This is topic Boyd Cottington's "American Hotrod" A True Embarrassment! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 03-13-2004, 01:31 AM:
 
Some time ago Boyd Cottington had a one-off show called "American Hotrod" on the Discovery Channel, which coincided with other popular shows like "Monster Garage" and "American Chopper".

For anyone who does not know, Boyd Cottington is one of America's priemere "rod" designers, who has been around for many decades and whose reputation is right up there with George Barris. Barris designed and built many a well known "Hollywood" car, like the Munster coaches, Beverly Hillbillys wagon, the origonal Batmobile, etc.

Now, the Discovery Channel hosts some very popular interactive web-sites dedicated to these shows...in a format simialr to our beloved F.T.

One of the threads was about the origonal Boyd Cottington show, "American Hotrod" or "The Fibreglass Kit-Car Fiasco!" Yes, this show got a lot of negative feedback, mostly due to the apparent stupidy of some of Boyd's employees!

During the first show, the screw-ups were the ultimate fodder for ball-bustin laughter. Not being able tostart the car 'cause the forgot to install the distributor rotor; some engine overheating 'cause they could'nt evacuate the air out of the engine when pourin in the coolant, and on an on. To make matters worse, they were makin big deals out of these bullshit problems!

A real embarrassment is in the form of this young punk that Cottington employees as his "master" CNC programmer and "machinist". During this initial show, the punk was incapable of producing a rather simple part using a CAM system, and was doing some pretty stupid horse-play stunts in the shop. Boyd cought the kid in the act and was PISSED. All for the prosterity of the camera?

Yours truly did e-mail Cottington's shop commenting about this dumbass kid, and never did get a response.

Anyhow, I guess they are continuing the series, as another Cottington show premeired tonight on The Discovery Channel.

Once again,this dumbass punk was the focus of attention. Once again, he made Mike from "American Chopper" look like a genius rocket scientist!

For those of you who are machinists, it was funny to see the punk crash the CNC milling center by not retracting the cutting tool before rapid transversing to the home-tool change position! And the punk even had full preview capabilities on the CAM program. Then the punk blames his screw-upon the CNC operator!

Then the punk was involved in the fabrication of another part.He was unable to tackle this simple task, and another employee took over the task and completed it in no time!

WTF does Cottington doin with an IDIOT like this in his shop? I wonder?
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-13-2004, 09:43 AM:
 
I have only watched on episode of that show and I wasn't too impressed since I am not real big on cars. I do know that they only reason Mikey works at the Orange County Choppers shop is because the producer of the show wanted him on there. This may be the case for American Hotrod as well, noone would watch if they just built cars and never had a single problem.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-13-2004, 10:04 AM:
 
I don't have cable TV anymore, basically, because I don't think it's worth the money. I used to like the Discovery Channel but, lately, the quality of the programming has gone down hill.

Not only have they degraded their programs to the level of spiritual hocus-pocus, "proof" of the existence of space aliens and the telling of ghost stories but anything that has to do with technology is nothing but fluff... Lots of flash & bang but no substance.

It sounds like the show you are talking about is on about the same level. I would even go so far as to say that the punk they have in charge of machining was placed there, precicely because of his inability to to the job and because he provides comic relief.

We watch shows like "Crocodile Hunter" because we want to see what crazy stunt Steve Irwin is going to pull off next. Is he going to try to grab a king cobra by the tail? Or, is he going to wrestle a 10 foot crocodile in a mud pit? I suspect people who don't know about machine work will watch because they want to see what the idiot in charge will fuck up next.

Again, it's low intelligence fluff like this that has made me start turning off the television. Judging by what you say, I don't think I'm missing anything by not having cable TV.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-13-2004, 12:48 PM:
 
I dont know about cable but on satelite there are several discovery channels. The science channels only shows science and technology shows. The actual discovery channel is more "pop" shows than anything. There is also the discovery times which is mostly political and historical shows. There are a lot more but I dont watch them.
 

