New Guy in Central MO

[CoolHand]

Hello all, I'm a younger fellow from Belle MO. It's a dinky little town out here in flyover country (AKA BFE), which is wonderful, I wouldn't live anywhere else. My name is Ryan Shanks.

I'm an engineer and self taught machinist. Self employed as a niche market inventor and entrepreneur. I've developed and marketed products for race cars, hot rods, customs, paintball markers, firearms, and industrial machines. The name of my company is Logic Industries LLC. I'm sure as I go along, I will build tools for myself that might be of use to others. If/When that occurs, I'll probably offer them for sale, but there's no telling when or even if that will happen, so don't look for it any time soon.

I raced open wheel dirt modifieds all around MO for nine seasons. Basically since I've been able to drive cars, I've been racer.

The common denominator in all my pursuits is metalworking. I love making things from metal.

I've been a welder and a fabricator since I was a kid. Learned to arc (SMAW) weld when I was twelve, and I've been slowly been adding processes as I age. Learned mig (GMAW) when I was a freshman in high school, learned to gas weld (OAW) sheetmetal (which I love, BTW, pretty much the only way I will weld thin sheetmetal is with the torch) about three years ago, and I've been working on my tig (GTAW) technique since then. I am constantly amazed at how versatile the GTAW process is. Honestly, I'm a little pissed that I waited so long to learn it.

With the race cars, we did a lot of flat panel fabrication, some sheet welding on the steel bits (floor pans and protective plating), but mostly it was aluminum joined with rivets. That was very interesting, and I learned a lot about fixing crash damage, as least the best I could without knowing how to shrink the stretch out of the dent (0.040" alum body panels and steel bumpers make for large and deep dents with a lot of stretch and tearing). With stock cars, especially on the dirt, there's only so much body work you worry about, 'cause it's gonna get torn off again next week anyway. Patch the huge holes, make sure the doors and quarters don't fall off, verify that you can read the number from 50 feet, and you're good to go.

With the demise of my racing program, I've gotten into hotrodding in the last few years, which then lead me to discover the HAMB in 2007. The more I got into the body mod side of that, I realized I needed to learn more about shaping body steel without pie cuts and other such hackery.

Add into it that this kind of panel shaping is sort of a dying art, and I feel highly motivated to learn everything I can about it from any of the old timers I can find, before this knowledge is lost entirely.

It seems like nobody cares for craftsmanship and skill with one's hands anymore, but I assure you, there is no higher pleasure for me than to step away from the bench or the machine or the welding table and see a shiny new "thing" or "outfit" or "whatsit" setting there that didn't exist the day before.

THAT is what I love, and I hope that lurking and posting here will allow me to apply another set of skills to my pursuit of that end.

I am currently in the process of building an english wheel, from scratch. That will likely be one of my first build posts here. Not sheetmetal shaping "per se", but definitely a step in that direction.

Basically, I hope to come here, steal your secrets, and use them for my own selfish ends.

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

Wait, I said that out loud, didn't I? Damnit!