal Morphosis Cycles

This helment is the fastest fliping helmet out there, I think.

Because there is a lip above the solar panel, you can grab it in a flash.

It feels more natural to flip above the solar panel then below my chin at the bottom of the helmet.

My current baby

The Lincoln Electric Trackside Platium

I can wear it for days and never know its on my head !

I have Peter Fonda (Easyrider) and a good old Wyoming Sticker for the kids

Nothing makes you feel like a pedifile at a new job more then a Hanna Montana Sticker

All the pinstriping on the bottom with my name wore off - my hommie Thick put it down for me years back.

Hope my years of good and bad helmets helps in your quest for a new helmet.

Now go weld !