October 2023 Newsletter

Monthly Membership Meeting

   November 1 7:30pm to 8:30pm

7pm for social and goofing off

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Leesburg Workday November 11 9am - 2pm

check the white board in the main room for additional tasks

Purcellville Workday November 4  9am - 2pm

There's something for everyone - get those volunteer hours in!

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New Member Orientation

November 6 & 20

In Person MS-L  6:30-8 pm

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Monthly Social 

MSP Nov12 4pm-7pm

theme TBD

Election Update and Reminder!

Bev Murdock

We have two hardworking MS volunteers who are running to fill the remaining term of our open Board seat (Bo Wernick and Jennifer Chu).  They'll have the opportunity to address the membership in the meeting next week, so be sure and attend!  Starting 11/1 watch for an email to the address of the registered voter(s) on your membership.  It will come from OpaVote.  The voting invite is unique to the email address.  Voting will close 11/8 with the results announced the next day.

• 11/1/2023 - Next Regular meeting

• Each nominee will be given an opportunity to address the membership

• 11/1/2023 - Voting Opens

• We will be using OpaVote
• Each voting member will receive an invite (specific to them) to vote online
• Paper ballots will also be available upon request if accommodations are needed

• 11/8/2023 - Voting Closes

• Providing Members 1 week for online voting
• Quorum will be confirmed (from proxy forms) – 1/3 of voting members
• Voting will be closed and votes will be tallied
• New Board Member will be announced, duties to commence immediately

Makersmiths Education Initiatives

Pictured is the High School Solar team, Neighborhood WATTS at the KidWind National Challenge in Boulder, CO in May 2023. The team won the Innovation Award

Purcellville Updates! 

There's a lot going on at MS-P these days! Not only are they getting a laser cutter of their very own, but there is some facility updating in the works. At the October Board Meeting, the Board approved $11,995 to cover: 

• Install hot water heater for the Green Room
• Repair rotten lumber on the front of the building and install a wall and overhead door on the end bay
• Replace welding and powdercoating bay doors with overhead doors
• Install a better looking floor in the Green Room
• Install new cabinets and countertops in the Green Room – cabinet making class to come where the product will be the cabinets for the Green Room
• Replace the router table
• Refurbish the table saw
• Budget to support moving some equipment from Leesburg to the Purcellville metal shop

Some items to look forward to in the future include: 

• Repair the front gate
• Seal the roof and install paint booth exhaust
• Install soffits and vents around the roof to keep critters out
• Clean out the attic and replace insulation
• Mini-splits in the lower classroom and green room
• Parts for the 37” Oliver Belt Sander
• Replace the Miter Saw

The Board also approved the following motions: 

• Sell 2 of the 4 Lincoln Electric Fume Extractors to make more space in the welding shop
• Add a machine use charge for the 37” Oliver Belt Sander. The 16/32 Jet Drum Sander is free so please use that tool when it is more appropriate to do so. The fee will be added to the iPad payment system in the Green Room and signage will be added to the machine to display the new charge.
• Setup a consumable purchase kiosk at Purcellville which will hold consumables in small quantities people regularly need or may be more difficult to find. Payment will be made via the iPad payment system in the Green Room.

As always, if you use the Purcellville facility and want to make suggestions about improvements, tools etc. or volunteer for specific tasks, please contact the facility steward (Dave Painter), the relevant room steward, (posted on the wiki and listed in the newsletter) or a Director to discuss. 

Your email provider may be cutting off the end of your newsletter! Be sure to click "View Entire Message" if you are seeing "[Message clipped]" at the bottom of your newsletter

and now a word from our members...

Compliments to Skip for providing “Wine and Welding” last Saturday.  His friendly, encouraging style explained new or complicated concepts in a way that novices could understand and gave my Spouse and I a terrific introduction.  Skip invited us to use our imagination and instead of making a wine rack, we opted to to create this wreath.  He inspired us to continue practicing and pursue learning more.

Thanks to all of the people who do so much to sustain this great community and help keep these valuable facilities and equipment available.

