Joni Matthiessen
Our woodshop recently was closed for two weeks and underwent a much-needed revamp and upgrade. Our president, Dave Bassham, said, “The shop reorganization was a collaborative effort from a number of people. Joey Misiaszek and Bob Edson spent an inordinate amount of time developing the final draft of the shop layout to create a more efficient use of space and identify the changes needed to be made to the electrical system. Bob Zimmerman supervised the entire project and worked tirelessly throughout the process. A special thanks also to Mike Futscher for being there most every day and doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The rest of the Woodworkers Board (Dave Bassham, Frank Hunter, Kathy Dial, and Sue Wells) put in long hours to complete the project. Others that helped over the two-week period included Joey Misiaszek, Ross Mancuso, Bob Wilking, Ray Alvey, and sincere apologies but many thanks to anyone else who helped and didn’t make this list!”
The shop was completely re-wired and is now up to standard. The vacuum and dust collection system filters were sent away and cleaned during the two-week closure. The shop was totally remodeled to hopefully make the workflow much better for the small space we are allotted and the large number of members we have. There were a couple big machines that were sold to make room for new, safer machines. The new table saw has a riving knife which prevents kickback, making this saw much safer than the old one. The layout of the shop is much more efficient in that like machines are placed together. The lathes are all in a row, the sanding equipment is together, and the band saws are all in one area. The most impressive thing that happened though, besides being super organized, is that all the storage cabinets now have five pull out lower drawers to be able to see what is in each drawer. Before the pull-out drawers, there were items forever lost in the back of the shelf. Many of us older folk had trouble getting down there and being able to see all the way to the back. Now the drawers pull out and we can totally see what is in each drawer. There will be an open house in the Creative Arts and Technology Center building on Sunday, July 11, from noon until 4 p.m., so plan to stop in and see what a beautiful shop we have! By the way, we will have some very exciting things to give away, so come get your free raffle tickets!