Not Legal to Drive

Ok, at this point, I'm completely weary.  2 weeks until Burning Man and it's not done.  The worst part is that I don't have an operating permit from the CA DMV to legally drive it.  The truck has full registration and plates since June, but for a personal use vehicle over 10,000 lb gross vehicle weight, you need a "CA" number and Operating Permit.   The fine is $2500 and they can impound your vehicle, if caught.  It's stupid and only $35, but to find out about this now is very stressful.  Well maybe the DMV will come through in time.  I plan to hit the road anyway and say "the check and application is in the mail".  Plus I put a fancy "NOT FOR HIRE" sticker on the side which basically indicates to the weigh stations that it is a personal vehicle.

Today I was lucky to have the help of Alex and James and we lowered the front frame and drilled a massive amount of holes.  Basically the front upper and side panels are fully drilled and done.  No additional work there, except I need to buy some shorter hardware.  On Friday night I managed to get the tail a bit more detailed.  Missing are the huge rudder and some propellers.  The propellers are optional at this point, since I never had them in any of the early designs I submitted to Burning Man.  I didn't take pictures, but today I also managed to frame in the door and weld in the lower support.  All the wire in the nice welder is used up, so I had to use the not so good one.  It makes a huge difference in the weld quality, but I don't have time to wait until a welding supply store opens on Monday.  And here are some pics from the last few days:

Two weekends left

No details to share, but pictures are worth a thousand words.  I am stepping it up a notch.  Gonna have to work nights from now till the end of the month.

Work Saturday

So this was the weekend to hang plywood!  Instead it was the weekend to weld some framework, finish the smokestack (which looks amazing... sorry no finished pictures to share yet), and see what 5" portholes look like on the plywood.  Unfortunately, the cab-over framework had some strange alignment problems and the left side which fit perfectly last week didn't fit today.  So that slowed everything down.  Anyway, 9 hours later and we had accomplished a lot and enjoyed some burgers and a lot of beers and Coca cola.

Deck. Done!

Alright!  So the deck is up and completely mounted.  It will withstand at least the 70 mph wind.  That thing isn't going anywhere.  Special thanks to Ed for cutting some joists, making two runs to Home Depot, and chopping up the metal joist hangars into a useful shape.  Without the help, I probably wouldn't have finished the deck today.

Anyway, it's done.  And I sent out the following official invite to the OC Burning Man community for Saturday the 4th!  Now I have a deadline.


Hi all,
I wanted to give heads-up that in two weeks I'm inviting you to help in raising
the plywood shell around a new Mutant Vehicle. It will be on Saturday, August
4th, from noon-ish till dark or so, at the 2013 SLACerspace in Santa Ana.

The work that day will include plywood cutting, hanging, drilling, bolting, and
painting. I'll send a reminder out later, but wanted to give people a chance to
save the date! The structure is nearly complete and soon the cosmetic part of
the build can begin.


Pictures of the concept and current status are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sinker9/sets/72157629460598827/
and
www.mutantship.blogspot.com

As for what is it:
The vehicle will be a sinking ship, the back half of a freighter specifically
with the front 800 feet under the surface. By day it will look like a rusty
sunken relic on the bottom of a dried out ocean or lake. When in the Black Rock
Desert, I hope it makes people ponder nuclear war, global warming, water
shortages, post-apocalyptic life, the temporary existence of humans, and
experience echoes of the Exxon Valdez, Costa Concordia, Titanic, or Edmund
Fitzgerald.

By night, the M/V Nain Rouge will be lit up to appear in the process of sinking,
and is no longer the wreck at the bottom. When faced with absolute calamity,
what will her crew do? Abandon ship? Get out the violin and play along with the
string quartet? Dance their worries away?

That's the plan!

