Woodworking in Bristol

[Fergal]

I never actually got round to joining up for various reasons, but I hear they now have a swanky new laser cutter which I'd like to have access to, so now maybe the time to do so...

There is list of equipment on the website, not sure how up to date it is though. As for acquiring new tools, I think a lot of the stuff is donated or owned by members and new stuff is only bought if there is sufficient demand and funds.

Fergal

 

[Alikingravi]

Alright! So I went over to Bristol Hackspace and it was a very nice little space. There is an electronics workshop at the front and a woodworking place at the back. Although, the woodshop is divided in two halves, one half is privately owned and has all the good tools like table saw, thickness planer, router table, mitre saw, belt sander etc. The down side I found is that you can only use the cutting tools (mitre saw, table saw, thickness planer and router) in the presence of the owner because of safety reasons. But he was a really nice guy and said I was most welcomed to use his tools when he was around. The other half has a nice series of solid work benches pushed alongside the wall and there are all sorts of hand tools like chisels, hand planes, clamps, saws, screwdrivers, nuts/bolts etc etc. It also has a brand new laser cutter, bandsaw and a lathe, which is awesome. That space can be used by anyone at anytime and the place has 24 hour access, although you have to apply for a key which costs £40 and takes a couple of weeks to acquire. The overall membership is £10 a month. Most of the wood there is owned by members and is mostly labelled, but you can ask and use wood which is either not labelled or will not be used by the owner. Since there is less space, you can only store a limited amount of tools and wood. There are no lockers or anything like that. Ive taken some photos for those who are interested. Let me know if you're having problems viewing the images.

http://imgur.com/a/gpPPF

 

[Wuffles]

I noticed there was an Arduino workshop/group meeting there, which sounded like a laugh. Shame I'm not in Bristol any more, and that it's sarf of the river from when I was too.

 

[mind_the_goat]

£10 a month !
They either have a huge membership or someone very generous supporting it. Sounds like that might be the owner of the workshop machinery.

 

[Alikingravi]

Most members are for electronics. There are only about a handful of people who use the wood shop. But yeah, £10 a month is really really cheap and the space is not that small either. But all the people I met were really passionate about their projects and all the members have either donated or bought all the machinery themselves. It was inspiring to meet people doing their own thing and running such a place.