Well finally after burning out my girlfriends hairdryer, things are all dry, assembled and tuned!
Damn humidity, location 1A was a veritable toater oven in here for the last few days.
Completion of a nice rebuild project for the Boss, a.k.a. " Dad ", with a new grey shader, color shader and liner.
All specifically tuned and dialed, these puppies should be a nice addition to her collection of rad machines.
Ok, so heres some new stuff in the Parts and Widgets gallery.
The humidity is killing my dry time on clear coats for the frames but I'll have 'em up soon.
Made some snaz new drifts too for the raddness wheelset Im building for the Enola Gay!
Okay, so I've got some new galleries up with some of the latest mechanical projects.
The machines are pretty straight forward rebuilds with the addition of some cool extras as well as hand cut springs, stainless hardware, and hand spun " Cherry Bomb " coils.
Yep, made right here in Ptown at location 1a!
Over the winter I laid down a good plan for building a solid coil winder and sourcing only the best components.
Since then I've been scoping some of the best hand made coils I can find just for a bit of comparison and good grief, damn near all of them look like they were wound by a person of low mechanical aptitude and lobster claws for hands.
Fuck!
Not trying to put myself above anyone, but seriously.
If Im going to put a product out and stand behind it, Im going to make it awesome and indestructable.
Anyways, I have quite a few new chop shop projects brewing here in 1a so soon as Im done, they will get posted up.
Tomorrow looks like a good day to hit up the forest for some end of the season mountain biking so Ill post the report when I get back.
So you think that tattooing is for sailors, bikers and the like?
Nothing wrong with that in my book, I love those folks.
Some of my best friends in fact.
But do you really believe thats all there is to this thing?
Well if you do, than your fucking out of luck here.
Its hilarious to me how people think that they know who is really hard-core and who isn't.
Nathan is one of those guys you would never suspect.
Those are the people that I like best.
The ones you never see coming.
Until its too late because you've underestimated them.
At the shop, we treat everyone the same.
With respect
Courtesy
Professionalism
Unless your a prick to us or try to fuck us in some way, then your just shit out of luck.
Doesn't matter to me but I would rather we get off on the right foot.
Makes things simpler and less messy.
At the time I didn't know Nathan.
He didn't know me or anyone I knew.
Which if you hang around the shop long enough, you would know thats a bit unusual.
Its a word of mouth thing with us.
No problem though, he's totally cool.
We get to talking and it turns out that he actually has a ton of work by some well known guys from the L.A. scene.
He's mostly on a recon mission, seeing if I am up to the standard of work he expects.
Some people get really offended by that stuff.
Doesn't bother me, since I can tell that is really well educated about tattooing and totally in the know.
So anyway, we hit it off and get to discussing some of his ideas.
Nathan is one of the most intense guys I have ever met.
Not because he's in your face, but because he's not.
You gotta love a guy who rolls up with some serious style and is all business but looks like he probably has an A.K. 47 stuffed in his pants just in case some shit hits the fan.
As far as I can tell, this guy probably does and is ready for WW3.
Awesome!
We start small, a wrist band.
We get to talking about the L.A. tattoo guys and its a real cool atmosphere.
I grew up there and some of these guys were my tattoo heros before I even started in this business.
Im all over it since I really like this guy.
My goal is to give clients new or old, more than they expect.
In quality and content.
Seriously, it's just good business.
As we are talking and shooting the breeze, I find out that Nathan is a retired sales executive for a major global company.
Get the fuck out of here!
The guy is as old as I am.
Respect.
I don't give a shit what you do for a living but if you can do you job so fucking well that you retire at 40 years old then you certainly get high marks in my book regardless of what your gig is.
What kills me is this guy is hilarious and totally not P.C. about anything.
Definitely my kind of humor and we are cracking each other up the whole time.
He's so smooth he could get the pants off a nun.
I can't picture this guy wearing a suit and selling millions of dollars worth of merch.
He's got that gift though.
Nathan could talk to anyone rich or poor, of any race, creed or whatever.
And just blend in....
The guy has mad skills in the communications department as well as just being a good dude.
We wrap it up and he says to me that he will be back.
Cool.
We will see.
Sure enough, a couple weeks later, he calls up and we get started on some cool projects while his wife is getting taken care of by Mel.
Before you know it we are hanging out after work and getting together.
Becoming friends.
As it turns out, if Nathan thinks it, I most likely think it too.
It's kinda like having a conversation with myself.
Which is good because I agree with myself and get along with my own thoughts very well.
Good to hang with a guy who has charged Life head on his whole life and shows no sign of slowing down for anyone or any thing.
We see eye to eye on this.
You go for it all or go the fuck home.
Yeah, like that.
You can tell everything you need to know about someone by how they go about Life.
Says what they are going to do, then just kill it.
That's hard-core.
The real deal right there.
It isn't about what you wear or what you do to make your ends meet.
Go check your bullshit Hot-Topic, MTV wannabe fucking image somewhere else.
With Nathan, what you see is what you get.
And if you don't like it, too bad for you.
Unfortunately Nathan would soon move back to his native home of the Southwest but not before we get some really nice work completed.
Though he's been absent for a while now, we can't have a phone conversation that doesn't last an hour and a half.
Or two or three depending on how much stuff we both agree on.
Which, like I said, is basically everything.
To this day, he is one of the most respected people in my life.
Even though he doesn't tattoo, he's as much a part of this thing as anyone else I know.
My brother from a different mother.
This week was way busy with getting things finished up.
Got a couple new projects up in Gallery 3 and will be adding more soon.
Over the last 6 months or so, I've been watching my two good friends B and Nick really kill it.
B had a great art show which turned out to be hugely successful ( not an easy thing to pull off in any town).
Congratulations to her for all the hard work she put into it!
We have been working together closely for 3 years now and her work is constantly evolving and taking on a unique signature and style.
Nick, for a guy who has been tattooing for a relatively short time, is totally dialing his work in.
Go figure though, I've known and been tattooing Nick for over a decade and its really no surprise.
This guy can fabricate and entire motorcycle from the ground up so there isn't anything I can think of that he can't do.
Way to go dude!
You can check out some of their latest work on the Icon homepage.
As for my own projects, they are coming along nicely, getting a number of larger tattoos completed over the long ( and still continuing ) winter.
I mean, what the fuck else you gonna do between trips to the Mountain in Oregon....
There is something about this job that always keeps me plugged in and motivated.
Its something you never stop learning at.
A true craft indeed.
Im constantly amazed at how most people think this job is all rockstar television bullshit.
New tattooers these days don't have a fucking clue but thats fine by me.
This job sorts out the weak and crushes the rest.
As it should.....
