Ed Harrall hosted our Washburn, MO Camp in his shop at the Southwest High School on Saturday, May 31st.
Due to airline scheduling I managed to get into the NW Arkansas regional airport ( also known as “air Wal Mart” due to it’s location in Bentonville, AR) a full day early and this gave me a chance to drive through Northern Arkansas and visit Ken Zey’s shop in Rogers, AR.
Ken and his family have a great business ( “Lookout Mercantile”) where he has not only a full working shop, but also a retail/wholesale business on site as well. Ken’s been using his Shopbot for a number of years, and he’s developed an extensive product line ranging from signs, to custom cedar furniture. And he’s also established a great supply chain of unique wood so his products are even more impressive.
From Rogers I took Ken’s advice and drove through and around the Beaver Lake (67 miles long) area, and up into Missouri. They have had an exceptionally wet Spring this year, and the lake was really well above normal levels. It also made the entire region a lush green blanket of foliage.
On Saturday a bunch of us met in the parking lot of Southwest High School , since none of us could find Ed’s shop ( they had just taken over some new buildings and he hasn’t had the chance to add signage to them all yet…). Once we figured out where the shop was we got organized and covered a bunch of the topics which seem to be the most “universal” in terms of interest.
This particular group was made up largely of educators, and sign makers, and there were some great pieces brought in for the “Show and Tell”session.
Ed has assembled a pretty complete shop, and he’s using a 4’by 4′ Shopbot to teach with. His students are doing a wide range of projects in his classes, and even though it’s a relatively small district they sure get an extensive exposure to technology. They even had a great project car in the shop which his students built to enter a fuel economy contest.
Kent Hannah, Ken Zey, and Jay Nicolaides brought in some interesting pieces ( all of which are posted on our “Flickr”page which is at; http://www.flickr.com/photos/campshopbot/ )
Some of the more interesting projects were Kent’s turning projects, his Corian “molds”, and his carved wooden neck tie.
Jay did a sign using a “Fleckstone” finish that had different visual effects depending on the distance from which you viewed it.
And Ken brought in some signage made of redwood, as well as a piece of granite which was sandblasted through a “mask” he created on his Shopbot.
There was some good interchange of info, including locations to purchase materials people were looking for (such as Trupan..), so I think everyone came away from the Camp with some new views on ways to use their machines.
On the way back to the airport I dodged a number of major thunderstorms, only to get caught up in one as I tried to make it from the rental car return lot, to the terminal ( an open lot across a field…) so I flew back home slightly water logged.
Thanks again to Ed for hosting this one !
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