Applied Intelligence

When I walk through M5, I sometimes spot things that could work better. Now that I’ve got the skills to fix some of these issues, I try to help before anyone even mentions it. Since I run the machine shop, I feel like it’s part of my job to stay ahead and make sure things run without issue

One thing I noticed was that the ElectronicaLab was still using a temporary door block to stop non-members from barging in, especially during recording or practice sessions.

As you can see, it already looks fine, but it could look just that little bit better

I drafted up some ideas in my head and got to work

I cut a new board out of nicer wood, you can see some tricks I used to get a better cut. I first wrapped where I wanted to cut with some painters tape, this prevents something called Tear out this is when the saw pulls out the wood grains instead of cutting them and then leaves a really bad edge on the cut, next I used a sacrificial piece of scrap wood to clamp the wood down to avoid marring (ruining the finish of) the surface.

I took that now much nicer type of wood and put some metal tabs on to attach papers with a magnet. The previous brackets seemed out of place so after some help from Alex Reineke, we even got new holds for the bar to put those final touches on.

Learning how to do something is just the starting point. The real growth comes when you take that knowledge and use it in new situations. This is something I relearn everyday, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon