Introduce Yourself : Prop designer/builder. I make big, post-apocalyptic functional machines. by Jeff Del Papa

Need a strange machine, that has to actually operate? A catapult perhaps? I may be able to help, drop me a line.I build weird and functional objects, usually from scavenged materials. My style is best described as Mad Max post-apocalyptic. (see my photo collection for examples) I first got onto the little screen by founding The NERDS, the first US team to appear on "Junkyard Wars" (Scrapheap Challenge outside the US). I build, usually with a camera or an audience, under impossible timelines, and with heavy lumps of steel, and dead cars. I have cut cars (and trucks) in half, converting one to run on steam, another into a fire fighting boat, and a cement truck into a paddle boat. I built one of the largest operable ballistae in the modern era, a machine that can throw a 10 lb weight over 1,200 feet, and another catapult that threw an upright piano. I am based in Boston, but normally build on location. Me and/or my stuff has appeared on "Scrapheap Challenge", "Man, Moment, Machine", "Lock and Load", a video for the band "Dirty on Purpose", and in every "Punkin Chunkin" thanksgiving special. I won the first "Raising the Bar" building event for the distiller George Dickel, and was "Maker in Residence" at Parts and Crafts, a Boston Area kids Maker space. My most recent appearance was 10 weeks ago, on the Nat Geo series "Going Deep with David Rees". The machine built for that show "Decisions, Decisions..." was awarded an Editors Choice award at the NYC World Maker Faire. (Decisions is a machine that flips a manhole cover sized coin) When not building strange machines, I run team building events, either a building challenge ala Junkyard, or one that has people building catapults taller than they are, and hurling for distance.