I often wish when I’m stuck in rush hour traffic, that my car would suddenly sprout wings and fly over all the heads of those other unassuming drivers. But I’m not Brady McCormick, and my car can’t fly.

But his – well, with just a few adjustments, it’s more of a possibility than you might think.

In North Kitsap, Turning Old Cars Into New Planes

By GENE YOACHUM FOR THE KITSAP SUN

Brady McCormick has his eyes on the skies.

The machine shop owner sees an opportunity looming in building experimental aircraft power plants out of 40-year-old Corvair automobile engines.

McCormick, 42, said the recent announcement that Seattle-based Boeing Co. is opening a plant in South Carolina instead of Puget Sound “creates a vacuum’’ for aircraft manufacturing locally.

“Now’s my chance to fill that vacuum,” he said, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “I haven’t found the plans yet for a 747, but as soon as I do, they are in trouble.”

McCormick’s plans for building experimental airplanes powered by Corvair engines is no joke.

Pulled from wrecking yards and scrap heaps, engines from Chevrolet’s once-popular compact car are perfect for experimental aircraft enthusiasts to rebuild and convert into airplane engines, he said.

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Chris Santistevan and John Hams (left to right)

At Arc-Zone.com we get some interesting customers, and Chris Santistevan is no exception. He not only a trapeze artist he is a welder too!

At night he dazzles visitors at the Las Vegas Ultimate Variety Show (see video below).

By day, however, he can be seen fabricating stainless steel above-ground pools for high rise hotels in the city.

Chris called us up looking for a good tungsten grinding solution– Arc-Zone.com offers the industry’s most comprehensive line up of tungsten sharpeners.

He was concerned that his newer employees were wasting a lot of time dressing tungsten on side grinders, and they were getting inconsistent welds.  We got him hooked up with a Sharpie DX-K pro-kit, and he told us a little bit about his work.

Chris fabricates stainless steel custom pool liners as well as  supply pipes, flanges, and tubes.  I didn’t know this, but evidently it’s a requirement that hotels with pools above the twelfth floor have the pool made entirely from TIG welded stainless steel!

Once completed, the pool is then sprayed with gunite to look like  a traditional pool.   As Chris points out, no one ever actually gets to see his work, but it is critical to the safety of the hotel nonetheless!

100 miles.  1 gallon.  Go! That’s the premise behind the upcoming One Gallon Challenge – a contest for alternative fuel vehicles to see who can get to Boston from Greenfield the fastest on one gallon of gas, if at all.

Contestants hope to drive the future into Boston

By Laura A. Bennett, Globe Correspondent

(Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

Roo Trimble has been holed up in his backyard shed for months. Hunched amid whirring saws and jagged metal scraps, he has been welding the aluminum skeleton of a small car, smoothing the joints between the latticed pipes, aligning the wheels, and climbing in and out of the metal hull to make sure he can fit snugly – but not too snugly – inside.

Trimble hopes the three-wheeled, almond-shaped contraption will carry him to victory Thursday in a first-time event called the One Gallon Challenge. As part of the second Boston GreenFest, Trimble and six others will attempt to drive their homemade cars from Greenfield to Boston City Hall Plaza, a distance of 100 miles, using just 1 gallon of gasoline.

“These days,’’ Trimble said, wiping his brow with the back of one hand, “we need to think about taking the snail shells off our cars – not dragging our house with us everywhere we go.’’

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How does your structural steel shop measure up?  The Fabricator magazine has some helpful guidelines that you can use to see whether or not your shop hits the mark.

1. How close can your drilling operations get to 50 inches per minute?

2. Can you claim material handling costs of less than $50 every time you move a beam?

3. Can your plasma cutting system deliver a cut with a tolerance of 0.010 in.?

4. Can your software packages accommodate the use of CAD models to generate CNC codes automatically?

Technologies help to make shops structurally sound

4 benchmarks your operations need to beat

By Michael Bishop, Contributing Writer

Photo courtesy of Peddinghaus Corp.

Tough economic conditions have hit the construction industry as hard as they have many other industries. These problems in commercial construction are affecting structural steel fabricators. New technologies are especially benefiting four important structural steel fabricating processes by reducing labor costs. These represent some of the bigger developments in recent years.