~Don Jurczyk  

I heard...

Makersmith Member Jim Waldron won the first ever Makersmith Chili Cookoff at MS-L's Social this month! Can we get a recipe?

Congratulations!

did you know...

you can find the newsletters from the last several years archived on our website?

Exciting Laser Cutter News!

Scott Silvers

With our tried and true ULS laser cutter starting to show its age, the Board of Directors approved the purchase of two new Thunder Lasers at the September meeting. The first laser, a 60 watt Thunder Nova 24 for Purcellville, has a 23.6" x 15.7" x 6.1" bed. It is currently at Leesburg where it is undergoing testing and allowing our Stewards to develop new training materials. The second laser, a 100 watt Thunder Nova 51 for Leesburg, has a 51.2" x 35.4" x 9.1" bed. Both lasers will have rotary tools and multiple lens options for cutting and engraving. The most exciting new feature on the Nova 51 is pass through capability which allows the use of longer materials. The Nova 51 is capable of handling up to a 4′ x 8′ sheet!

Along with the new lasers comes new software. Thunder Laser uses LightBurn to interface with the machine. LightBurn gives the ability to control the laser settings as well as create and edit your designs. You can download a free 30 day trial version from the Lightburn website and view numerous tutorial videos on their YouTube channel.

New machines and new software mean new Red Tool Training. The ULS Laser is our most popular tool, so there are a lot of people to train. Your existing Red Tool authorization for the ULS does not cover the use of these new lasers. Everyone will be required to take the new training class in order to use the new machines.

There will be separate Intro, Rotary, and Advanced classes. Train the trainer classes are taking place now. Intro classes should start appearing on the Events calendar in early to mid November. Members who have already been trained on the ULS will receive a discount on the new training. Please be patient with us as we work to get everyone up to speed.

Metal Shop Updates

Brad Hess

The Makersmiths board has approved funding to update the metal shop in leesburg and add additional functionality.  Over the next couple of weeks the metal shop will receive the following changes:

1. Removed unused lathe, vertical mill and horizontal mill and set them up in Purcellville where we have the proper power to utilize the machines
2. Setup new tables, pegboards and workstations on the perimeter of the room
3. Setup an anodizing station for anodizing aluminum parts
4. Setup a powder coating station for powder coating small parts
5. Setup a small sandblast cabinet
6. Setup a polishing station with several buffing wheels
7. Setup a tumbler for polishing parts
8. Setup a jewelry workbench with tools and vises
9. Setup the injection model with it's own dedicated space and instructions
10. Setup the mini tormach with it's own dedicated space

Halloween House Winner from Makersmiths!

Diane Painter

I thought it would be fun to teach a Cricut class that would involve family members, especially children, to make a project. I settled on the idea of making Putz houses. These tiny houses are made of cardboard and began in Germany about 130 years ago as a way to decorate fireplace mantles at Christmas. So in September, I met with several members to create Bavarian houses and in September and October, I taught Cricut classes so members could create tiny houses that could be decorated as spooky Halloween houses, or have a fall theme such as Thanksgiving houses. We used tiny house templates from Paper, Glitter, Glue and Dreaming Tree SVG websites with the Cricut machines located at the Makersmiths Purcellville and Leesburg sites.

The Paper, Glitter, Glue website holds an annual tiny house Halloween house contest, so I encouraged our members to submit entries! I am pleased to say four entries were submitted from our membership. Two adults and two children took pictures of their houses and submitted their pictures to the contest.

I am very pleased to announce that Madeline (i.e. Lane) Waldron won the Whimsical Award!  Please visit Paper,Glitter,Glue and look for  my entry #2 (Diane’s Macabre Manor); entry #37 (Abriana’s Spooky House- my grandchild); and, and entry #33 (Audrey’s Spider Mansion- she is the daughter of Dennise Magill).

Wouldn’t it be fun to have more Makersmiths members enter this contest next year? 

