Santa's Workshop

After this last round of finals I was happy to be doing anything besides studying, so it felt extra good to get back in the garage. I thought it would be fun to make all my gifts for Christmas this year.

This summer we went to an art fair which is where I first discovered bolt people. Pretty much exactly like it sounds, people... made out of bolts. Looked easy enough, the bolts, nuts, washers, and cotter pins are easily found at any hardware store. The violin bow is part of a bike spoke...ya, I have a few lying around. The heads were a little more difficult, I ended up finding these two at a specialty decorative wrought iron place downtown, then was able to order 1" ball bearings online for subsequent heads. Here is my first attempt from several months ago that I made for Maria.

side note: this eye grabber once caused a car accident

It was a hit with Maria so I thought I could do several others for Christmas gifts. They ended up taking a little longer than I thought they would but it was fun to turn the orange garage into Santa's workshop for a few days (insert joke about Santa's elf who wants to be a dentist).

Maria's mother Linda- the violinist
Maria's dad Pat- the photographer
J Paul- the cellist (ps. how should we get him to you???)

 group photo!


I was planning on making a pianist for my sister but she conveniently reminded me before Christmas that she had always wanted a set of chimes. I can remember when she was younger she would set up the chimes on a broom between two chairs and play them by herself...her husband said he wouldn't be surprised to catch her doing this with the new set.

I started by borrowing my mom's set to use as a template. My dad has a very good relative pitch and had been complaining about this set so I pulled out my old digital guitar tuner and tested each of the chimes. Sure enough, several were more than 50 cents off. Using the tuner I was able to see about where each of my cuts should be in relation to my mothers chime. I would cut long then grind it down for fine tuning. They didn't come out perfect, but pretty dang close.

Mia helping out.

Mia already had some christmasy fabric lying around so I was able to quickly sew up a carrying case.

Welder Babe

Usually I am on my own out in the garage but every once in a long while I am lucky enough to have Maria come out and join me. She will occasionally have something she is painting or reupholstering but one time she did ask me for a welding lesson. It ended with a burnt hand, but that wasn't until after she had made herself an awesome little jewelry holder.

Everything about this picture is beautiful.

Because we were working with a thinner metal the heat from the welder doesn't have anywhere to go (except into unsuspecting hands). The piece gets extra hot causing a neat bluing effect. Maria used this to her advantage, so in addition to welding the T joint, she purposely welded the back side of the piece creating this color pattern.

 This may be her last time dabbling with welding but I was really impressed with the way this little project came out!

Lazy Bike

http://www.youtube.com/user/crimpmasterc?feature=watch#p/a/u/0/yS9LB1ki-c4

A couple posts ago I talked about building an engine attachment for my longboard. My wife was convinced that the motor board was a serious accident just waiting to happen... she may well have been right. I built the engine trailer as a kind of modular unit so it could be fashioned with different attachments so it could have a wide range of applications.

Not long after finishing the longboard I was ready for the next project, preferably one that didn't scare my wife to death. I haven't covered too many on the blog, but anyone who has stepped foot in the orange garage knows that it is full of bikes. I thought it would be fun to make an attachment allowing me to hook the engine up to a bike, not just one bike, but my mountain bike, road bike, recumbent, and tandem (not the elliptical, apparently it already has the ability to break bones at the mind boggling speed of 4 mph...another story for another post .)
This is what I came up with.

So the bottom end (on the left) has a hitch that slips over the attachment on the engine, and the other end has a tube that can slip onto any seat post. This tube allows the trailer to swing to the left and right for turns, and it also has a hinge on it (interesting fact, there is a door somewhere that now only has 2 of its original 3 hinges) allowing vertical movement for uneven road surfaces (like speed bumps). The two lines coming off the end are the kill switch and throttle (the throttle was previously a gear shifter on a bike which I modified to make it move smoothly instead of clicking through its positions).

Here is the final product

It turned out to be a lot of fun. Maria and I even did the 13 mile loop at Red rock, there is nothing more fulfilling than seeing serious looking bikers sweating up steep hills, then blowing by them at speeds up to 30 mph.
One of the limiting factors is traction due to limited weight on the back wheel, but because of the angle between the wheel and where it attaches to the bike, it ends up pushing itself forward but also pushes itself into the ground creating a surprising amount of traction.


here is a quick video

http://www.youtube.com/user/crimpmasterc?feature=watch#p/a/u/0/yS9LB1ki-c4

My own little kingdom

I had a friend in high school who would always say "all you need is 40 acres and a mule."  I think I would even settle for just the 40 acres. I don't think I will be dropping out of dental school any time soon but I still liked this video.

http://vimeo.com/28676720

I just have to talk Maria into it...