Workshop

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.

Making Makerspaces: Creating a Business Model

Making Makerspaces: Creating a Business Model

This is the second in a series of posts called Making Makerspaces, a distillation of the information gathered for a series of How to Make a Makerspace workshops produced by Artisan’s Asylum and MAKE. These posts will appear on a more-or-less weekly basis, and will focus on mission-critical topics related to founding and running creative manufacturing space. Today, we’ll be discussing common types of expenses and income that makerspaces around the world experience on a regular basis in order to help you create a business model for a space of your own. In the process of identifying these expenses and income, we’ll review examples from several well-established spaces across the U.S. for reference.

DiResta: Split log Benches

DiResta: Split log Benches

In each bi-monthly episode of DiResta, artist and master builder Jimmy DiResta (Dirty Money, Hammered, Against the Grain, Trash for Cash) lets us into his workshop, to look over his shoulder while he builds whatever strikes his fancy. On this episode of DiResta, Jimmy goes lumberjack and makes a rustic bench out hefty tree trunk. I like how he uses the chainsaw blade as a rough measuring device and a finishing tool.

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Make a Multi-Book Secret Compartment

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Make a Multi-Book Secret Compartment

You are probably already familiar with the classic “Secret Book Compartment” project. There are variations of this project all over the internet. There have even been a few version that been featured in MAKE as well as on the MAKE YouTube channel. The basic concept of a secret book compartment is simple. You hollow out a large book and you use the cutout space to hide stuff. Unfortunately, most versions of this project have one major problem. You can only hide objects that are smaller than your book. However it is possible to hide larger objects by combining multiple books into one large multi-book container.

Making Makerspaces: Acquiring Insurance

Making Makerspaces: Acquiring Insurance

This is the first in a series of posts documenting how to start a makerspace of your own in your local community. This post is focused on the one question almost everyone asks when starting a space – how do you get insurance for your makerspace? We’ll start with a quick introduction to the series, and then jump into the meat of the question.