Titanic’s End (BS04)

In late 2021 I was contacted by Big Arts Organization to design and build the main structure for a mutant vehicle sound car named Titanic’s End. This was a huge undertaking involving months of design time and many 60 hour weeks of jigging, climbing, and welding. The car is 65’ long and 38’ tall. It is equipped with a 125kw generator, a state of the art Danley sound system, and a wirelessly controlled hydrostatic robot hidden under the outer frame. It is covered by over 80,000 leds and has 10 cuckoo bananas sized lasers. I was responsible for all of the CAD design, structural analysis, jigging and most of the TIG welding on this vehicle. I also managed the outsourcing of CNC tube cutting and various subcontracted fabrication jobs. I completed my portion of the build here at my shop and in my back yard. The completed parts were then disassembled by crane and shipped to the crew in California where all paint, electrical, audio, and lighting components were assembled. I continued to design various parts and have them manufactured and shipped right up to build week 2022 where we assembled the car and it had a great first burn.

3D CAD

I was responsible for creating all cad models, 3D assemblies, and production files. This included all 3D files needed for CNC cutting each of the 200+ unique frame tubes, shop drawings for all square subframe tubes, 2D profiles for the metal stage frame, wood stage and deck, wood mid deck and bridge, and over 100 unique drawings for various brackets, tube endplates, custom fabrication tools, speaker mounts etc.

2D Production Drawings

A small sample of production drawings needed to create Titanic’s End

Renders created for use in the DMV application

Structural Analysis

Dual Frame Analysis - Static Structural

Speaker Arm Analysis - Static Structural

Build

Holes were drilled into the trailer rais to provide space for 3/4” nuts. Nuts were welded to the back side of these plates and then welded to the trailer. This gave us 8 a strong flat mounting points to attach frames to the trailer.

Square Subframes

These frames make up the ic lounge and generator room walls as well as the floor of the mid decks. They are all 4” square tubes with 1/8” or 1/4” wall.

Adapter Brackets

These connect the outer round tube frame to the inner square subframe.

Tube Crushers

To create a nice transition between brackets and tubes, I had a wedge cut out of the end of each tube. I would then insert a bracket into the tube and compress the tube. This provided a virtually gap free joint to weld between bracket and tube. I did this aproximately 200 times, and that meant having a good tool was very important. These pictures show the tool I designed and built and the tube end shape used throughout the frame.

CNC Cut Round Tubes

There were over 200 unique tubes that made up the outer frame of Titanic’s End. They were all designed in CAD and then CNC cut.

Jigging the Round Tubes

I spent three months jigging and welding the round tube frames. I worked every single day, unless it rained. This was the hardest work I have ever done on any project ever. We were determined to make it to BM 2022 and I wanted to give the team in CA as much time as possible to assemble and test.

Final Welds on Subframes

My TIG welder says, “Send help!” It’s water cooled, but I was really pushing through this 1/4” plate.

Disassembly and Shipping

Moving and Shipping the Bridge

Jigging and Welding the Peak

Final frame parts getting welded up.

Speaker Yokes

Here are some pictures of the speaker mounts. I really like this design. I spent a lot of time on the analysis of these as they will be suspended mid air either side of the car and need to take the load of three large speakers.

Stage Frame

The stage was made to be broken down into smaller parts and ship flat. It is made of square steel tubing and has an outer plywood skin. Wood is attached using rivet-nuts.

Pictures from Burning Man 2022