Floor, Welding

Ok, so this is the truck so far... can anyone see the sinking ship in it except me?  I've realized my spatial ability might be different than others.  A good woodcarver brings the sculpture out of the wood, by working with the grain and removing material until all that's left is the desired shape.  Most people just see a block of wood.  In the same way, this blank slate of a truck is being turned into a sinking ship.  Just very slowly.  And nobody quite gets it yet, it seems.  Well you will soon enough.  Today I threw some flooring up and attempted to weld some joist beams hangars to the rack.  Unfortunately, they didn't tack weld very well so I'll have to end up drilling and bolting them down.

My welding of these joist hangars was particularly shitty... clearly I need more practice.  But it sure looks cool with all the sparks!  I didn't even notice noxious fumes coming from the galvanized steel.  Actually the hangars welded just fine but the thick C-channel beams didn't melt at all.  Like I said, tomorrow I drill and bolt.  I do not trust these tack welds to 65mph freeway speed and two 4 x 8 sheets of plywood, 3/4" thick.  I don't want to see the floor taking off like a wing and flying onto the car behind me.  Some U-channel bolts are also needed.  Here are a bunch more pictures:

Till next time!

Steel Beam Bumper is less Redneck than 2x4 Wood Bumper

Plans?  Who needs 'em!  Well it turns out I do.  The beams went together into a fine 9 foot x 9 foot L-shaped structure, but they were too long to attach properly to the top of the rack.   So I had to do some additional measurements and it's back to the drawing board, literally.  Apparently simulating a 9x 9 "L" shape out of 8'x8' wood that was lying around was not an accurate mockup.

On the bright side, the end caps welded nicely to the new bumper. I welded the crap out of them so they're not going anywhere.  On the not so bright side, I realized during welding that they're stainless steel.  And stainless steel not only sucks to weld, but it really sucks to drill.  I about wrecked all my large drill bits to get two 9/16" holes cut.  Anyway, at least the welding went well!  That beam is probably stronger than the bolts used to hold the bumper on.  I used the same weldnut threads as normally holds on the plastic bumper.  I may put another couple of bolts in there since I think the loads will be pretty high (at least 4-500 pounds or more, depending on if people decide to climb over the cab).

And last but not least, the 12" subwoofers I ordered last month have arrived.  I am temporarily trying them out in my car.  They work pretty well with the amp I have and seem to handle the amp just fine.  They're rated for the full output of the amp, which is 600W RMS at 2 Ohms.  It makes my headlights dim... hopefully the diesel truck with two very large 12V batteries in parallel won't be as affected.  These both will be moved to the truck at some point.

The 5 Steps of Project Management

So as I sit back outside myself and observe my making of this art car, I can clearly see the stages of project management are moving along nicely.  I'm currently on step 2.  This hit true when Mike called me out for referring to it as "my fucking truck thing".  In case you forgot the five steps, they are:
1. Euphoria and Excitement
2. Disenchantment
3. Search for the Guilty
4. Punishment of the Innocent
5. Reward for the Uninvolved

 So yes, I am well past the wild enthusiasm of step one and well into the frustration of step 2. The search for the guilty has already begun.  The guilty is obviously me, since this is all my idea.  However, somewhere along the line my way of thinking was shaped which led to the crazy idea in the first place.  Now I need to psychoanalyze myself and figure out where society drove me to do this.  Clearly step 5, reward for the uninvolved, happens at Burning Man when hundreds of strangers enjoy this thing I create.  In the corporate world, the uninvolved get promoted.

Anyway, today I did get the bumper taken apart, purchased lots of bolts, drilled a bunch more holes, made my ears ring chopping a new bumper beam, and now the rack on the bed is almost 100% freeway worthy.  Just have to secure the cross beams a bit better.  Those were frustrating because there's a little tab of spring steel that I attempted to drill through, and then quickly remembered from engineering school that spring steel is hard as hell.  Definitely should have chopped those off before assembly.

I spent 5 hours again and accomplished very little.  I'm realizing that I need to roughly double the amount of time any particular task takes me.  I am just not that efficient!  I have a 40 minute attention span, then need to do something different.  But I'll spend another fine day tomorrow and will get the damn bumper beam welded up, bolted on, and ready for the vertical beams.  For your viewing pleasure: