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We went back to Gabe Pari’s shop in Upland, CA. on Sat.April 9 and a good sized group showed up. Gabe’s shop is always full of his latest version(s) of the “teardrop trailers”which he builds, and he was in full scale production right up until the day of the Camp.
Unlike most of our previous Camps this one was almost a 50/50 mix of first timers, and “old hands”, so we had a lot of questions, and a lot of good answers for those questions.
The sessions started with an overview of new things going on since our last Camp such as the release of the new “Desktop”machine, the latest in software, and some of the new after market devices such as the “pressure foot”.
We spent some time on the concept of developing a Shopbot business, and spoke about some of the ways people at the Camp were using their machines to make a living. There were people at the Camp who made model railroad ” buildings” and accessories. We had some sign makers, a few prototypers, some cabinet makers ,and a bunch of people who did personal projects with their machines.
After lunch Robert Chubb did a session about ways to square the gantry on older Shopbots.
A CNC instructor from the local community college showed up and spoke about local classes in CNC that were being offered.
Gabe spoke about a vacuum jig he built for doing quick projects that wouldn’t be practical with his large roots blower system.
There were a number of good show and tell items brought in that ranged from some extremely well done “buildings” in small railroad scale by Ross and Sue Piper in which they actually carved ( and grouted) Precision Board to look like a true brick building.
Jay Leslie ( ” Magic” on the Forum) brought in some great lithophanes, door panels, and a few signs which he has created in the last year.
Rod Wiens showed off a few wooden dishes he carved in panels glued up from pine, purple heart, and zebra wood.
Phil Mulligan brought in a tool he created that is half collet wrench, half bottle opener.
And this year Gabe had a ” bridge building challenge” event in which there were 3 ” official entries” by Bob Chubb, Coleman Becker, and Doug Dodd (and one historical reproduction of a Leonardo Da Vinci version from www.rlt.com…). The bridges were all made from a single 5′ by 5′ sheet of 1/8″ plywood, and the ” winning bridge” was built by Doug Dodd which was able to fully support a total of 575 pounds without breaking !
Gabe ran his machine and vacuum setup to show the first timers the advantages of having such a system in place. And the balance of the afternoon was spent covering individual questions ranging from bit selection hints, to software options.
We covered a lot of ground, and I think a lot of the newer owners in the group were able to network with some more experienced users. In fact we started a SoCal User group which will hopefully give people a way to continue this enthusiasm through the upcoming year….
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