Anodized Aluminum Settlers of Catan Pieces:

Settlers of Catan is a popular German board game that has won many

accolades and is adored by thousands of fans around the world. It is
an addictive game that combines elements of Risk and Monopoly into
something that doesn't take a lifetime to complete. As a favor to a friend I made 3 sets of game pieces from aluminum and had them anodized to create something more "permanent" and "special" feeling. The gold colored set is a retirement gift for his uncle.

I wasn't totally convinced at first that all the work needed to create the custom set would be worth it, but after I saw them with their anodized finishes I was very pleased with the results and excited to get them to him.

Hit the jump for more pics.

Arcade cabinet

A good friend of mine programs internet (flash) video games and for the promotion of his most recent project he asked me to design an arcade cabinet that he could take to different events to showcase the game with. 
The reason he needed a custom design and didn't just retrofit an old cabinet was portability; the cabinet needed to sometimes fit in a small convention center booth and other times stand by itself on the floor, and the whole thing needed to break down and fit in the trunk of his car.

The project turned out really great and makes the game even more fun to play.  Click the "read more" link to see more pics & a link to the game website.

Piano Bench

I felt like I hadn't made any cool projects in a while, Christmas even came & went & all I did was install a ceiling fan for my sister in a room that didn't have any ceiling lights at all before. While crawling thru the attic with electrical wire was rewarding & all, it still doesn't compare to conceptualizing something in your mind and then holding it in your hands. - Or in this case sitting on it:

I decided to make this custom piano bench with my free time. Click the link to see the pictures of the build.

While I'm at it...

So I'm laying here on my creeper, hands a little bit greasy and half way in to the job of removing my rear leaf springs. Unfortunately here is the garage at my house and my air tools are at my shop, more importantly my air compressor is a stationary unit at the shop, not something I can pull over here to run an impact gun. :(
Tonight I have been fighting tight and rusty suspension bolts off my car with only my half inch ratchet. When I started the job of removing the leaf springs ( I'm taking them to get re-arc'd so I can fix the stance of my car) I thought it would be nice to remove the rear end "while I'm at it" and give it some fresh paint. (especially important now that the raked muscle car stance will be showing the under carriage off much more than the previous low-rider suspension did.)
I quickly remembered that the "while I'm at it" thinking made my high school hot rod project get waaaaay out of hand.   So I decided to keep the project only to the springs. However, the springs are impossible to get out without air tools. So instead of fighting 8 more rusty bolts I think I will unhook the small nuts that connect the driveline to the rearend, the fluid brake line, and the two parking brake cables and roll the entire assembly out from underneath my car; rear end, leaf springs and all. Then I can paint it all new, and inspect that leaky looking brake line...shoot, while I'm at it I may as well change the rearend to posi-traction! (the right side tire is wearing a bit more than the left(^_^)

Project 1 part 1 of 2

Priority number 1 for my new car is get an air filter on the engine. Doing so involves moving everything that's in the way & making the holder for the filter.

I made this bracket to move the coil:

The latest Challenge

I've been waiting till this summer to buy another car. I drive a very worn out 94 Civic which is super reliable & gets great gas mileage, but it's just a way to get me from point A to point B. I was deciding between a 5th generation Honda Prelude, a classic Chevy truck (48-54) or a muscle car and decided that the time is now for me to get my muscle car! I found a mopar that I've always liked, and while it may have been a little over priced, these classics are only getting more expensive all the time. Here's my 1972 Dodge Challenger:



First thing I need to do is get an air cleaner onto the engine. The previous owner changed the engine to a big block 440 with a taller intake manifold that leaves only about 1 inch of room between the carburetor and the hood, so I either need an air cleaner that drops over the carb, or I need a hood with more space - I decided to make an air cleaner. I may eventually modify the hood with a subtle cowl induction, but for now an air cleaner is a lot easier. K&N makes a large enough round filter that it drops around the entire carburetor and the throttle linkage, all I need to do is relocate the coil, change some of the bracketry, and make a new throttle cable mount.

Motivating

I've had the opportunity recently to listen to 2 different professional speakers give their message to a group I was in. The speakers were Briana Walker, here's her site: www.brianawalker.com
and Peter Vidmar, here's his: www.petervidmar.com

I took notes at each meeting, here are the highlights:

Briana
-The opposite of success is not failure, the opposite of success is quitting.
-Don't let life's challenges hinder you from doing something great.
-"Life turns out best for those who make the best of how life turns out."
-Every life has a lesson & every lesson has the power to change the world.

