I can check the Daytona 500 off my bucket list now. Such an awesome trip with some of the raddest dudes on the planet. As a lifelong fan of anything motorsports, being here is just one of those moments where you almost feel like you need to pinch yourself. I’ll always remember this trip and my first time getting to experience Daytona. Made some rad new friends, drank a beer or 2, watched race cars, ate some burgers, watched the gosh dang THUNDERBIRDS rippin’ over the track everyday, and made some cool new memories. Missed the wife and kids more than ever so I’m glad to be back home, but Daytona will forever be in my heart.
@kitamuramachinery have arrived in Montana! Big thanks to @rad_rob and our R&D team in California for getting the Med Center and Super 300G ready for us to roll into our production shop! Up next, we will get these machines powered on and making chips 💪🏼
#builtinmontana #maztech #americanprecision
So my wife has a daycare and that means she has a lot of toys for the kids, and they sometimes need maintenance. This is where I come in. Sometimes things wear out or break, and they’re either annoying to track down, or literally impossible. So this just gives me an excuse to practice more reverse engineering. I’m still pretty new to 3D scanning, but I’m feeling for proficient every time I do it. Anyways, took this piece that broke during our last windstorm, 3D scanned it and the made a model from it. It’s a little more complex to model than you’d think considering one of the legs is at a complex angle in relation to the rest of the part, but having the scan makes it easy peasy. Took the opportunity to beef it up a bit and I’ll print it out of some CF filament and see how it holds up. I can always machine it out of aluminum if the print fails. Anyway, cool little project that’s a win win. I get to practice 3d scanning, and my wife gets her stuff fixed.
So as 2025 comes to a close, I thought it would be cool to slap together an ADHD fueled edit of the Bronco build over the past year. I had to condense it to 3 minutes so you get the cliff notes. Admittedly I’m terrible at “creating content”, but I built this bad little unit with these 2 meat hooks of mine and since I’m not a god damned octopus I can’t film videos AND keep track of which bolt I left off on because I had to get the shot. So instead, you get this. Looking back on the past year and this Bronco I’m pretty proud of the outcome, and some of the memories I’ve made along the way. After all, that’s what this car culture is really all about. It’s just about building cool shit with your friends, and making memories along the way. I wanted to force myself out of my comfort zone, and when I decided to tackle the paint and body work, I had one of the coolest times hanging with @mr_cgs while he showed me how to properly not only sand primer, but also my fingertips. I left the spraying to him because even I know when to stop being the “I can do it” guy. Now whenever I park this thing, I turn around 10/10 times as I’m walking away. IYKYK. Anyways, I know no real build is ever done, and to be honest, I already have plans to jam a Coyote in here at some point with a manual transmission. I promise you it’s happening, however, for now I just want to enjoy this little slice of heaven I’ve built and chip away at more absurd little parts for it as time goes on. There is another build coming, so I’m putting a bow on this for now. I really want to get some cool rollers of it and some actual nice pictures, so if that’s your thing, let’s set something up. As for the next project, I’ll leave a little teaser for the 0 of you that are still reading this. I’m not one for teasers, but 2026 is time to build something with the homies. It’s a bare shell and it’s going to go sideways. 🤘🤘
Popped these bad little mama jamas off the machine tonight and ready for some double sided sticky stuff to slap right on the fender. If you steal it, I’ll fight you. Plus, that’s actually pretty rude and inconsiderate anyways. Also, I walked out to the Bronco tonight, saw the stock diff cover, and now my brain will more than likely hyper-fixate on that until I design a new one to machine. Plus the stock muffler is pretty ugly but I don’t like the way these sound with an aftermarket muffler. Ya know, one day I’ll be able to leave things be. But today is not that day. #cnc #bronco #machining
