In the beginning, Ray Chavez didn't intend to start his own company — he just wanted to buy a motorcycle to enliven his daily commute to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Like many other residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Chavez has a flair for design and aesthetics; it's estimated that one in six of his fellow citizens is employed by the art industry. So it's not surprising that he was interested in creating a custom bike instead of buying a mass-produced model.

Chavez collaborated with Aric Singletary, a designer from Augusta, Georgia, to build the bike. With a custom frame from West Coast Choppers and an Ultima El Bruto Competition Series big-bore 113-cubic-inch engine, the bike dubbed "Don Diego" was off to a great start. To finalize his vision, Chavez wanted to use a cross-shaped air cleaner, but there were none available on the market.

That didn't discourage Chavez, who drew up a sketch of what he had in mind. Singletary then refined the design, adding the spider web elements to create a rounded shape that would accommodate a standard cylindrical K&N air filter. The result was visually striking, but with 35 component parts, the design would be very expensive to manufacture. Chavez and Singletary decided they needed the skills of a professional designer, so they enlisted Jessie Nichols of Brainchild Enterprises.

Nichols is a professional design engineer as well as a reseller of Alibre software. He used Alibre Design to turn the sketches into a 3D, manufacturable design. Nichols drew on his experience and the capabilities of the parametric modeling software — which responds to design changes in real time, allowing the user to immediately see the impact of kerfing an edge or boring a bolt hole, for example — to dramatically simplify the structure of the air cleaner, reducing the number of components to just two. After engineering, the design was prototyped by RedEye On Demand. Working from Nichols's Alibre Design files, RedEye printed 3D models of the air cleaner. The prototypes spurred some changes to the final design, such as machining the mounting screws into the back of the face plate, rather than through it, so the bolt holes wouldn't detract from the logo text.

Setting Up Shop in the High Desert

The success of the cross project wasn't limited to just one bike. As the three designers collaborated, they soon thought of sharing the unique air cleaner design with other motorcycle enthusiasts. Chavez and Singletary founded Truly Blessed Customs, a collaborative shop that creates original and custom bikes and parts.

What had originally been designed as a one-off item became the company's first product, as well as the first cross-shaped air cleaner on the market for V-twin motorcycle engines using S&S carburetors (or, with an adapter, Mikuni/CV carburetors). In six months, the cross had evolved from concept to product.

Ray Chavez and his wife ride the custom bike Don Diego in a Toys for Tots event. The cross-shaped air cleaner is visible to the right of Ray's knee.

A manufacturer in California, working from the CAD files, produces fewer than 100 of the crosses at a time. The aircraft-grade 6064 aluminum and high polish contribute to making the custom air cleaners ($400) about four times more expensive than their standard counterparts. "There is a price to be paid for being unique," Chavez said.

Central to that singular style is the Truly Blessed logo design, which typifies Chavez and Singletary's vision of a strong, yet spiritual look for their artistic creations. Customers can also purchase units without the logo, instead engraving the name of a bike, motorcycle club, or even a deceased loved one on the cross.

Web Site Brings Dead Memories to Life

Not content to offer one design, Truly Blessed launched a new web site last year and has added two more air cleaners to its catalog, including the "Dead Memories" skull design. Images of the air cleaners featured on the site are not photographs, but renderings created using the HyperShot rendering technology inside Alibre Design.

"We are pretty excited by this new project," said Nichols. "Ray has true vision, and it's great fun to take his artistic design and make it a reality." Describing the skull design, Nichols said, "The entire part is aluminum, which keeps cost and weight down and allows for polishing to resemble chrome plating, and if a customer wants color, it can be anodized." Rivets and plates made of brass contrast with the aluminum, highlighting the eyes and nose.

As is true for the cross design, slats surround the skull to allow for maximum air flow, and theft-resistant bolts secure the air cleaner to the engine. The custom text of the Truly Blessed brand is back as well, arranged in a semicircle this time. "It was the most difficult element of the design," said Nichols. "I used advanced Alibre Design utilities to get the text placed just right on the skull."

The elaborate custom font and curved text used in this logo posed a challenge to designer Jessie Nichols,  who used Alibre Design utilities to place the text.

In addition to the air cleaner line, Truly Blessed will also be offering products such as foot controls, risers, license plate holders, and keychains. Many of these items are currently in the design phase and will be available soon. Just this month, a new air cleaner — the "Spanish Armor" shield motif — was added to the company's catalog.