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At Arc-Zone.com we’re always on the lookout for new business opportunities and ways to streamline operations… what are YOUR best tips for streamlining operations? and How are YOU weathering the economy?

Then maybe you should come and join the Milwaukee Inventors’ and Entrepreneurs’ Forum.  The meetings, founded by Jill Welytok, are a forum in which inventors and entrepreneurs can work hand in hand, providing important feedback for each other, insider advice, and maybe even an investment or two.

Milwaukee forum brings inventors, entrepreneurs together

Tannette Johnson-Elie | Connections
Posted: July 21, 2009

As a patent attorney, Jill Gilbert Welytok frequently encounters people who come up with clever inventions but lack the resources and connections to launch their products.

Photo By: MaryJo Walicki --- Doug Bartelt stands in a heavy-duty lifter mounted in the back of his truck.

“Many people will go through great expense filing a patent for products that they couldn’t sell or make money from,” said Welytok, a managing partner with Absolute Technology Law Group LLC, a 3-year-old Milwaukee company that specializes in patents, trademarks, copyrights, licensing agreements and due diligence. “Sometimes people have a great idea or product, but what matters most is what the market thinks.”

If the market thinks your product stinks, you’re not going to make money from it. But what if you could test your invention on other inventors and entrepreneurs who have successfully developed and marketed products?

Thanks to Welytok, there now is a place where local inventors can come together to network and share ideas: The Downtown Milwaukee Inventors’ and Entrepreneurs’ Forum. The forum meets monthly at the Germania Building, 135 W. Wells St., and draws 60 to 120 people.

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I’m not talking about the monster but rather the truck. Big Foot is regarded as the first monster truck ever made and still remains the most popular monster truck today. Big Foot is proof of how some of the most successful ideas emerge from the ability to see opportunities early and run with them.

During a trip to the West Coast, Bob Chandler, the builder of the original Big Foot, noticed a 4×4 frenzy which he predicted would head Midwest towards his hometown, Missouri. Based on this insight, he started his own business which would eventually lead to the development of the monster truck.

The anatomy of a monster truck

By Eric Lundin, Editor, TPJ-The Tube & Pipe Journal®

It drives right over nearly every obstacle in its path and splits nearly every eardrum in its vicinity. It’s supercharged, oversized, and extraordinary. It stands more than 10 feet tall, develops more than 1,500 horsepower, and can leap over a 727 jet airliner in a single bound.

It can be only one thing: a BIGFOOT® monster truck. And it contains an unbelievable amount of tube.

Just a Hobby

It all started innocently. Bob Chandler was a construction contractor by day, a 4×4 enthusiast by night, and a lead-foot all the time. His notoriously heavy foot led to a nickname-Bigfoot -and a continuous need for repairs on his truck.

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With the down-turning economy,there is no doubt that business can be hard. In this article from The Fabricator magazine, Art Hedrick, longtime consultant to the sheet metal stamping industry discusses three overlooked, self destructive factors that may be negatively affecting your operation.

Survival—Are factors other than the economy dragging down your operation?

By Art Hedrick, Contributing Writer
February 10, 2009

I’m not going to sugar-coat it; our economy stinks. As optimistic as I’d like to think I am, I am also a realist. Maybe it’s because I live in Michigan, the heart of the U.S. automotive industry. Need I say more?

Like many of you, I also have felt the effects of our economy. Financial outlooks are quite bleak for some die shops and stampers. I wish I were writing a “how to” article about deep-drawing techniques, or several ways to reduce pierce punch breakage. Something to help you reduce your stamping and die-building costs would be great. However, with the economy the way it is, I really doubt if some of the tooling tips I can offer, such as changing the clearance for a piercing operation or polishing a radius in a drawing die, will have a dramatic impact on your overall company profit. No doubt every improvement helps, but realistically, these tips probably won’t save your company.

I am not an economist, nor a financial expert, and I certainly don’t want to pretend that I have the magic solution that will solve our financial crisis. However, throughout my career as a consultant, I have made some common observations with respect to die shops and stampers. Sharing this knowledge may help your company to be far more competitive.

