The ship ran great in Portland. We actually drove it most of the way onto the trailer. We hooked the trailer onto our 1960’s Deuce-and-a-half and on Friday morning we set out for Black Rock City.

Our Tow vehicle, the Deuce belongs to a friend who loaned us the truck after he put over $10,000 into upgrades: new brakes, a new clutch, etc… We picked up the truck from the shop two days before leaving and it was about 2 miles from my house that the clutch went out.

There we were on the side of the freeway without a way to get the ship to Burning Man. One of our crew put up the money and we rented an F-450 from uHaul. This was $2000 we were not planning on spending but we had made it too far to stop now. (again, the donations and the shopping on the Store page help us a lot)

Donations

Store

With the new truck it was 26 hours later when we landed on the Playa with the ship. We had made it.

We got the ship off the trailer, the new engine started up fine but the hydraulics didn’t move us forward. This became the week long mystery. The ship drove onto the trailer fine but now it won’t go. We worked on it from Saturday until Friday with no idea what was wrong with it. We swapped and isolated all the control valves with no luck, we tested each motor and they all worked fine. We moved pressure gages all over, we were getting good pressure to the system, and it just wasn’t moving.

On Tuesday I put out a request on BMIR for help from a hydraulics expert. Over the next three days a few very qualified people came by including an Aviation-Hydraulics design engineer with 30 years experience. He spent a few hours going over everything then said the system was “simple and elegant” but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. That made me feel a bit better, because the system is simple and I was feeling dumb for not being able to figure out what was wrong with it.

We had come all the way out here and we still had a beautiful Ship. I talked with the DMV and we were able to get the ship a tow and get her registered. We were still going to have the Fire Sails on the Playa.

We got the sexiest car on the Playa to give us a tow to the DMV, Christian Ristow hauled us out there with the Scoutch. This meant a whole lot to me because the Scoutch is one of my favorite vehicles on the Playa.

We got our Day, Night and Fire effects passes at the DMV on Friday Night. We spent some time in front of the DMV playing with the Fire for the First Time. The Fire was Awesome. I loved watching people press the Fire Sail buttons, their smiles, their little happy dances, it made it all worth it.

Chili from the DPW heavy lifters gave us a Tow out to the Flaming Lotus Girls big show. Even though we were being towed it felt good to be up on the deck on a moving ship.

Each year at Burning Man I try to recognize a few moments as they happen that make everything worth it, worth the work, the stress, the strain of a big project. This year I was actually able to capture one of those moments.

I was standing on the railing when I took this photo of old friends and new friends, the Fire sails were working and we had a great view of the fire. Seeing all these smiles made it all worth it.

We had some other mysterious mechanical problems later in the week but I had my moment that made it worth it and that was all I needed.

I am sorry we weren’t under our own power and weren’t able to give people rides. I know a lot of you made major contributions to see a running art car. I am sorry that I let you down. A crew member did point out that it takes car companies hundreds of people to design a new car that looks just like last years model, the fact that in such a short time we were able to design a new locomotion system, do all the mechanical engineering and get as far as we did was incredible, but I still wish you could have seen her driving.

Now that we are back we’ll get the rest of the KickStarter awards out. We need to do some major clean up of both the ship and the house/shop. Pay off some huge credit card bills. We’ll see what happens from there….

Thank you for your support, few people are as lucky to be able to work on a project like this. Thank you for allowing us to make this ship, thank you for your support.

Captain Andy

Here is a last minute update on the ship.

As I mention in the video we had some huge additional cost and a few of us put some large purchases on our credit cards. If you like this project, if it is something you would like to support we can really use your donations.

Donations

You can also support the ship by buying a Tripod

Tripods

Thank you so much,

Captain Andy

This is one of 8 fire nozzles that will go on the ship.

The nozzle is an experiment to get more of a flat sheet of Fire and not so much a giant ball. It worked well I am excited to
see it when we have all 8 of them together.

Jules, Sparks and Andy L were over for the un-crating.

We also made a small scale model of the mechanization that will raise and lower the Yards.

The red blocks are just to add a little weight for the testing. In a few hours we’ll begin building the full size armature.

The Wheels are coming along. We need to do a little clean up then off to the powder coaters.

So we’re now moving on all fronts, we got people working on hydraulics, engine, motor, fire, wheels…..

I once read that street performance was the most honest way to make a living. I’m not talking about Panhandling but actual performance. Such as the musician, the juggler, a spray paint artist etc…they all put on a show. You get to watch that show and if you think you were entertained, if you enjoyed yourself, then you are free to decide how much it was worth. You set the price and you are free to not pay anything and watch as long as you like.

I like Kickstarter because it does the same thing on a larger scale. You can see what someone wants to accomplish, if you think it is worth wild then you can give, you can support it, you can set your price.

The Kickstarter project has to be well thought out. You need a budget, a time line and the means to accomplish your goal and it is an all or nothing goal. Our project isn’t any different, we need to have enough people that believe in us to get funded.

We are almost to the half way point of our Kickstarter goal and it means a lot to the crew and myself that this many people believe in us. That this many people are willing to give their hard earned money to strangers so that a dream can be finished. Thank you.

