Dinner under the shuttle

Every once and a while I get to do something fun....

This was one of those things that I enjoyed. My buddy Art who worked with me for a while in my shop, got out of the Navy after 4 years and scored a cool job as a new prototyper at Applied Minds in LA, which is a super cool company that does just about everything.

They are a concept company with a lot of focus on Space due to some of the people involved in the company were either pilots on the shuttle or worked for Nasa. The team does all kinds of other cool stuff in the robotics and movie industry as well.

Artin has a good gig going and hopefully he can hold it down.

They threw a party and they did it big, Art ditched his date to take me with...


It was cool to hear the actual pilots of the shuttle we were looking at talk about it and all its weird things that made it a pain in the ass to fly.

Once I get some good photos with myself and the pilots I will post them up.

The beast - I LOVE NASA

The pilot spoke to the employees about the bad door that sometimes required extra love to close before take off.

The thing is kinda heavy and big so I could only hold the front.

 

Dinner under it make it hard to eat because I just looked up the whole time...

I have dreamed to be this close to it for so long that its crazy to get to see it now.

 

 

 

 

A few months back it flew past the Exploratorium Science museum where I work in San Francisco. Its such a big deal at the museum they shut down the museum to make sure everyone got to see it for its last flight, Science rocks!

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.

 

Is a job suppose to be fun?

The last months I have been working my normal 16 hour days and like normal having a blast doing it. Gabe has been building all kinds of stuff as well, prefecting his skills to someday take my job and my fun.... Until then.... I will try to keep in the lead...

One of the major things in the last months has been the big project of working full time at the Science Museum in San Francisco, otherwise known as the Exploratorium. Its one of the most reconized science museums in the world for not only its amazing exhibits but for its vast amounts of knowledge that the valued employees carry.

Its so cool to get to work around these people everyday and learn their strong points, its truly the first job where I can't even predect what people do for hobbies or for a trade. The people are so cool and friendly and its been a pleasure to work with them. Like normal, I am under a contract to be around until about the end of January, mostly to help hammer out the big projects before one of the biggest projects.... THE MOVE.....

The museum is moving to a new location across San Francisco to a more easy to acess location, the place will be double the size which means.... More exhibits needed to be built to fill the space. The other cool part is its on a pier now so we can build all kinds of cool things to go in the water and hang off the railings.

I will keep more updates coming in but I figured these pictures would do the trick and give you a quick glance in to the normal day to day and how much fun it is.

 

Why wouldn't you want a picture like this?

Jesse one of the engineers took this sweet photo

A look from the shop window....

Nice view..

To teach kids and adults about the Golden Gate Bridge, Dave Fleming ( the main ring leader )

built this little 1/400 scale model to teach about earthquakes and wind and how the bridge moves.

 

Easy parts  +  the CNC Bridgeport Mill + sippin coffee + Friday

=

The perfect Friday....

 

Bending up mini bridge decks on the DiAcro press brake.

These little pieces will become the Bay Bridge 1/500 scale model

This is my sweet office complete with a broom

Those are the little Bay Bridge towers

The floors in this early 1900s building are amazing redwood planks.

This is my first time working on wood floors and its really nice.

 

As if its normal...

The lathe has plastic covers to watch the gears in oil and spindle speed controllers with some classly name plates to get a good laugh ...

World Champ downhiller Greg Minnaar had to come visit me at work before heading back to home for the holidays...

So we put him to the test to see if he really knew how to ride a bike, on one of the " How to ride a bicycle " exhibits teaching kids about how your legs work when riding a bike.

Its so rad to see kids everywhere being super stoked out on everything they see.

Jen brought this back from the Midwest, some of Minnesota's finest.

On a normal day...

I love to race these things...

I ride my 1937 Schwinn Superior to work everyday.

Lunch time is perfect to work on the espresso machine...

 

Once home....

Its time to work on other projects.
Getting the new MLS weld shop all dialed in, its looking really nice.

Building an Exile gas tank on the floor there, for Russells new project....

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