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Comment by peller | Hacker News Reader

> You had to pay for a brutally waitlisted class

For better or worse, that's been the model at every makerspace I've been a member of/looked into. And I think it makes sense, insurance-mandated or not. Lots of expensive, potentially dangerous machinery that if used wrong can destroy itself, its user, and/or those nearby.

Also, in my experience once you've built up enough trust with the admins they'll let you get a crash course from a member who knows what's up and skip the fees and formal training process.

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I remember my experiences in high school metal shop. The teacher impressed on us the dangers of leaving the key in the metal lathe chuck when turning it on. One day, naturally, a kid left the key in the chuck and turned it on. There was a loud bang as the chuck flew up and through the ceiling. It could clearly have killed someone if they were in its path.

I don't want to be around people who use powerful machines without proper training, or around kids using those machines, or using those machines around kids who treat the shop as a playground.

> using those machines around kids who treat the shop as a playground

Definitely the biggest hazard in my comprehensive school tech. classes. Little makes you move to the other side of the room faster than people throwing random pieces of scrap at a powered disk sander, and I'll never forgot the noise an LED makes when shorted across a 230VAC wall socket (with a locker key jammed in the earth pin for good measure...).

I sometimes wonder how the only injuries I got from those years was a minor soldering burn (dropped the iron) and accidentally impaling the palm of my hand with a screwdriver.

The high school I went to in the late 1980s was originally the city community college; the campus was pretty large. The woodshop was located in what was termed the "industrial arts" building (the building essentially was a high school "techshop" all on its own; small engine repair, drafting, autoshop, woodshop, metalshop, etc - all under one roof, three stories tall).

Well, the woodshop itself had equipment that was decades old; some of the equipment was quality stuff dating from the 1930s. We had this huge surface planer machine that could take wood 6 inches thick and 8 feet wide; it took a good 10 minutes for it to come to a complete stop after powering it up.

A friend of mine wanted to see if it would plane 1/2" in one pass off a 2x6; the instructor of the class had no problem with trying it, either!

It did. You wouldn't believe the sound it made, but it didn't miss a beat doing it.

I think that the "brutally waitlisted" part could be addressed. Or you could cap membership until you can actually accommodate the new members. But both those options reduce short term cash inflow.

Yea, for sure. I suppose that could either be a staffing problem, or demand outstripping (tool time) supply. In the latter case - if there was space/power available - perhaps they could have gotten a second tool. Or from an economics perspective, raise the rates until the demand cooled off a bit. (Of course that kinda sucks as a member, but it also sucks if you're paying and can't get access time to use the tools you want, so it's a bit of a balancing act)

Yeah, this seems to support the story that they just expanded too fast and couldn't keep a handle on things. If they can get folks to pay $1k per year and actually come despite the crowding they can probably get almost as many folks to pay some amount more than $1k per year but not have crowding.

> In the latter case - if there was space/power available - perhaps they could have gotten a second tool.

Given that this was about a waitlist for the "how to use a laser cutter" class, getting another tool probably wasn't going to be economically possible.

The TechShop in my area (Phoenix/Chandler) had six (!) laser cutters - all ULS 60 watt machines (I'm not sure what they had before they closed; I haven't been back in a long while). ULS is based in Scottsdale, so maybe they got a discount on the equipment or something - but regardless, those machines aren't cheap. They are quality machines (heck, the software alone is pretty amazing), and have a cost that reflects it.

thats probably true with the machining tools, but if you wear gloves and a helmet there's really very little damage you can do to yourself or the machine with tig. they also generally make you make mig before tig which is kind of a waste.

if you add up all the fees, assuming you have a big enough space, instead you can buy a lot of that gear used or on the low end. have a blast learning. keep your work and stock next to your tools, and specialize in the processes that interest you.

the only exception i can think of is the sheet metal tools, they need quite a bit of floor space and are shockingly expensive. i don't think tech shop had a water jet, but that too would be worth paying for time on.

If you live in a San Francisco apartment, “big enough space” is going to cost a lot more than TechShop membership.

The SF TechShop did have a waterjet, capable of cutting through basically anything.

I didn't know that, that would have been worth looking into. Depending on your job the local water jet shops can be reasonable. but we pay more than the tech shop monthly for a smallish 2 hr job. Kevin at SMP is pretty close to the ex-TS location.

(industrial space in the bayview has gone up, but its still under $1/ft)

> The

0x10, "Data Link Escape"? How did that get there, I'm really curious.

No idea.

Austin had water jet too. Actually kind of a shame, a sinker EDM should do most of the same and would be a lot cheaper. But people understand what a water jet is.

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