Big Rig Jig

The Jig is up!

Mike — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:54:04 +0000

3D interactive panorama of Big Rig Jig on Las Vegas Sun

Thank you! (and more pictures)

Mike — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 08:35:46 +0000

Thank you to everyone who has contacted us in the last 48 hours. We have received an enormous number of supportive emails and generous donations. Here are a few more pictures showing our progress. Only a few days left before we truck out of the warehouse.

More pictures

Mike — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:13:07 +0000

Ripping apart and putting together

Mike — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 10:26:00 +0000

The last few days have been a dizzying march of progress.Â One way of looking at this project is that it comes in two phases: taking things apart and putting things together.Â We just finished cutting up the last tanker, and now its time to figure out how to get it back into one piece.Â Â Here are a few highlights from the last few days.

Heather and Shane removing the final section.

Brett using his gravity-garden rubber removal technique.

Dallas dishes out a world of hurt to the tank.

Matty Merril taking a rare 1-second break (but still can’t stop grinding!).

Heather welds the truck chassis at a perfect 32-degree angle.

Volunteers welcome

Mike — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:33:29 +0000

In the last few days, production has ramped up to the point where we can use additional hands. If you are in the Bay Area, give us a ring at info@bigrigjig.com or 917-754-8579.

We just received a surpise visit from the infamous Brett “the” James, who promptly gave us two quick fixes for some construction conundrums: how to prepare the interior of the tanks for welding, and how to take accurate measurements on their irregular exterior surfaces. Heather and Shane have now completely cut up the first tanker and started stripping the second. Meanwhile, Ben Sparks has been working tirelessly on the truck cabs.

Flipping a tank is easy with the right equipment.

Ben is trucking in a horizontal position

Brett preps a section.

More cutting.

Mike peeks out from a new opening.

Cutting tankers

Mike — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:05:42 +0000

After a day of trying different techniques to cut a straight plane through a tank at a particular angle, we settled on the solution Steve Moynihan had offered us two days before.Â Make a frame that wraps around the tank, and use that to trace a line.Â Yesterday, we set to work on our cuts.Â New crew members Til and Locust came in for the assist.Â Locust set to work torching off the end platform, while Til and Heather set about severing our beloved tanker.

The rolling hills of G & O Truck Parts in Jackson, CA

Shane draws our cut line.

Til manhandles the sawzall.

Heather and Til atop their kingpin conquest.

Hello Trucks!

Mike — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:07:34 +0000

Day 2 of the build is underway! Last night and today, we torched off all of the trailer components from the tanker so that we could bring it down to ground level. And, our trucks have arrived!

Shane inspects tubing after severing the tank from its wheels.

The severed tanker flipped on its back.

Ben artempts to escape in front of our new truck pieces

Starting the build

Mike — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:12:11 +0000

It’s been a long hard slog in Northern California. After crossing the country from NY, we put an additional 1500 miles on van Whelan in search of our trucks and tankers. Our search lead us deep into farm country, where we asked for information from any person standing within 100 yards of dilapidated equipment. “Have you seen any big rig trucks or tankers for sale around here?” We pursued over a dozen false leads before finally finding what we were looking for: the perfect trucks and tankers. Last night, our first tank trailer arrived in the warehouse. So its time for the fun stuff! Here are a few choice pics from our journey. Stay tuned for pics of our truck tractors coming in the next few days.

Nicole looks for trucks off I-80 in Wyoming

Ben looking for trucks in Oakley, CA

Shane mounts our delivered tanker

Mike and Ben have a look inside.

We sawed off the endcap. . .

. . . turned it into a crane-powered flying saucer. . .

. . . and went road-cone bowling!

Visiting New Jersey

Mike — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:42:51 +0000

Last night, members of the Big Rig Jig crew traveled to visit Nick Santangelo in South Plainfield, NJ. Nick offered us some excellent advice based on his years of experience working in a heavy welding and crane shop. We took a look around the shop, which is totally amazing. Nick and his crew rip out huge old cranes from buildings and completely rebuild them with new motors and computerized remote controls. While taking us around the shop, Nick suddenly went completely crazy , and donated many pieces of much needed material-handling and welding equipment to the project. We were speechless, and are deeply thankful for his generosity. Nick is also an urban explorer/photographer, and has tons of strange and surreal pictures from his adventures around the world at http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/nicksan/.

Finding things and getting ready

Mike — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:20:16 +0000

A lot of things are starting to come together on the project.Â Shane and Kim have been sourcing tools and equipment.Â Our engineering consultants have been going full tilt, and Mike Ross went out to Oakland, CA last week to meet the locals and check on progress. His report below:

Our build space is amazing: a HUGE warehouse with our own 22,000lb gantry crane. Our neighbors include a trucking company (go trucks!) and a few other fantastic art projects. Rosanna took me all around town, where I met the crazy builders of NIMBY and saw Kinetic Steam Work’s mind-boggling project.Â I also got a taste for Oakland’s truck and tanker scavenge possibilities. We are still looking for good deals (as in below scrap prices!) on trucks and tankers. So if you know of anything, the project would be grateful. Also, looking for welders and tools as we are all under-equipped foreigners from the land of New York.Â Oh!Â good news on the engineering front: our structural plans should be finalized in the next two weeks, at which point we order the metal and get ourselves fully underway. Ben Sparks and I will be driving over from New York to start our initial site preparation before building officially starts on June 1. –Mikeross