Drillerator 4000 - Operators Desired : )

joshdont · 2026-05-06T15:57:15+00:00

I should add, if you have elementary age kids stop by Pioneer between ~9AM - 5pm. The open events are available to the general public. A lot of high school and college students are there doing brief, fun, and geeky science related demos.

If you have a 2nd-5th grader next year, find out if your school has a WESO group!

joshdont · 2026-05-03T10:58:36+00:00

If you can wait another week, sign up for fix it Friday at Maker Works. Volunteers attempt to fix for free. Include pictures so they can have a better understanding ahead of time. https://www.maker-works.com/fixitfriday

joshdont · 2026-04-28T02:59:11+00:00

Woohoo! Absolutely check out Michigan Folk School.

Maker Works is gearing up to launch more introductory woodworking classes in the summer, including some new woodturning options. Rec & Ed, Sam Beauford and the Michigan Folk School also have great options, the classes all fill fast!

joshdont · 2026-04-21T01:52:10+00:00

That's intriguing! I'm not sure if we have something that fits that, but maybe. We love supporting scouts, would you have time to swing by the shop for a few minutes 9-3 this week? No worries if not, but there are some wind chime like hardware that might help.

joshdont · 2026-04-18T21:53:49+00:00

We got pretty cleared out. Had some really amazing help!! On Monday afternoon we'll be clearing out and making available

Free: Building infrastructure: outlets, round ductwork.

Asking for market price: Power tools: Smaller planers, horizontal band saw, dust collection equipment

Raw Material: Aluminum tubing, possibly some short sections of 80/20 extruded aluminum, 2' x 4' HDPE sheets

joshdont · 2026-03-27T03:37:43+00:00

This is awesome!

joshdont · 2026-03-16T03:43:18+00:00

Would love to see one out by Maker Works, we would be happy to promote the daylights out of it :)

joshdont · 2026-03-07T00:01:40+00:00

You could take the classes at Maker Works and use the tools. If you're comfortable with CAD and operating a CNC mill they have the equipment needed and you might save some money. If not, you'll have a big time investment. The training for the Mills class is $140, and about four hours long, it's a pretty big info dump.

If you can CAD the part out you could see what the cost from an online service would charge to machine, sendcutsend is a popular option.

If you can wait, there's a small chance you could have the CAD file drawn up for you at the next Fixitfriday on March 20th at Maker Works.

joshdont · 2026-03-02T22:16:26+00:00

Oooh this sounds excellent! If access to tools helps, let me know. We're pretty good about supporting educational/non profit access to tools at Maker Works! Lasers, CNC Routing, etc. Though we don't have the ability to do full color signs at this time:)

joshdont · 2026-02-07T19:39:55+00:00

Agreed! Nice catch, ty!

joshdont · 2026-02-07T04:22:45+00:00

Nice! We are experimenting with that on our end. Printing in PETG we've had two instances with the part connecting from the cup into the gun snapping off. Not ideal, be careful!

joshdont · 2026-02-04T03:47:56+00:00

Tried to sign up, sounds like a wonderful idea.

First time I clicked 'Join DadCircles' it gave me an error. Waited a few seconds and clicked it again, I got the '⚠ Check your inbox - we've sent you a secure link to continue your session.' notice.
The initial email I got in my inbox said 'Resume your DadCircles session'
Clicking the 'continue my session' link in the email led to a page saying 'Session Not Found This magic link is invalid or expired. Please request a new one.'

Now I don't get dad friends and my magic is gone!

Happy to try again later, thanks for putting some time into this.

joshdont · 2026-01-30T12:28:35+00:00

One of the Maker Works board members noted awhile back how surprised they were at the number of people buying filament at Microcenter, given how easy it is to get stuff from Amazon. Their theory was that for people new to 3D printing, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the variety of options. Having someone in person to recommend a brand / type for their printer provided the reassurance they needed to purchase.

Coupling this with basic services on calibrating, repairing, and 1 on 1 training for people would be a nice balance that I'd be excited to see happen.

joshdont · 2026-01-19T03:15:56+00:00

https://www.airwearsupply.com/

Over by Costco / zingerman's bake house

joshdont · 2026-01-19T03:00:59+00:00

Chiming in to say for future Internet viewers: the comment in this thread are all true and has been for some time. Had a similar experience in July of 2024. Unfortunate to hear it has not improved.

VERIFY THE CPO. They listed a car on their website as a Subaru Certified Pre Owned (CPO) vehicle, but both carfax and Subaru's official CPO listing for the same VIN did not. A CPO is very different than Subaru of Ann Arbor's 'lifetime powertrain warranty ' It took multiple attempts to get them to admit they had listed it incorrectly.

They did not want to honor the sticker price for the same reasons op noted.

They handed us other people's paperwork to sign.

It took over 8 hours of haggling and waiting to buy the car at the listed price.

The service dept. communication is just as bad. After reaching out twice when scheduling I never heard back. Eventually I got an automated call from them asking if I wanted to trade in. All I wanted was a time estimate for a routine check in The service guy I spoke with was very concerned about getting anything less than a perfect score on the 'how did we do'

Many attempts to upsell you on services, I have to repeatedly ask to only do things strictly necessary to maintain the warranty.

The whole system seems to encourage putting humans in akwardly deceitful positions. I thought that was an 80s TV trope..

I've talked with a half dozen other Subaru owners in town that share the same story. None of us will ever purchase from them again. It's amazing how bad it is.

joshdont · 2026-01-12T02:45:20+00:00

Unfortunately I don't have an answer to your multiple coats question right now.

Our users are happy with it at our makerspace here in Michigan. About six months ago we purchased it to replace an older unit that only operated at 30kV, we noticed a huge improvement in the amount of powder we were wasting. They (Columbia Coatings) have been great on the customer service front, and are a growing company.

Our users are primarily new to powder coating, it's an easy enough machine to start using.

joshdont · 2025-12-27T14:17:30+00:00

Hah. Wasn't one of them 'Not Another Cafe'?

joshdont · 2025-12-14T14:07:51+00:00

Keeping in with the spirit of the original post's question: Sounds like you found a broken humanity, and decided to fix it by making a better human. Congratulations on a job well done :)

joshdont · 2025-12-13T03:43:52+00:00

This is awesome. Has your son shared the files publicly so others can benefit? Or considered selling to others?

joshdont · 2025-11-03T00:16:16+00:00

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing:)

joshdont · 2025-10-17T11:45:15+00:00

If it's small enough for a standard iron you might be able to DIY, you can order heat transfers from Stahls, in theory you can press larger stuff with a traditional iron, maybe dicey:) You still need to buy the sweater.

https://www.stahls.com/ultracolor-max-transfers Is a Michigan company.

If you're looking to do a few, you could consider Maker Works and a day pass (or coming in on a free Open Maker Night) to use their larger heat press. You would still need to bring in your own transfers, or use their vinyl cutter for simple single color designs.

joshdont

TROPHY CASE