Glad to see a GREAT new Maker Space open in SOMA San Francisco!
I signed up for Humanmade on opening day, and was pleased to see a GREAT staff, made up of "ALL STAR" veteran workers, from my beloved, now defunct, Tech Shop SF. I was quickly checked out, at no cost (as I had previously taken TS SBU's) on the lasers, ShopBots, woodworking, welding and metal working, etc. SIZE MATTERS! Happy to see both Epilog and ULS lasers systems, 2 BIG, NEW, 4'X10' AND 5'X10' ShopBots and 2 new CNC Tormach mills. TWO BIG bed 32"X48" 120 WATT Epilogs are coming soon. These lasers can can through 1/4" plywood with one pass, or 1/2" acrylic with two passes. These are industrial strength tools. The space, is near SFCB, San Francisco Center For the Book (a maker space for letterpress printing and book making), in a nice safe clean neighborhood...NOT in the "Hood" like TSSF on 6th Street and Howard SF. The air filtration/laser exhaust and wood dust collector systems are well designed and powerful. I took a refresher class on the ShopBot and Seth showed me "tips and pointers" on milling acrylic. This staff has a lot of valuable "tribal knowledge", with experienced old timers like Curtis and smart young workers like Vadim, and great teachers like Jasper & Seth. It was nice to see my former TSSF maker friends wandering in to join the new space. It was cool to see new computers, with BIG screens, with USB ports that actually work. Looking forward to using all of the new CNC equipment. I am also a "Create Member" at The Crucible in Oakland, where I have access to a foundry, blacksmith shop, neon, glass blowing etc.. So I feel spoiled, I have access to the modern CAD/CNC tools at Humanmade and the old school Medieval tools at The Crucible. I plan to ShopBot wood/mdf patterns at Humanmade and sand cast them in aluminum, bronze of iron at The Crucible read more