We had some progress on Sunday. We removed the rest of the stuff from the new room, painted in primer one wall and rigged up some stuff for the gate.

Not much happened during this meeting. We just tinkered around with different types of paint we could paint our new room in.

It's been a while since last update because I was too lazy to take minutes. However, I managed to write up notes from yesterday's meeting, so here they are.

New room!
The good news: we've got a new room! It's that room across the hall from metal shop, the one full of chairs.
The bad news: we need to clean it up to use it.

Fence/Gate
We did not make any progress on the gate because it was too dark. Need to tackle this one some time on weekend.

Lights outside of the door
We looked into installing lights outside of door at the parking lot. Existing fixture appears to not be working at all. We are probably going to rig up our own light system there.

Dust collector
Made some progress with this one. Ordered 4" and 2" hoses and clamps. The way we planned it so far is if you need to to use a tool you take that tool out and place it at the middle of the room on a table, connect hoses and start working. Then put the tool back. Package should arrive this Saturday, 13th. The next thing is to design adapters to various tools. Mostly it is going to be adapters from 2" to whatever diameter of the tool's dust collecting hole is, but we could get creative and design some adapter that would allow us to use 2 tools at once, or something like that.

Miscellaneous
We ordered a pack of 6 measuring tapes, cause you can never have enough of these.

Alex

Here are minutes from public meeting on 2021-06-23.

1. Themed meetings.
We planned to have "themed meetings". You are able to see updates to the meetings on our calendar https://www.colamakerspace.com/events.html. Next one - July 7th - is going to be about sewing. We will sew some covers for our tools so that they don't get dusty. We also decided to set aside 30 minutes or so for showcasing our tool to potentially new members during every public meeting.

2. Ordered doorbells.
Ordered doorbells to install at our doors.

3. Measured equipment dimensions.
Measure dimensions of our equipment to know how much fabric we need to buy for July 7th meeting.

4. Bought band saw
We bought new band saw with some blades.

5. Figured out how to use Bluetooth speaker.
We struggled to use that fancy Bluetooth speaker for video conferencing (because technologies are hard) but we experimented and figured out how to use it. Instructions on how to use it should be printed out and duct taped to the speaker some time within near future.

We set up new meeting topics through September. See our calendar at
 https://www.colamakerspace.com/events.html
www.colamakerspace.com/events.html

Note: Everyone is welcome to our free public meetings, but only members can use the tools for insurance reasons.
We are happy to adapt any meeting to member or public interests!
Please come to the Sumter St. side of our building (1225 Laurel St.). Our entrance is under the drive-through canopy and inside the fence.

At every meeting we will offer a General Tool Introduction - Showcase of our tools! We will show you how to use our hand and power tools in the wood and metal shops. Great for new members!

You can also join us on Video - We use Discord to live stream our meetings.
You will need a free Discord account: discord.com.
Then click on the link "You can also join our public Discord channel" at the bottom of our web page www.colamakerspace.com
Accept the invite when Discord opens
Then click on the Public Colamakerspace link under Public Voice Video in the left side bar

​Here is our list:
July 7
Sewing - Our power tools in the woodshop get dusty! We will sew up some simple fabric covers tonight to protect them. All materials will be provided. Learn to sew and improve your makerspace!

July 21
Wood Turning on the Lathe - We can make nice looking wooden bowls on our lathe our of scrap wood. We will show you how to operate the lathe safely and efficiently. Scrap hardwood and softwood is generally available for members.

August 4
3D Printing - Filament and Resin. Learn to use our filament and resin 3D printers. They are not super fast, so we will only have time to print small objects, but you can come back later and print your own.

August 18
Clean Up - Every so often, we do a group clean up. Join us to talk about tech and projects while we sweep and dust! We will buy food if the group wants it!

September 1
Casting - We will fire up our propane furnace and practice aluminum casting.

September 15
Fusion 360 - Get an introduction to the free Fusion 360 Computer Aided Design software from Auto CAD. This is a great program to model for 3D printing or CNC cutting.

September 29
Welding - Get some hands-on experience with our gas-shielded MIG welder. We have a metal welding hood with exhaust ventilation and helmets and gloves. 

We have shielding gas for the welder now. It welds much more cleanly. Here are some knob positions that seem to work well. Be sure to open the gas valve on the top of the cylinder before use, and close it after. Leave the pressure-setting knob where it is. Run the exhaust fan when using gas.

I hooked up the leads wrong at first. See the welds in the middle below. The nicer welds on the sides are after we changed the leads. 

We have a new CNC machine. We will have a class on it soon. It can cut wood and Aluminum up to about 3/8-inch. Please get instruction before using - it has few safety features and CNC machines love to crash

Forgot to add: 
The meeting is 6 pm Wednesday Sept 2, 2020

Our tireless makers have created a virtual meeting setup just for you!
You can join in by using this Discord link
https://discord.gg/zvRpfVU
We hope to see some of you who have been avoiding the space due to the virus.
Topics:
Metal casting
Soap box derby car: will they have the race in September
Fencing the outdoor area

We are making great progress on our metal casting furnace. We plan to cast aluminum and maybe brass. The furnace is built from an old propane tank lined with refractory. A weed torch will heat it. Wires are welded into the lid to support the refractory. Cardboard tubes and soup cans create vent holes. We used an old paint can as the form to make space for the crucible.
Our original furnace was charcoal fired and it was a nuisance. We also made our own refractory, greensand, and crucible. This time, we bought those items. Much easier!