Motorcyclists are Truly Blessed (by RedEye RPM)

 

Motorcyclists are known for their love of symbols and icons, but up until now, there have not been many new product designs on the market that involve a more traditional cross, according to Jessie Nichols of Brainchild Enterprises. Consequently, he was interested when Truly Blessed Customs, a custom motorcycle parts provider, asked Brainchild to design and build a prototype custom air cleaner in the shape of a cross. The product features the original "Truly Blessed" logo design portraying the Truly Blessed concept of bringing a unique, strong and aggressive but spiritual look to its creations. The Truly Blessed air cleaner was designed for v-twin motorcycles and varying carburetor configurations. Brainchild utilized the affiliation between Alibre, Inc. and RedEye for this project. Alibre, a RedEye partner, offers Alibre Design, a 3D parametric solid modeling application that was used by Brainchild to create the prototype design.

"We knew with RedEye that we had an opportunity to reduce the front-end cost to our customer and help get the product to market in a shorter time frame," said Nichols. "It was a justifiable cost decision on our part, and we were able to obtain rapid prototypes in days versus weeks compared to traditional machining operations." The two prototype parts were $720 compared to estimates Nichols received from 16 other manufacturers that averaged $3,100. Before engaging Brainchild and RedEye, Truly Blessed had a rough prototype consisting of approximately 30 aluminum parts. Much of the detail in the lettering was lost. Truly Blessed wanted a product that was light weight, low cost, easy to manufacture and used a stock air filter.

"The final design is a two-piece configuration that exceeded expectations," said Nichols. "The RedEye prototypes enabled proof of concept. When the parts arrived, we immediately installed them with the filter on various motorcycles. By observing the prototyped assembly in its final configuration, we were comfortable moving forward with production."

"The RedEye instant quoting plug-in for Alibre Design was also very important," Nichols said.”It saved time and added security because we didn't have to upload our data to another source." Nichols said his first project paid for the cost of his investment in Alibre. "This is a typical customer experience," said Greg DeMars of Alibre. "With the combination of increased productivity and low entry cost, many clients recover the cost of Alibre Design on their first project."

Eventually, Truly Blessed Customs hopes to continue to create multiple styles and designs of air cleaners for retail. It also will offer customers the opportunity to have the air cleaner inscribed with a personal message, such as "in memory of." For now, it's enough to be "Truly Blessed."

Truly Blessed Customs (Article by Alibre)

Santa Fe, New Mexico has long been the center of art, architecture and culture and it is estimated that one in six residents is employed by the art industry; including painters, sculptors, photographers, framers, curators, foundry workers, and art dealers. Now, that artistic flare & design prowess extends into the neo-gothic world of custom motorcycle builders at Truly Blessed Customs.

In the beginning...Ray Chavez wanted to buy a motorcycle to drive the to and from his job at the Los Alamos Lab, but after collaborating with a designer from Augusta, Georgia, named Aric Singletary, he decided to build a one-off custom with Aric's help. With a custom frame from West Coast Choppers and a sleek, powerful ULTIMA El Bruto Competition Series Big Bore 113 Cubic Inch Engine, the pair was off to a great start with a bike named "Don Diego". They wanted to make the bike truly custom and Ray wanted a cross for the air cleaner, but there were none available on the market.

Making the design using his artistic talents he sent a design over to Aric who came up with spider web design to fit the profile of an air cleaner to fit the engine. What they came up with was a 35 part device that had a great look but would cost a pretty penny to make. "There is a price to be paid for being unique," Chavez remembered of the proto-types of the cross. So Aric and Ray decided to use a professional designer. That is where Jessie Nichols of Brainchild Enterprises came into the project. Jessie is a professional design engineer as well as a reseller of Alibre Design 3D CAD software. As they collaborated they saw the opportunity to sell these to other motor cycle enthusiasts.

The New Truly Blessed Web Site Brings Dead Memories To Life
Building a new business in the beautiful Sangre de Cristo Mountains, professional designers Ray Chavez & Aric Singletary lead a life that is "Truly Blessed". As a design house Truly Blessed Customs is a collaborative shop creating original & custom bikes and custom parts for the motorcycle industry that are created using Alibre Design 3D prototyping platform. TBC brought to the market the 1st custom engine air cleaner in the shape of a cross created for v-twin motorcycle engines using S&S carburetors, or Mikuni/CV carburetors with an adapter. Both use a standard K&N air filter. This product features the original "Truly Blessed" logo design, which portrays Ray's and Aric's vision of a unique, strong and aggressive yet spiritual look to their artistic creations. Now expanding the product line TBC is launching a new sexy website www.trulyblessedcustoms.com and the "Dead Memories" air cleaner in the shape of a Skull.

High desert collaboration of artist & engineers
Chavez & Singletary started working on the Truly Blessed project 3 years ago when they built the totally one-off custom bike, the "Don Diego", featuring the cross air cleaner. The logo inspired cross was designed by TBC, engineered by Jessie Nichols of Brainchild Enterprises using Alibre Design 3D CAD software and digitally prototyped by Redeye RPM. With the success of that project comes another build, this time with the unique "Dead Memories" line of products.

