To me, one of the coolest things about our org is the shop crawls. They are a great way to meet fellow members, experience new shops, and in general have a great day.
As part of my shop outfitting program, I'm going to need to secure a quantity of hand screw clamps. Although they are available commercially, it struck me that these are a device that would not be that difficult to make myself.
However, I also realized that with the production equipment that I have in the shop, they would not be that difficult of an item to produce in larger quantities.
Which then led me to think of a possible North Carolina Woodworker organized event, where a bunch of foks gathered at a members shop one day/weekend in order to mass produce some type of tool or accessory for everybody that participated. Using the hand screws as an example, one person could work on cutting blanks on the RAS, one person could be cutting the angles on the tablesaw, one person could be running the blanks through the WBS, another person could be drilling them, etc. In essence, we could keep several people busy all day, and end up with a slew of hand screws at the end of the day for everybody to take home.
For instance, in addition to the clamps Wood magazine has a nice template on making dead blow mallets. And I'm sure that we can think of other items as well.
What I'm wondering is if this concept would be a good North Carolina Woodworker sanctioned type of event, and if so to set a membership committee up to host in a different market 2 - 3 times a year.
As part of my shop outfitting program, I'm going to need to secure a quantity of hand screw clamps. Although they are available commercially, it struck me that these are a device that would not be that difficult to make myself.
However, I also realized that with the production equipment that I have in the shop, they would not be that difficult of an item to produce in larger quantities.
Which then led me to think of a possible North Carolina Woodworker organized event, where a bunch of foks gathered at a members shop one day/weekend in order to mass produce some type of tool or accessory for everybody that participated. Using the hand screws as an example, one person could work on cutting blanks on the RAS, one person could be cutting the angles on the tablesaw, one person could be running the blanks through the WBS, another person could be drilling them, etc. In essence, we could keep several people busy all day, and end up with a slew of hand screws at the end of the day for everybody to take home.
For instance, in addition to the clamps Wood magazine has a nice template on making dead blow mallets. And I'm sure that we can think of other items as well.
What I'm wondering is if this concept would be a good North Carolina Woodworker sanctioned type of event, and if so to set a membership committee up to host in a different market 2 - 3 times a year.
