walking with christopher walken

i got the idea for this project because there were a couple unused unicycles in my parent’s garage that were too beat up to ride. on weekends i’ve been teaching jenny to unicycle so i thought restoring one for her would make the perfect christmas present. i had a vision of a custom painted pink unicycle that would look like it was brand new. i started by disassembling an old torker lx unicycle and figuring out which parts i could salvage. the old seat was completely trashed from lots of bails and an unsuccessful air seat modification that paul had attempted so i had to toss it. the crank arms were bent and the threads were striped from extreme landings off high ledges so i had to toss those too. the pedals and tire also had to go because the pedals were scraped and the tire was worn through too the tube. that left me with a frame, hub, rim, bearings and hardware that needed to be brought back to life.

I ordered a standard torker lx seat and cranks on amazon but for the pedals i had something a little more creative in mind. i found these awesome transparent pink pedals on the internet that i knew were the perfect match for this project from the moment i saw them. i wanted to get a pink tire but it was out of my price range and i was already splurging on the pedals so i settled for an equally cool bright orange tire.

while i was waiting for the new parts to come i sandblasted the old frame to get all the old grime, paint and rust off. using the sandblaster was really fun and easy and i was really happy with how well the pieces came out. after i got all the paint off i went to the sherman williams auto paint store to figure out the best way to paint it and they said that auto paint would be too expensive so they recommended i use their self-etching primer and get enamel spray paints from a hardware store. i hung the frame up in the school’s paint booth and sprayed a coat of primer and followed by a few coats of light pink. then i did some math to figure out the size to needed to cut the diamonds so they would wrap around without over lapping. i cut the diamonds out of blue masking tape and stuck them on the frame while being carful not to touch the paint with my bare hands so the oils from my skin wouldn’t mess up the next coat. after the tape was just how i wanted, i did another coat of light pink so if any paint leaked under the edges of the tape it wouldn’t show. then i sprayed a couple coats of the dark pink and pulled off the tape. there was one spot where the tape pulled up the paint and i had to re-mask it and touch it up. after the paint peel was fixed i sprayed three light coats of clear to give it some gloss and put all the parts together. i wrapped the finished unicycle in a big box and gave it to jenny for christmas and she loved.

i sold my bmx bike on craigslist for $60 which was crazy because it didn’t even have any brakes and it was a really crappy bike. i saved a person at the ymca who was fake drowning because i though it might be a test. it wasn’t a test. i sold my microsoft office mac 2004 disc for $33 on ebay.

for our solidworks class we had to model a marker. i used calipers to get all the dimensions and i even cut an old ad marker in half so i could get the insides right. i recreated the label in illustrator using an unrolled ad marker label as a reference.

we had several choices for this project but i chose to do an led lighting fixture for restaurants, bars and cafes. my concept is to use clear profiles that are illuminated from their center and separated by metal spacers. i made some sketch models with the laser cutter this week.

i found out that i had fall break for this week way to late and forgot to get off of work. i would have done something awesome if i had known earlier. i went home on wednesday but i had to go back the next day for work. then jen came over on the weekend and brought her dog. we got a new project on monday so i went to some stores and did some research. over fall break i got a real hair cut that was like my first one in years. i went to great clips and had some black lady cut it who did a really great job.

jenny’s dog is crazy

my next project is to design either a lamp, folding camping seating, or prosthetic hook so i went to the lamp store and rei to check out the goods. then some guy with a missing arm came in to studio and let us try his hooks. that’s lukas using the demo arm.

here’s my gf jen. she’s making good progress on the unicycle:)

i was trying to go to the skatepark on my scooter today when all the sudden it just cut out on and i got stranded on the side of capital. i called my roommate will and he came and picked me up and i left my scooter in the parking lot of a sketchy adult video store near where i broke down. while i was waiting for will i sk8ed with some mexican @ the muffler shop next door. after will took me home i got my dad to bring the truck and we loaded the scooter up in the bed. it wasn’t as hard i as i thought it might be. then we brought it back to my parents house and unloaded it. unloading was a little harder but we got it off safely. despite my ignorance of anything engine related i was determined to fix it myself so i went ahead and started taking off the bodywork so i could get to the engine. after i got the seat off the problem was pretty obvious. a vacuum line had wiggled its way apart so i reconnected the line, put the seat back on and was up and running. after the scoot was fixed i hauled my drum set back to my apartment in my dads truck so me and brendon could jam.