Ingenuity Cleveland bridges the creative and manufacturing communities

Ingenuity blog photo

(Courtesy of Guest Blogger Annie Weiss, Ingenuity Cleveland)

Ingenuity formed as an organization in 2004 to create a destination event in Cleveland, IngenuityFest, to showcase our region’s deep artistic and cultural resources and explore the space where humans and technology intersect. Conceived as a “moveable feast,” IngenuityFest transforms underused and unknown spaces into highly visible performance and exhibition venues, sparking renewed interest in these locations and bringing audiences to the city’s core. In 2011, it embarked on a mission to become a year-round organization. Since then, it added two annual programs: Bal Ingénieux and the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire, an ongoing program: IngenuityLabs.

Now, Ingenuity has launched a new series – Agents of Ingenuity – based on the success of the pilot Engines of Ingenuity Summit at the 2014 IngenuityFest. The 2014 summit featured panel conversations around gaming, audience retention, intellectual property, and hacking health, along with a workshop on “the Art of the Pitch.” Agents of Ingenuity is a conversation series that brings together individuals from the creative community, big business, small start-ups, and academia to discuss topics that highlight Cleveland’s unique opportunities as a globally competitive city for innovation and manufacturing. Structured as unlikely conversations between these representatives, our program will continue to grow with evening cocktail discussions, social hacks and a larger Agents of Ingenuity Summit (stay tuned for this one!).

This past November, Ingenuity hosted its first two live conversations at the Bop Stop and featured Jack Schron (Jergens), Ethan Karp (MAGNET), Jeff Epstein (Health-Tech Corridor) and Erika Anthony (Cleveland Neighborhood Progress). The intimate setting allowed for great audience interaction; so, be sure to mark your calendars for the 3rd Thursday of the month as we announce additional live conversations there! Tickets are $15 per conversation and include a drink ticket.

As part of our mission to engender the flow of ideas, we complement our live conversations with recorded podcasts, creating a year-round network of the people driving our region forward. We work in partnership with Design Lab Early College High School, a STEM and project-based learning institution, as part of an emerging program in recording technology for students. The shows feature interviews with innovators based in Northeast Ohio plus ingenious representatives from beyond. Content promotes our sponsors and local businesses and ties our community together through a permanent archive.

To stay up to date on the program, or to check out our current podcasts be sure to visit our website.

Self-labeled “design scientist” uses surplus to build chopper

Krager bike

(photo courtesy of Michael Lichter Photography)

As a child, Josh Krager of Eye Spy Designs was obsessed with finding out how things worked. He not only disassembled small machinery items, he even put them back together. As a teen, He enjoyed reading parts and tool catalogs when not working at a small engine repair shop. Josh befriended a welder who taught him the trade, and Josh perfected his skill. He is an engineer, welder and fabricator by trade but a Mad Scientist by nature who envisions one-of-a-kind designs by using imagination, engineering and vintage finds to create artistic and useful inventions. He says, “I always look at what something can do, not what it does. Most of my inspiration comes from just thinking that I can do it a better or a different way.”

He has taken a Dodge Durango daily driver and turned it into a 10-wheeled mud truck on a one-ton chassis, built National Hot Rod Association drag car and drag bike chassis from scratch, and the build list goes on and on until we get to his most recent and fantastic creation.

It all started in March 2014, while cleaning his 6,000-square-foot shop. He stood looking at a motor, housed 15 feet up on pallet racking and mixed in with mud truck parts. This wasn’t just any motor. It was a 1968 Mercedes 2.1L diesel power plant with 23,000 actual kilometers. He pulled it down and placed it on his workbench where it sat for four weeks.

He started to think, “What can I do with this engine?” Friends would come over and ask, “What are you going to do with that engine?” After hearing the same question over and over, just to shut his friends up, he said he was going to build a motorcycle. Well, that shut them up, except for one longtime friend. He bet Josh that he couldn’t build a bike with that engine and finish the project for Geneva-On-The-Lake’s, Sept. 3, 2014 Thunder on the Strip Bike Rally. Lesson learned? Don’t bet against Josh. You will lose.