Peter
-It's ok in the learning process to fail as long as you learn from it.
-Talking about the mind set to have towards practice so that it's effective and the mind set to have towards competition so that the pressure does not ruin you, him & his team mate Tim Daggett had the slogan "Practice as if it's competition, but compete as if it's practice."
-"Practice makes Permanent"
-In the gym, he & Tim kept each other motivated by (among other things) identifying the goal & convincing themselves it was realistic/reachable. Those are a couple good points to remember on the way to lofty goals I think.
-Peter talked about his high bar performance in the 1983 World championship; he'd been messing up a skill in his routine during warm up and had to decide between taking it out of his performance to play it safe & shoot for 3rd place, but he realized that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be world champ, and that if he shot for bronze, that he'd be eliminating all chance at being the champion even before he started his routine. He went for it, the result is top of the search when you youtube "Peter Vidmar".
I liked his talk, maybe I'll check out his book. It's helpful to listen to professional speakers with polished presentations, I usually find something I'm looking for.

Claim to Fame

For me, one of the big difficulties of sticking to a regular exercise routine is the time you have to commit to it: apart from the time in the gym there's the travel time to & from, time cooking healthy, and time planning your menus & workout routines. It's nice when I can incorporate physical activity into something I need to do anyways, like commuting. There have been a few times when I was able to commute by bicycle to school & that was so great for my legs! Plus what took 20 minutes by car only took 30 minutes by bike, so round trip I got 1 hour of exercise for the low cost of only 20 minutes out of my day!

I sometimes entertain the idea of building a recumbent bike with the full aerodynamic fairings to use as a short range, occasional commuter. I was searching on line for such bikes & came across a guy who built one for a 24 hour distance record that he set. Greg Kolodziejzyk of Calgary, Alberta, Canada & his team built this bike named Critical Power that he went 650 miles in a 24 hour period. Greg keeps a great blog (adventuresofgreg.com) that talks about past, current & future projects, plus has some inspirational/motivational messages about fitness & achieving goals. Check out his motivational speaker site & get yourself a free copy of his book Bold.

I like what Greg's doing so I made him an oval sprocket for his record attempt boat. According to him the deal with oval (elliptical) sprocket rings is he can rotate the ring such that the widest diameter of the oval coincides with his optimal pedal torque position.

The concept:
10% oval, 64 teeth.

The Creation:


I also threw in a 55 tooth sprocket for his training bike.

The great results:


No pit stops he pedaled through the night and received hand offs of water & food.



Final result a world record: 245 kilometers (152 miles) in 24 hours!

Best Date Ever!

As Happy Birthday presents for a couple friends of mine (Monica & Angel), my friend Ben & I took them out to dinner and made them some jewelry out of 1 oz. silver coins.


The ladies came up with these nice designs themselves. Angel's pendant is on the left; it's an A on a treble clef. Monica made the M on the right. The coin in the middle is the "before" picture.

Smithy

What would I have been if I'd lived 500 or a few thousand years ago--I mean what would I do for a living? What would my life's work be? You ever think about that? I do. I expect I do because I feel so lucky to do what I do for my work; I don't really consider it work. Creating things is fun to me, I have a passion for designing & building things & that's why I chose engineering & manufacturing as my field of pursuit.
So what if I'd lived before computers & electronics, what would I have done then without my beloved CAD & CAM & CNCs? Would I have still built things or would I have been a farmer, or a doctor, or maybe a writer? ...Well assuming I had the choice and chances afforded me to find & follow my passion like I've had in this life, in this country, I probably would have been some kind of creator: a carpenter, or a leather craftsman, or a stone mason, or maybe a tailor; but probably some kind of a smith: blacksmith, coppersmith, silversmith.
I've been toying around with jewelry making lately...

I designed this necklace pendant as a birthday gift for a friend of mine. It's the first piece of jewelry that I ever made so I found a local jeweler who was willing to help me out. He cast & acid antiqued it for me and then helped pick out a pretty chain for it and antiqued the chain to match. What I liked about this jeweler is he's a real gold and silversmith, not just a guy with a jewelry store. If you're ever looking for a mom & pop shop that'll treat you right here's his contact info: Gold 'n Silver Jewelry. 18850 Brookhurst St Fountain Valley, CA 92708 (714) 963-9594 ask for Ron.

Here's The Concept.
Actually I sketched the concept all out on paper before I started modeling, but I threw the paper away after I finished the SolidWorks file.



Here's The Creation



And here's Some of the stuff in Between.

I cut out a machinable wax version of the pendant. It was the same pattern machined on the top and bottom of the pendant with a 3rd set up holding it sideways to drill the hole the necklace goes through.



Ron suggested I make 2 pendants so I could practice on one - as usual I just took my time and worked cautiously so I didn't have any scrapped parts. I gave my sister the extra one.

Acid antiqed and then a final polish.



The final product.