We offer a wide variety of tools necessary to work in a number of disciplines, from big expensive machines to more routine things like hand tools. More information about some of our tools is available on pages devoted to each of our zones, but you can read about some of our bigger-ticket items and our policies here.
- A Bridgeport mill and a metal lathe in our machining zone, among many other pieces of machinery (e.g. band saws and a drill press) and a great many hand tools.
- A Sawstop table saw, a planer, a couple of jointers, several wood lathes, several bandsaws, a large CNC router, and many other power and hand tools.
- Several MIG/TIG welders, nice big metal welding tables with ventilation, a handheld plasma cutter, a plasma table (in progress — not fully online yet), chop saw, sand blasting cabinet, and an array of grinders and other tools.
- A large C02 laser for cutting organic materials and a fiber laser for etching metal.
- A CNC embroidery machine, heavy-duty sewing machine, long-arm quilting machine, a variety of “regular” sewing machines, a heat press, and an assortment of tools, notions, fiber, and yarn. The fiber zone also includes a leather-working area with all of the basic tooling required.
- Large layout/work tables and art supplies in our arts/crafts zone. We also have a stained glass station, a small vacuum chamber, a large format printer, and a vinyl cutter. We are building a paint booth with external ventilation.
- Our electronics zone is full of doodads such as Pinecils, magnifiers, voltimeters, and so on.
- In the blacksmithing shed we have several anvils, a high-end propane forge, a coal forge, a cutting torch, a couple of vices, some cutting/grinding/drilling tools, and the basic hand tools required for blacksmithing.
Space tools stay at the space — we don’t have a tool loan program. As it is a shared shop, tools sometimes get broken, and we have a system in place to report broken tools. You’re generally not in trouble for breaking a tool, but we do expect you to help us understand what happened to break the tool so that we can properly fix it and offer further education when called for.
Many of our especially expensive or dangerous tools require special authorization classes before they can be used unsupervised. This helps folks learn how to use and maintain our tools and helps reduce the odds of breakage and injury.