For tech geeks, makers, engineers and other design scientists, here are the specs:

Frame: Fifteen giant ironworker wrenches and round tubing

Front wheel: a Harley Davidson Road King spoked wheel and tire

Rear wheel: a Harley Davidson Reproduction Pie Crust Drag slick

(He fabricated the forks in a girder style that uses two air shocks to raise and lower the front with an air compressor mounted under the seat. The rear end is rigid; so, to maximize ride comfort, a suspension was used under the seat.)

Transmission: Along with the engine came the original ’68 Mercedes manual, four-speed transmission with reverse coupled to an industrial-style, right angle, 1:1 ratio gear box linked with a #50 chain.

Cooling system: Honda Aspencade with electric fan and Ford F350 heater core.

Overflow for the cooling system: a vintage brass fire extinguisher

Front brake: stock Harley Davidson

Rear brake: stock Harley Davidson disc brake

(Braided stainless brake lines tied it all together.)

Clutch: Honda Goldwing master cylinder, Toyota Land Cruiser slave cylinder and stock Mercedes single disc with a nickel copper clutch line

Electrical system: 60-amp screw-in house fuse with vintage cloth-covered wiring leading to vintage knife switches for headlamp, turn signals and air system controls

Front turn signals: 1930’s glass doorknobs

Rear brake and turn signals: vintage Power Pole insulators. All are LED illuminated.

Fuel tank: U.S. military Jerry can that is secured with a manure spreader chain

Fuel lines: custom-formed nickel-copper tubing

Foot boards: vintage 1950’s water skis

Horn and cheesy siren: donated by his best friend

Rear fender: inverted 1950 Ford 8N tractor fenders

Front fender: old-school posthole digger

Chin fairing: an old cultivator plow blade

Handle bars: right-angle ironworker spud wrenches

Rearview mirror: Moon Eyes Peep Mirror

Saddle: vintage horse saddle

Rear rack: an old iron fence

Where did he get all the “stuff” to make this fabulous creation? Garage and barn sales, auctions, antique stores, picking his friends’ and family members’ junk piles, donations left at the shop door, eBay, Craigslist, swap meets, and HGR Industrial Surplus’ showroom. Krager says, “I discovered HGR years ago when I used to shop at a competitor and HGR’s prices were much better. I have been shopping at HGR since the day they opened their doors. I have purchased everything from office furniture to surface grinders and milling machines. I even bought a very large off-road crane. The bike does have some electrical items and a few driveline pieces that I purchased from HGR. I am currently working on another bike similar to this one and three Rat Rod semis for which we’ve already purchased a few items for from HGR.”

The bike took slightly more than four months but less than 250 hours to build, weighs 1,312 pounds, can cruise up to 55 mph and gets 40 mpg. It is a street-legal, titled Ohio motor vehicle. If you see Josh out on the road, make sure to give him a thumbs up.

HGR’s surplus used on multiple film sets

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(photo courtesy of NASA)

Through the years, a number of film set decorators have purchased items from HGR’s showroom for use on the sets of films being shot in Cleveland, including Captain America and The Avengers. One designer stumbled across HGR about four years ago while trying to track down electrical waste (aka computers) for use on a set.

If you carefully watch the 2011 Avengers film, you can see 9,385 pounds of equipment, including a Sercem automation winder, a welding station enclosure, five germfree S/S fume hoods, an air pressure control, an assembly station, and a neat inspection machine purchased from HGR in two memorable scenes:

  • At the beginning, Black Widow is fighting off Russian mobsters and tangles one with chain hoists. Yep, the hoists came from HGR. And, the opening scenes were shot at the Space Power Facility at NASA Glenn’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio (pictured above)
  • In another scene in Loki’s lair, Dr. Erik Selvig, played by Stellan Skarsgard, and his minions are working with machinery on the Tesseract. The machinery, originally from a pill factory, was purchased from HGR. This scene was shot under an unfinished transit bridge in Cleveland.

Ever wonder what happens with the items used on a film set after the movie has been finished? The film company containers it and ships it to Los Angeles then keeps it in storage for six months to a year in case it needs to reshoot scenes. After that, it is scrapped, sold to a company such as HGR, or the film company has a huge studio sale, often advertised on Craigslist. Who’s up for a trip to L.A.? If not, you always can come to HGR’s showroom to see the stuff from which science fiction/fantasy films are made.

Community development corporations serve Collinwood

Beachland Ballroom

Collinwood originally was a village within Euclid Township, but it was annexed by the City of Cleveland in 1910. The neighborhood was built so manufacturing and railroad workers could walk home. Now, there are 17,000 people living in North Collinwood with 220 businesses, 195 of which are locally owned.