Why I Love the Pirate Ship:

When I set out to build an Art car I wanted to create a challenging engineering project that my friends could work on. One that required everyone to push their abilities and learn more of what they are capable of accomplishing. I started by myself in 2008 (design work goes back to 2004) and I was hoping to develop interest from friends as work progressed. It became much bigger than I ever thought. I wasn’t prepared to have the ship become a focal point that grew a community. Over 100 people have worked on the ship. People have learned to weld, to run lathes, milling machines, and all kinds of power tools. It was often joked after we worked a 10-15 hour day that “we missed ‘Law and Order’ again”, it was funny to us because we could see what we had actually accomplished.

Some people say “I can’t believe how much time you gave up to build that”. We didn’t give up anything; this is the stuff that makes life worth living. Being able to work with my old friends, to make new friends, to make this happen, to solve problems together, to learn together… it is a pleasure that everyone should experience.

The Ship’s construction has been well documented; you can see where we have been and where we are going.

The Latest: http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/

The First: http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/page/4

I’ve seen the ship change lives, read the comment by Kelli Pope on the KickStarter page to get one persons view. Her view is not unique. Because of the ship other art projects have been created, life long friendships have been formed, along with a general renewed hunger to Make something. This is how we Build Community.

Thank you. I can’t type those words in a way to convey to you how we feel, how grateful we are that you believe in us and what we are doing. We won’t let you down.

Again, Thank you for supporting us.

Captain Andy

The Pirate Ship is a project that makes no money, we do it because it is fun.
We do it because we like to see what is possible. We like to help people learn what they can do, learn to work with tools.
We like to think the ship brings smiles, a sense of wonder, and allows people to dream bigger.

Because of that we think it is worth doing. If you think it is worth doing, and think this it is fun too, can you kick us a few bucks? We don’t need a lot, we just need a little form a lot of people.

Even if you can’t afford it, helping spread the word means a lot to us.

Thank you,
Captain Andy

We cleaned her up with soap, vinegar and water. Then started going over any repairs that we are going to have to make.

We celebrated with custom cup cakes and a BBQ

Sparks got the engine out. We are still trying to find a replacement. This engine had been through a whole lot before it died. We are going to call it a lost cause and find a new one.

This week we built a gate to make moving the ship in and out of storage a lot easier. I’m not sure how many times the fence could handle being chopped down then patched back up. With the gate almost done we are ready to work on the repairs and improvements.

What an Awesome trip it was. The booth was a huge success, we removed the pinion gear from the ship’s steering wheel so that it spun freely. A lot of kids got to play with the wheel and we were able to pass our a lot of flyers. We raised enough money to file for our 501(c)3 status with the IRS, with some left over to help buy the new engine.

More Photos

Our booth looked good, we were set up in the dark room with the Tesla Coils.

Adam Savage from the Mythbusters and Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs gave a speeches just in front of our booth which was really cool but probably hurt our sales a little. The Tesla coils were really loud but a lot of fun to watch. This is Adam Savage dancing in the faraday cage.

We also got listed on the Maker Faire site

This was a good outing for the 6 of us that went, we worked well together even after working two long days talking to thousands of people. Some of my favorite parts were when I would explain how the steering worked and see everyone gather around to listen.

Our Small booth was a lot of fun but the crew and I really want to take the ship down to the Faire next year. Before we can do that we need to get that new engine and get the Fire Effects finished.

If you were one of the people we talked to this weekend, Thank you, you made all of us really happy.

We are off to Maker Faire in two days. We’ll have a small booth where we hope to make enough money to buy the rest of the materials to add the Fire effects to the ship along with a working engine.

If you are there please come find us, we are listed under
Tripod Sentinels

We have a 10ft x10ft Space to work with, I did a SketchUp Model and on Friday Sparks and I began building the Frame.

This was a fun Video, I love the noise of the Hole Saw from inside the tube, along with the shop stereo at the end of the cut.

We didn’t need perfect fit ups for this frame but they are fun to do so why not?

The rest of the crew has been busy packing, getting the merchandise ready to be sold. Sarah has made some awesome magnets, Claire has made 3D Calendars of the ships construction and Jules made a locking device on the ship’s steering wheel so that no little fingers get crushed in the gears.

If you are in the Bay Area We hope to see you at Maker Faire

Despite my job search we have been busy on the ship.

We got a big break when I went to buy material for the wheel hubs. In the remnant pile at the Steel Yard I found circles already cut to the needed 14″ dia. This saved a whole lot of time and money since we are not paying for material we would have cut off. After buying steel for the hubs we cleaned the tubing that will make the spokes on the wheels. Each wheel will have 12 spokes made from 1-5/8″ steel tube.

We also cleaned the rust off 40 feet of 9″ wide 3/16″ thick steel plate to make the grousers for the new wheels.

The plate was sheared to 3.5″ widths down at my friend Martin’s Shop:

The plate was then folded using a CNC Break Press:

Then using a custom jig the curves were cut. The Curves are not symmetrical; the high point on the wheel is towards the inside directly below the point of rotation for the steering. This should make steering easier.

After torch cutting each grouser it take about 2 minutes of grinding on both the belt grinder and a angle grinder to finish them up so that they are ready to be welded.

Over the weekend I went up to Seattle to my Friend Larry’s shop to use his roller to roll the tubing that will make up the side walls of the new wheels. We have a lot of work to do before Maker Fair but I am hoping that we can finish one wheel to bring it with us. There is some Machining to do on the spokes then a whole lot of layout for welding, but I think we have a good chance of getting it done on time.

Thank you for your Tripod Purchases and donations . It is with your help that we can make this epic thing happen.
Thank You.