A few weeks back I whipped up a design for some fender badges. I wanted to keep it retro with a throwback to the 90’s OBS-era Ford font and church it up a bit with some clean little toolpaths. Pretty happy with the result, and now for my next trick, I’ll remove all that excess stock without scrapping a single part. Until it gets mounted, the tabs I have spacing the letters and holding everything together as one piece are tiny and the part will be pretty flimsy. Sometimes these small projects feel good to knock out after spending so much time on other stuff. This Bronco is about to have more bullet than a 90’s @hotrodsbyboyd Roadster. And that’s a lot of billet. #cnc #billet #machining #bronco #obsford #ford #billetbadges
Made the final adjustments to the lettering and finished everything up tonight. Next time you see these, they’ll be back from anodize and mounted on the Bronco. #bronco #cnc #billet #haas #machining #autodesk #fusion
Tonight I took some time to finish what I am calling the frame insert. It’s a bit of a photo dump of the process so you can see a little of how the sausage is made, if you will. I could explain it, but it’s a lot bit nerdy so we’ll move along. As this whole project is coming together, it reminds me how much I enjoy machining. My time is a lot more limited these days, but creating something like this is so rewarding. I’ve tried to create some really unique stuff over the years, and on the surface they’re just new projects, but for me they are opportunities to be creative doing what I know well. I can’t weld, so I overcompensate by machining complex things. I’d like to think my passion for what I do shows through in my work, and hope it can at least motivate someone to get creative in their craft and find ways to further their skills. Make something cool and share it with the world. It’s always worth it.
Photo dump of the result of this past weekend’s activities. Slapped the angle plate in the machine and put the top slot to allow for the bolts to hold the light down. Pretty proud of the results. I still have to machine the frame insert, should have some time to finish that up this coming weekend and wrap this project up completely. Admittedly, this may have gotten a little out of hand considering how much time I’ve invested in this. Either way, I had a blast doing it, and although I’m 100% biased, I think it looks pretty cool. Sometimes I get ideas in my head and usually I’ll come to the realization that they’re dumb and I leave them in my head. This wasn’t one of those times, this one made it into reality before I realized it. 😬
Right about now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “There is absolutely no way that this guy just spent this amount of time and effort to design a license plate mount for his Bronco.” Welp, jokes on you because I don’t value my time and that’s precisely what I did. I decided I wanted an option to take my super heavy spare tire off (also self-inflicted problem) for daily driving, and that presented me with a unique opportunity to work on another side quest. So, much like any reasonable person would do, instead of purchasing a pre-existing option, I chose to spend the last couple of months designing, revising, printing, revising, programming and machining my own version in the fleeting spare time that I do have. @noengineerhere said “Let’s not pretend hobby machining has ever held up to any scrutiny”, and I make a pretty good case for that argument here. Is it a license plate mount with a little spice mixed in? Yes. Was it worth it? Also yes. It was never about the end product, it’s about the fun I have on the journey to get there. At least that’s what my inner monologue is telling me. #cnc #machining #cad #cam #fusion #haas #billet #yesitsalicenseplatemount #yesitsasridiculousasyouthinkitis
Put some rock lights in, or if I’m an idiot and break something at night, built in work lights. It’s basically just underglow for off road cars. I’m cool with it.
Finishing up some of our LRF parts today on the VF4. The @kitamuramachinery SuperCell I have out here in the shop is cranking away parts all day every day. This means every morning I’ve got a pile of parts to run through the second op, so I just knock that out on our VF4. Just a simple operation to add the last of the features and deburr the parts. They come off the machine pretty clean, but the sPINner helps to make sure everything is perfect. I’ve been developing the manufacturing processes on this part and all of its variations for all of our current (and upcoming that you haven’t seen yet) LRF’s the past couple of years while we nailed down the design. We’re there now, so it’s time to hand the baton off to the Montana crew and I’ll train the guys out there how to Ctr+C/Ctrl+V the processes so they can run these non-stop. I’m back to a one man band in this shop which has its pros and cons. The pro is that I can stick my headphones in and lock in, the con is literally everything else that comes with doing this solo. Thankfully I’m an absolute idiot and actually enjoy this.