So, where does a community development corporation (CDC) come into the picture, and what role does it play? A CDC is a not-for-profit organization that promotes and supports community development through community programs, housing and real estate development, and small business support.

Collinwood is lucky enough to have two CDCs serving the neighborhood: Northeast Shores Development Corporation in North Collinwood and Collinwood-Nottingham Development Corporation serving South Collinwood.

Northeast Shores Development Corporation serves North Collinwood, the primarily residential area between East 140rd Street to the west, East 185th Street to the northeast, Lake Erie to the north, the Collinwood Railroad Yards and tracks to the south. A few facts about North Collinwood:

  • In the Waterloo Arts District, there was a 45-percent vacancy a few years ago with only four vacancies now due in large part to the Welcome to Collinwood initiative.
  • There’s a new effort to attract makers to East 185th through the Made in Collinwood initiative being unveiled in 2016 (stay tuned for further information). The CDC currently is interviewing 44 makers in the area and will do a public presentation of the interview report results in the first quarter.
  • There are 20-25 makers currently on East 185th Street, including a salsa producer, a soap maker, a vintner, an audio engineering production company, a hat maker, a dressmaker, an awards and trophies company, a newspaper publisher, and a digital designer.
  • A new video and music production facility is being built in the former LaSalle Theater with a scheduled early 2016 groundbreaking.
  • The CDC has a desire to connect makers with manufacturing facilities who can manufacture or package the items being created by the makers or for job opportunities for skilled production people.
  • Northeast Shores is funded through taxes, real estate transactions and philanthropy.

Collinwood-Nottingham Development Corporation serves South Collinwood, the primarily industrial area between East 134th Street on the west, Euclid Creek to the east, the Collinwood Railroad Yards and tracks to the north, and Woodworth Avenue to the southwest and Roseland Avenue to the Southeast.

 

Change. Nothing stays the same.

van-halen-fair-warning

How many of you remember the 1980s Van Halen song “Unchained?” David Lee Roth sang, “Change. Nothing stays the same. Unchained. Yeah, you hit the ground running.” Believe it or not, that’s how HGR Industrial Surplus in Euclid, Ohio, got its name. Founder Paul Betori had left his previous employer with a vision for a new business model. As he sat in his living room listening to Van Halen, Paul decided to hit the ground running (HGR) and formed HGR Industrial Surplus in 1998 with 13 employees.

Since then, the company has grown to more than 110 employees with a showroom of 500,000 square feet and recently purchased and dedicated its Nickel Plate Station building on Euclid Avenue. The mission of the company is to serve as a conduit between customers looking for affordable used machinery and equipment and manufacturers hoping to recoup some portion of their capital investments.

Because of its passion for manufacturing and the growth and development of industry in Northeast Ohio, the company decided to work with John Copic, publisher of The Euclid and Collinwood Observers, to offer this monthly column to showcase the amazing, fun, interesting and cutting edge manufacturing taking place in the region. It’s just another way of connecting customers and industry. There’s so much going on right in your neighborhood that you may not know about, but it affects you directly. Your friends and neighbors work for these companies. You buy their products. Their taxes improve your roads and schools. You have a vested interest in their success because they are contributing to a recovering and, hopefully, stable economy.

And, as the song says, change is inevitable, especially in manufacturing and industry. The economy has been a roller coaster ride for quite a few years. Families and businesses have had to learn to adapt and creatively problem solve to overcome challenges and turn them into opportunities.

In this column, we intend to showcase some of those opportunities and inspire you with success stories. What are local businesses doing in the community? What new development is happening in The Euclid Corridor? Let’s hear firsthand from some local businesses. What are their plans for the area? What tips and tricks do they have for others? What best practices can we apply to our own businesses for success? What weird and wacky manufacturing and product photos can we share?

Speaking of wacky photos, did you know that HGR Industrial Surplus buys and sells everything? Literally! Here is an example of an interesting item that recently became available in its showroom. These GM gears are 19,000 pounds each. Does anyone know how they might have been used? We started the conversation on Facebook.

You also can see this article in our new monthly column “Hit the Ground Running” in the Collinwood Observer and the Euclid Observer.

Gears2