John Weatherwax - History & Experience John Weatherwax started Cutting Edge Metal Specialties, believe it or not, in his garage in Lake Forest, CA, in 1993 while working full time as a metal fabricator for Dan Gurney's All American Racers. Prior to working at AAR, John worked for Jim Chapman Developments, a small, highly specialized, fabrication shop that built Nissan's GTP aluminum honeycomb race car monocoque chassis for their International Motor Sports Associations (IMSA) endurance sports cars.

Nissan Monocoque Chassis

Nissan GTP Sportscar

In 1990, John was hired by AAR to help build Toyota's new IMSA sports car prototype. This car, the Toyota Mklll GT, would go on to earn 3 IMSA Championships, beating the other factory efforts of Nissan, Chevrolet, Mazda and Jaguar. Almost every piece of these prototype racecars were hand built. And the one thing John learned very quickly in auto racing fabrication, is that you do not compromise any part you build at any time. The consequences could be devastating if a part is machined wrong or a weld fails.

Toyota GTP Racecar

After buying a small heliarc tig welder for his garage without consulting his wife, he figured he had better get a small fabrication job to pay for the machine. His first client, and one he still has today, was with a company that required highly specialized stainless steel components for the semi-conductor industry. Within 2 years, he went from backup source to primary source for their products. The highly specialized skills he learned in the racing industry, where compromise is not an option, was a factor in his success with these high degree of difficulty parts. In 1995, after two years of working full time at AAR during the day, and working 40 plus hours in the garage in the evenings and weekends, he decided to quit All American Racers, move out of the garage and open his own shop full time. During this period, working alone, John was involved in numerous stainless steel prototype projects for Intel and others in the semi-conductor industry during the development of 300 mm silicon wafer cleaning systems. John also started to do more custom fabrication projects for homes and businesses.

300mm Stainless Steel Chamber

300mm Stainless Steel Rotor Frame

Never turning down a unique or difficult project, one of his first jobs was building a steel framed back yard gazebo, with a retractable roof, all of which he designed and engineered. The list of projects John has been involved with are long and varied.

Gazebo - Retractable Roof

Steel Framed Gazebo

A true perfectionist, which shows in all of his work, and is especially noticeable in the restoration of the classic motorcycles John collects. These bikes include a 1929 Henderson Four, 1936 Ariel Red Hunter, 1937 overhead cam KSS Velocette, 1939 Royal Enfield 350 Bullitt, 1940 Ariel Square Four, and a half dozen other motor bikes and Whizzers.

1937 KSS Velocette Motor
1951 Schwinn Whizzer	Garton HotRod Pedal Cars