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 03-20-2004, 04:48 PM:
 
Well,

Cottington's new episode aired last night.

Instead of "building an aluminum rod", the show should be titled....how to F-Off in a shop!

This time around, that dumb-assed punked crashed the CNC turning center whil attempting to set a tool length-offset. For those of you who are not famaliar with CNC machining....this is the result of ultimate incompitentcy and stupidy....AND PROVIDED FOR BALL BUSTIN LAUGHTER...especially seein just how bad he rwrecked the carbide insert and tool-holder. What is really bad about crashing a machine is that serious $$ damage can be done to the machine, which the "cheap" ones are usually around $100k..then the price goes up. Furthermore, you can ruin raw materials, which often can be very expensive...

Later on, this same punk screwed up his knee while snowboarding on a day-off.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-20-2004, 06:31 PM:
 
Well, you're still watching the show, so it can't be that bad.

If everything went fine it would be a show on Speedvision or whatever the heck it's called now.
 

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 03-20-2004, 09:08 PM:
 
Cottington is legendary for his designs, and it is interesting to see his work.

There are some talented people working for him. There is a partially retired custom sheetmetal fabricator working for Cottington. The guy is a true craftsman, but now kinda sorta has a step-n-fetch-it attitude 'cause he's about to completely retire...or so he says.

But its ball-bustin laughter to watch that idiot kid make a simple part look like a big deal and to constantly watch him f-up! I guess its kinda-sorta insider humor for those of us who are machinists.

BTW, I'm sittin here manually writing a CNC milling program and am doin this post on my 5 minute break from class. No CAM program allowed for this project!

Now, the guys from Orange County Choppers are some very talanted people...but enough with the family squabbles and bullshit! They just need to stick with building great bikes.

Jesse James is also a true artist. I just can't stand seeing classic cars get butchered in his "Monster Garage"! But there have been some preety neat things done on that show.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-21-2004, 02:01 AM:
 
You must not have seen last weeks Monster Garage. They just chopped and customized a 54 chevy. I forgot all of the guys names but they were all old timers. Pretty interesting.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-21-2004, 08:05 AM:
 
Perhaps these guys need to use Norm Abrahms as an example, or perhaps Norm should use them as an example and take on a stupid sidekick..... can't you just imagine Norm's side kick cutting his finger off on the saw.....oops! Or perhaps hanging up that new tool cabinet on the shop wall only to have it come crashing down. That would sure liven up Norm's normally boring show quite a bit..... but on second though it actually IS entertaining to watch a true craftsman that never makes a mistake.

Mark
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 03-21-2004, 08:27 AM:
 
Already been done. "Paul Timberman's Workshop", from MadTV.


 

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 03-21-2004, 05:02 PM:
 
Mark

There is no such thing as never making a mistake. Part of being a responsible adult is taking responsibility for one's actions.

However, there is a difference between making an honest mistake, correcting it, then pressing on ,and screwing up on a regular basis because of horse-play, carelessness, ego-trips, and incompetency. The last 4 things seem to be what is happening at Cottington's shop.

As for Abram's never making a mistake...he does...the show is just edited. In fact, I distinctly remember some years ago that Abrams addressed the issue with his viewers and came clean.

I do think that Abrams is an excellent craftsman, but his show is also dedicated to showing off all the latesst gadgets and tools. And there are some projects that he has made were I think the construction could have been better. But in all probability, adjustments are probably made to the project designs to allow for the shows time constraint.

The counterpart to Abrams on PBS is that hyper-nut who accomplishes some pretty amazing things with simple 100 year-old tools and ideas...while sitting at the messiest and simpleist of work-benches.

It would be nice if American Chopper, American Hotrod, etc would get away from the bullshit and concentrate more on an educational format like Abrams. I could give a less about the bullshit family squables, and am really interested in seeing how these projects come-together.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 03-21-2004, 05:55 PM:
 

quote:

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As for Abram's never making a mistake...he does...

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