An open letter to all users of the wood shop in Purcellville

Dave Painter

We have been dealing with a rash of maintenance issues over the last several weeks so I'd like to remind everyone that when using the jointer, planer and/or wide belt sander

we do not allow

• recycled wood
• pallet wood
• Any wood with loose knots or other defects
• stained, finished or painted wood
• wood with bark still on it

In addition, when processing wood that has been glued together (ie: cutting boards, glued up door panels or table tops), you must be absolutely certain the glue is completely dry and you have cleaned off ALL glue squeeze out. There must not be any visible glue on the surface of your work piece when you use our machines.

Remember that your work piece must be at least 19 inches long in order to safely use all three of these machines.

Some members who have used the planer recently have complained that it is not feeding properly. This is because both follow rollers were jammed with large slivers of wood and broken pieces of knots and were therefore unable to turn.  It is now working properly.

Please be courteous to your fellow members and observe these rules. They are in place for the safety of members and the good working order of our equipment.

'Tis the Season!

Check out some Holiday Maker Classes

Turkey Topper-Thank You Card Workshop

On Nov 18 at MS-P, join us for this "how to use" the Cricut CNC to create a Turkey Topper for a wine bottle (or it can also be a place card at the dinner table). We will also create a thank you card that you can give to your Thanksgiving Dinner host.  This class is intended for beginner or intermediate Cricut users who want to learn how to use a Cricut CNC to create projects using card stock. Makersmiths has a Cricut CNC at each location for members and their guests to use. So why not learn how to use them?

Please register at https://makersmiths.org/event-5429999

In this workshop that will be held in the Green Room at Makersmiths Purcellville, we will use free templates from the Dreaming Tree SVG website. This workshop is designed to help the novice or intermediate user of Cricut machines learn how to use a Cricut CNC as they import a project template into Cricut Design Space software that is free to load into your laptop computer. We will learn the difference between cut lines and score lines, how to perform the attach function, and how to assemble the parts we cut using tacky glue. This will be a fun project to do with kids.

What do you need to bring? Bring a laptop with Cricut Design Space software already loaded. It runs on WIN or Mac computers.  Don't worry- your instructor will show you how to download the files you will use in Cricut Design Space. We will have three Cricut machines to use in the workshop, but if you have one, be sure to bring it!

For each registrant willing to share a Cricut, the registrant may bring a child or spouse as a helper.

We will supply the card stock and glue needed to cut your pieces that you will assemble. It will make a fun family project!

Holiday Gift Soap Making Workshop

This is a special holiday workshop on Dec 10 at MS-P’s Green Room from 1:30-3:00 PM for families to make lavender-chamomile, honey-almond-oatmeal and glycerin soaps as holiday gifts. We will use a melt and pour process, adding a variety of scents and lavender or honey made locally. We will pour the soap into molds that will create fun shapes that anyone will love to use. Participants will receive a silicone soap-making mold and set of instructions to take with them so they can continue to make soaps on their own at home. These soaps make great stocking stuffer gifts!

For every registered adult, a child or two may come as helpers! Please register at https://makersmiths.org/event-5432805

We will meet in the main room at Makersmiths Purcellville's Green Room. Contact the instructor, Diane.Painter@makersmiths.org

For Makersmiths Members

This is a combined MSP-MSL members social on December 10 beginning at 4pm held at MS-P's Green Room for a Secret Santa gift swap (something you made with materials costing $20 or less). Please fill out the free registration so we know how many plan to attend and swap a present they made. It also helps to plan refreshments. The event is co-hosted by Diane Painter and Jennifer Chu. Please register at https://makersmiths.org/event-5445011

How will this gift swap work? Folks coming to this social would pre-make an item (keeping the construction cost under $20). They put their wrapped gifts on a center table and pick a folded piece of paper from a bowl that gives them a selection number.  The person with number 1 goes first and chooses a gift and unwraps it. The person has to guess who made it. Person #2 picks a gift but before unwrapping it, chooses to keep it or may choose to take person #1's gift. If person #2 does that, then person #1 gets person #2's unwrapped picked gift. When doing so, person #1 unwraps the picked #2 gift and has to guess who made that gift. Now person #3 gets to pick a gift and before unwrapping it, can choose to swap the picked gift for gift #1 or #2. We keep going like this until all gifts are chosen and swapped. 

