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Is there a reason these haven't really taken off in the UK?
I've seen loads of American maker spaces crop up on websites over the last few years, proper big spaces with a decent selection of machinery and tools which seem to attract a real variety of users.
If you've not seen them imagine your old school woodwork and metalwork room combined and you'd not be too far from the ideal. They a look like a great idea, especially for those of us that don't have the room or the finances to maintain a full workshop of our own.
I assumed that given the British way of tinkering in sheds that the same sort of thing would happen here but from what I can tell aside from a few small scale projects dotted about it doesn't seem to be the case.
I've seen the men in sheds charity but that seems to be a slightly different approach and as much about social interaction for the more mature gent as it is about making stuff.
Has anyone on here tried setting up anything along the lines of the American style maker space, big room, proper machinery and broad spectrum of users?
Hack Space? One in Nottingham I used to use.
APF
Depends if the demand is there really what sort of thing would you use it for?
I use a garage where I can rent a ramp and tools to work on my car and that seems to be quite popular...
We've got one in Swindon, it's taking off here.
We have a nice space here in Bristol. Its in a bigger building including lots of little artists units so overall its a good complex. The actual maker space is quite small, two rooms, one for electronics and one for model making. I do think about joining but I have pretty good facilities at home. I do also think about sharing my space with others and it would be nice but probably when I'm doing I'm a bit less paid work and a bit more tinkering. I've also found a couple of places that will let me use their specialist equipment. It would be good to find more of that. It is there but nothing like the scale in the US.
Artisans Asylum is amazing
I’d love to use one, there is a good one in Newcastle, but for me it is just a matter of spare time so I just tinker with smaller things at home.
i do go to Maker Faire UK every year though, which is always good, feeds my tinkering and inspires the kids.
I’m always on the look out for a shared storage & workshop space in Bristol - nothing ever seems to come up - plenty of places doing something approaching my needs but I’m not keen on leaving kit in spaces which are just boxed off in shutter-ply and open topped.
We've got one in Reading too...
Maklab in Glasgow seems to be going from strength to strength
Scotland and Ireland both have a good tradition of open access studio for artists - the Sculpture Factory in Cork and similar facilities in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeenshire. A good network of print studios too.
Its the sort of thing Library Services should now be looking at - access to the written word is so much easier now but access to 'space 'and 'things' is now whats at a premium. Manchester Central Library has drum kits pianos and DJ Equipment for its members to use. I don't see why a library wouldn't have a table saw, a mig welder or house a bronze foundry.
Just spent 30 mins on a reply but it disappeared on the third edit. New forum, new danger!
in short - we have a 'repair café popup locally once a month in a Friends Meeting Hall, its proving to be very successful - what about combining a maker space with this idea? See below
https://repaircafe.org/en/about/
Grinders and foundries etc in libraries is a great idea, but someone will always complain 😉
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #eeeeee;">Maklab in Glasgow seems to be going from strength to strength</span>
Possibly not? Just googled it to see what kind of equipment these places offer & it says “permanently closed”... looks like it might’ve been shut for almost a year...
I guess cost is the main factor, as decent/interesting kit is prohibitively expensive (CNC equipment etc), even “basic” tools like lathes, drills etc will not be cheap. Plus you have insurance/liability issues, and do you charge people if they snap a tool or blade etc? You can’t really just let people loose on equipment without training/supervision of some kind.
I have some CNC kit at work, big printers etc, very easy to snap a £50 blade etc or crash a £1300 printhead (fortunately never done that) while you’re learning how to use it properly. Even hand or power tool breakage can get expensive!
Shame though as it’s something I’d definitely use/support if there were anything locally.
it says “permanently closed”
I must have had my head in a bucket for the last year - thats a shame.
I guess what makes that more cutting edge / new media /materials arena tricky is today's unobtainable bleeding edge technology is supplanted by something everyone can buy on amazon tomorrow.
I remember a reprographics company my brother worked for nearly folded because their biggest client stopped sending work their way - the reason? They'd bought themselves an A3 printer from Curry's.
With more traditional processes - theres always a constant stream of serviceable machinery if you just have a space where you can put it (you could have a couple of big lathes and milling machines from my place if you can move them for instance)
I'd say the best way anyone could get something like this off the ground locally would be to approach their local schools and colleges - they'll all have a woodwork shop at least and most will have a decent smattering of CNC / rapid prototype stuff. Maybe they could be talked into running a saturday club.
If you could find the right person in the LEA to needle you could even whisk up something more involving. Back in the late 80s my dad worked with a school that was winding down for closure - they'd stopped taking in new year groups so year by year they had more and more empty rooms. From across the LEA he arranged for any spare or obsolete machine, computer or bench to get send to this school and set up in an empty class room.
When the school finally did close he piped up 'Hang on - whats going to happen to the Resource Centre?'
'What?'
'The Resource Centre - its where teachers and pupils from all across the region can go if they've got a specialist project to do - take part in Robot Wars - build a school yacht - thats too big to accomplish in the classroom'
"We have one of those?"
"Yes"
"Shit - we better build a new one then"
And they did 😆
"Even hand or power tool breakage can get expensive!"
Not to mention bloody dangerous...!
Have seen many presumably competent people nearly lose an eye, finger or break their wrist just using a 12v cordless drill... Not to mention the number of near misses whilst using a table as, chop saw, router, skill saw or even standing drill.
Would guess the main reason/difficulty in setting up a public workshop is the liability.
And, as mentioned above, if anything goes wrong /breaks it could get very expensive very quickly and mean the place is essentially shut down.
You'd probably need at least one clued up person there at all times supervising and instructing people on the proper use of the tools.
We have a maker space in our building.
http://futurecities.catapult.org.uk/
I'm not sure how you can use it as a member of the public though.
(I am not employed by the FCC or UIC, either)
Crikey I've no idea what happened above there, I only pasted a link!
https://herefordmake.wordpress.com
I've been trying, with some difficulty, to book some time there to make a poker. It's proving frustrating, but that is probably due to H&S issues and liability.
The thought came up because I've been following a DIY speaker group on facebook for a while and whenever the question of cabinet construction crops up someone will chip in with "just go to your local maker space". Now I can see all the problems with letting inexperienced or infrequent users loose on machinery and like alpin says even hand tools can bite back easily enough.
It does seem that liability (perceived or genuine) is the real deal breaker.
The real bit I'm not seeing is why these things appear to work in the US, which hardly has a relaxed attitude to litigation. Do they have a higher acceptance of personal risk than we do in the UK that allows these places to work?
I cant see the liability being too much of an issue with insurance etc...
If I can be let lose with an angle grinder and other powertools with my car balancing over my head* can see why you couldn't do the same for other purposes.
*Although Barry did give me some goggles to wear when I asked for the grinder (I find Barry a very reassuring name in this circumstance)
Just watched the Artisans Asylum video. That place is incredible, seems to function on a combination of paid membership and courses. Seems perfect.
Looks amazing! Not cheap though, $190/month for unlimited access, plus pay per minute for CNC equipment
Can you imagine what the rent/rates would be like on a 40k sq ft facility in a UK city 😆
Now I can see all the problems with letting inexperienced or infrequent users loose on machinery and like alpin says even hand tools can bite back easily enough.
its not really an issue at all - places like the ones I've mentioned above have run for decades. You join on a membership basis, you don't get to use the equipment until you've had an induction, theres a technician on hand if you're unsure about anything. Simple enough.
Schools and colleges manage to operate workshops on the same basis and they'll have thirty odd people using the worship all at once rather than just two or three.
Theres no way I would let just anyone use a lathe. And even if they had 1:1 instruction so they didn't hurt themselves it would be cheaper / quicker to just pay someone to do it anyway.
Theres no way I would let just anyone use a lathe. And even if they had 1:1 instruction so they didn’t hurt themselves it would be cheaper / quicker to just pay someone to do it anyway.
I used them at school and at art college. What qualities did I have as child that I've lost as an adult?
Aside from the art spaces that have equipment quite a lot local Enterprise / Business support services have* open access engineering workshops for people prototyping and developing new products.
*(that actually might be 'had' as the first I became aware of them was when the one local to me was being auctioned off as an early victim of 'austerity'.)
If you use the phrase "communal workshop" then not only would normal people know what you were talking about, it would have the added bonus of not making you sound like a [i]heavily edited end of sentence.[/i]
😀
There's a Repair Cafe close to me.
As I'm a furniture maker and Bicycle Repair Man, I went along to help last year. There's a bit of social housing in the area and I expected there would be a queue of people who couldn't afford to get stuff repaired.
How wrong I was.
I was one of the only people there with any real repair skills and I was kept busy all morning.
But the real disappointment was that the only "customers" were middle class members of the local church (it was held at the church hall) who must have scoured their homes for something that could be classed as broken. I'm sure most of them could have done the repair themselves but they thought it would be nice to give us something to do.