Where artistic design meets real world manufacturing
Inspired by the Art and Culture of the New Mexican high desert, TBC is bringing new design to the custom motorcycle market using state of the art tools and the talent of their peers in the area. Jessie Nichols is also engineering this project, which brings out the classic skull look so familiar in biker lore. The new air cleaners will be a highly engineered product giving bikers that custom look on their rides. "We are pretty excited by this new project, "says Nichols, "Ray has true vision and its great fun to take his artistic design and make it a reality." For the "Dead Memories" skull air cleaner they will be using high grade 6061 aluminum, polished to a high luster and special rivets made of brass & bronze for the eyes and nose. "The entire part is aluminum. Which keeps cost and weight down and allows for polishing to resemble chrome plating, and if a customer wants color it can be anodized." says Nichols of Brainchild Enterprises.

To shave manufacturing costs and enhance aesthetics the revised air cleaner design employs a unique 2-part design compared to 35 parts of the original prototype while allowing for an off the shelf K&N brand air filter. Slats surround the skull and cross allowing for maximum air flow. Special bolts secure the air cleaner to the engine. The unique custom text of the Truly Blessed brand is back as well, this time with a sleek curve. "It was the most difficult element of the design," said Nichols, Truly Blessed Customs desired more than the typical font types and engraving methods seen on other products. "I used advanced Alibre Design utilities to get the text placed just right on the Skull."

The Cross & Skull will also be available without the custom text so that you may personalize the design with a unique message. In addition to the air cleaner line, TBC will also be offering other products such as foot controls, risers, license plate holders and other Truly Blessed products. Many of these items are currently in the design phase, and will be coming soon. Chavez says, "Our goal is to bring new and unique product designs to our customers." For a real treat visit www.trulyblessedcustoms.com, and even if you're not in the market for a new part for your bike, stop by their store for another Truly Blessed Cross - the TBC Keychain.

Alibre VAR helps UNM Masters student unleash the power of 3D design (Article by Alibre)

   

Alibre Value Added Resellers (VARs) collaborate with many interesting people in the business community and the academic world. Jesse Nichols of Brainchild Enterprises has been an Alibre VAR for several years and works closely with educators and engineers in New Mexico.

Recently Jesse introduced the Alibre Design 3D CAD program to Francisco Rodriguez, a Mechanical Engineering Masters student at the University of New Mexico. Francisco had used SolidWorks as an undergraduate student at the Army Institute of Technology in Ecuador. Now at the UNM, in a new school, Francisco didn't have access to a 3D design program. Seeing his needs, Jesse connected him to his website where he downloaded the 30 day free trial of Alibre Design Professional.

"Learning how to use the basic functions of the software was really easy, plus the tutorials were helpful when I didn't know how to do something"

Starting work as a Project Assistant in the MARHES Lab at University of New Mexico, Francisco was asked to design a 3D model based on the TXT-1 monster truck from Tamiya, Inc.

The model will be used to make simulations in a virtual world scenario. Each robot is outfitted with a control board, various sensors, and an onboard embedded computer.

"Alibre Design worked really well and it took me around 80 hours to model all the parts and do the assembly", Francisco said of his immediate success with the product.

Using Alibre Design's powerful tools Francisco redesigned the original model by adding an odometer on each of the front wheels, an extra shock absorber for each wheel and an aluminum plate to support all the sensors and the computer that the final model sports.

USARSim is software which can model scenarios or arenas, robots or objects, and put them in a game platform. It also allows models to be exported as DXF files into USARSim and then placed in the game platform.

"Unreal has pretty realistic physics platform, so the idea is to try the algorithms that are being developed in the MARHES lab to simulate the cooperative behavior of our robots test bed."

The game provides scenarios in which the robots to do a task, like finding an aircraft, or other object in order to examine how the algorithms work and make multiple vehicles cooperate to fulfill certain task.

The TXT model that Francisco will introduce into the game will be a slimmed down model. The virtual robot will consist of the basic frame, wheels and sensors. The goal is to develop algorithms that drive all the robots to efficiently fulfill specific tasks with cooperative behavior, communicating through network systems, cameras, and ultrasonic ranger sensors.

The culmination of the multivehicle cooperative technology that Francisco would like to emphasize is the aid these robots could give to humanitarian rescue missions. The recent earthquake in Italy is a good example of where this technology could be used to aid in search and rescue missions.

"This technology could be implemented in rescue missions to search for victims in mine fields, collapsed buildings, or for structural inspection."