We held our 5th annual Austin,TX. Camp at Wayne Locke’s shop on Fri/Sat March 7th and 8th. Wayne got a great turnout ( for both days) and as usual the “Show and Tell” items which the “Campers” brought in were great ! We had everything from carved signs to carved STEEL (!).
There were presentations which covered a wide range of techniques and materials, and each year the skill levels keep getting better and better.
This year we had the following;
Kit Schweitzer showed off some pieces which included a beautiful baby cradle which looked like something you’d see at the Museum of Natural History, as well as a STEEL “arrowhead” he carved using a Porter Cable router…(!)
Mike Gilley showed off a VERY unusual carved “hemisphere table base” and explained his techniques for laying out the file, as well as holding it in place for the cuts. He also had a great carved table leg that went with the base.
Ken Shirey showed off some small air activated rollers for material handling which allow him to load large sheets onto his table single handed.
Don Chapman did a presentation on sign making and brought in multiple samples to explain his processes.
Grant Bailey spoke about using the Shopbot to cut a variety of metal products. ( He also had the best line of the day which was “metal hates you, and knows you are afraid”…)
Gary Beckwith gave a demonstration on Artcam Pro 2008
Brett Dickinson spoke about the use of Shopbots in the Texas school systems
Santiago Laverde showed some of his carvings, and also taught us about some great, FREE programs for doing web pages, etc.
Gary Norman brought in some of his Texas branded products
James and Jo Anne Gilliam each showed off some of the products they have been making
Scott Cox did a session on using the Shopbot Indexer to turn a variety of shapes
Ken Picou explained how he uses his machine to make parts for his products, and he also spoke about using vacuum jigs on his bench top machine.
Our host ,Wayne Locke spoke briefly about using the indexer, as well as vacuum bagging some of the shapes he creates on his ‘Bot.
And the lunch was all Texas- some great fajitas…
We’ll have pictures of many of these projects posted on the Shopbot Flickr page if you’d like to see them; http://www.flickr.com/photos/campshopbot/
(There is a direct link to the Flickr page at the top of this page as well)
Leave a Reply