Questions? Contact Diane.Painter@makersmiths.org

Holiday Make and Take Ornament

The ceramics studio is hosting a holiday ornament workshop. Bring your cookie cutters, or 3D print a new one and join us for an evening of merriment, gift making, and getting our hands dirty. We have about 100 cookie cutters that need some love, so lets slab roll and cut some holiday cheer. You can return anytime to glaze your pieces and we will fire them for you. Hope to see you there!

~ Bo Wernick

Intro to Pottery Wheel

Come join us for an evening of spinning chunks of clay. We have posted a new pottery wheel intro class on November 29th. Participants will learn the basics of using a pottery wheel. Techniques include centering the clay, pulling up the edges, trimming the lip and base, and some fun extras like adding texture.

~ Bo Wernick

Makersmith Visibility

Maker Diane Painter took Makersmiths on the road to Catoctin Elementary School and the Middleburg Library this month! At Catoctin Elementary, the kids had a blast with Ralph's gear wall and marble maze. Diane featured a number of maker items from the laser cutter, 3D Printer, and Cricut CNC. During the hands-on portion, the children made a paper daisy and learned to use a quill tool. 

At the Middleburg Library, she gave a Cricut Demo Workshop enjoyed by 3 adults and 2 children.

Did you know...

Makersmiths has a blog on their home page? 

Makersmiths is on Instagram?

Makersmiths has a YouTube page?

The Newsletter could always use some new blood - share your projects, pitch some article ideas, tell me about something cool you've seen in your Maker travels! 

Red Tool Classes are an important step in your Maker journey!

MS-L

Red Tool Woodworking - 11/2

Electronics Night - 11/2, 11/16, 11/30

Chess Night - 11/6

Intro to 3D Printing FDM - 11/7

KidWind Information Meeting - 11/11

Red Tool Training for Woodturning Using a Lathe - 11/14

Streaming Internet Audio via RaspberryPi - 11/14

Private Scouting Event - 11/15

Monthly Social - 

MS-P

Red Tool Woodworking Basics - 11/9

Ceramics Holiday Ornaments Workshop - 11/9

Red Tool Woodworking Adv - 11/12

Red Tool Metalworking Basics - 11/15

How to use the Cricut to make a Turkey Topper - 11/18

Wine and Welding - 11/18

Pottery Wheel Basics - 11/29

Monthly Social - November 12

Makersmiths runs on volunteers!

Consider teaching a class or holding a workshop

check out the #class_planning_and_requests channel on Slack and join a meeting to get some help with your idea!

check back on the website - new classes are added all the time

TOOL AUTHORIZATION GROUPS

Dean Williamson

Makersmiths has lots of cool and useful tools, machines, and equipment.  Many of them require training or authorization before you can use the equipment.  The training can be as simple as an orientation, to a more formal “red tool” class, to demonstrating proficiency to the tool steward.  Such mandatory training helps ensure that all users understand how to use the equipment properly and safely, thus helping to keep the equipment running smoothly and minimize maintenance downtime as well as ensuring the safety of our members.

Below is a list of the tool groups which require training and for which we are tracking authorizations, or tool “sign-offs”. The tool steward(s) are listed next to each tool group, along with the method by which to get authorized to use the tools independently. Please contact the steward for more information about each tool. This list is not exhaustive of the tools available at Makersmiths and is updated regularly as we get new equipment or as needed.

The most current version of this list is posted on the Makersmiths wiki under “Tools, Materials & Training”.  Please check out the list.  You might discover a new tool that you didn’t realize Makersmiths had.

Makersmiths Leesburg: 106 Royal St SW, Leesburg, VA 20175

Makersmiths Purcellville: 785 S. 20th St, Purcellville, VA 20132