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What are you doing to keep your weld shop in business?

A buddy of mine sent me a copy of a letter he has written to President Barak Obama, and with his permission, I’m posting it here. Dan Allford from ArcSpecialties in Houston, TX I first met Dan when he came to San Diego to do a technical presentation at the local AWS section meeting on behalf of Arc-Zone.com. At the time our Sales Manager was Mr. John Dimock, who knew Dan personally and invited him. Dan came in and put on an outstanding presentation about automated welding systems and related equipment. His company builds some highly engineered equipment and since that time he has been gracious with his time, helping several of our customers improve their operations.

When I read Dan’s letter to the President I was impressed that it clearly tells the story of a real person trying to build something of value, and it includes facts — no emotion, no negative attacks — about the shift that has taken place in the American economy, a shift which clearly is not working.

Thanks Dan for taking the time to put your thoughts in writing — I hope you get a response, and more importantly I hope we as a nation can get back to building things of value — preferably out of metal!

You too can let President Obama know your thoughts. The White House website is easy to navigate– and you can use the easy Contact Us email form, or go old skool and write a letter.

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

I am writing today to express my belief that the bail out of financial
institutions with tax payer dollars is wrong. Private liability should
not be covered by government debt. I believe failure should be
punished. I encourage you to cease such payments and instead prosecute those in the financial sector and government who have committed fraud and embezzlement.

I have watched with dismay as the US GDP swapped from 25%
manufacturing 11% financial services in 1978 to 21% financial services
and 13% manufacturing in 2008. I believe that industries such as
manufacturing are essential to a healthy economy. What our government is doing is shifting money from industries which CREATE wealth such as manufacturing, mining and agriculture to sectors which simply TRANSFER wealth specifically financial services.

I own a small company which builds robots and other industrial
machinery. I just paid the corporate taxes for my company for this
quarter. An amount many times larger than my salary.
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Orange County Choppers has built a business out of fabricating themed bikes on t.v. A brilliant cash machine model, they earn cash from the build, and the t.v. show AND any product placements or other affiliate marketing endeavors.

Now they’ve partnered with Northrup Grumman, showcasing the Spirit of Innovation Chopper on the season premiere of Orange County Choppers…

A note about Northrup Grumman– Arc-Zone.com supplies them with a variety of technical welding components — including our popular all-purpose, hybrid ArcTime(TM) tungsten electrodes. They love it!

PALMDALE, Calif. – April 2, 2009 – The B-2 bomber-themed motorcycle commissioned by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first flight of the stealthy aircraft is expected to roll into America’s living rooms on Thursday, April 9.

The custom design and build of the B-2 Stealth Bike by Orange County Choppers, Newburgh, N.Y., will be featured on the 2009 season premiere of the cable TV reality series “American Chopper,” which airs on TLC at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Check local listings for show times.

“We named our bike ‘The Spirit of Innovation’ to honor the engineering innovation and the successful Northrop Grumman/Air Force partnership
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Any Cutting and Welding based out of Portage, Michigan has done its share of odd jobs.  They have built and/or repaired deep-fryer cooking baskets, snowplows, a chimney flue, demolition derby cars, a cow-catcher, a wood-burning stove, and a 1880 metal flag holder and gravesite marker. 

Why?  Because they can.  And often, because nobody else will do it.

Portage welding shop thrives on willingness to go anywhere, do anything

by Al Jones | Kalamazoo Gazette
Saturday March 14, 2009, 8:30 AM
John A. Lacko | Special to the Gazette

Assemblies that support the 10-foot-wide by 16-inch-high “belly” blades on the city of Portage’s 16 snowplows wear down and ultimately become unusable when drivers bang the blades too often on curbs.

Either of the two mechanics in the city’s Department of Streets and Equipment can fix them. But bending metal and welding can be time-consuming and it takes away from lots of other work the mechanics need to do. So the city gets Terry Meisling to do it.

“He’s the metal magic guy,” says Raymond Waurio, deputy director of the Department of Streets and Equipment for the city of Portage. “He just does a fantastic job.”

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