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It’s TIME!

By now, you’ve probably heard the news…  The Brickyard Collaborative, the first fully equipped Makerspace on the North Shore, finally has a home! 

We’ll be able to start moving in on Feb 1st, and we’re going to start having workshops and making stuff available to members almost immediately.  We’ve also got our Membership page together on the site, you can find that here: Membership

Of course, this is all still a work in progress, but here are some of the details:

What do we have? 

We have a complete wood shop, metal shop, photography studio (film and digital), video and sound editing studio, automotive, motorcycle and bicycle repair shop, electronics and robotics lab, with growing facilities for rapid prototyping, printmaking, finishing, and biotech hacking, along with complete co-working facilities.  For the full list, updated frequently, see this page: Makerspace/Coworking Space. 

We also are hard at work putting together the list for the MassDEV Fit-Out Grant, and that will include more electronics tools, a laser cutter, letterpress equipment, a wide-format Epson printer…  fun stuff!

We’ll be located in a clean, secure, ground-floor, light industrial and warehouse facility in West Lynn, on the banks of the Saugus River, with easy access to Route I95, and ground-floor garage door and loading dock access. 

Check out the membership levels, and for a very limited time we’ll be offering a 20% discount across the board.  Here’s that link again: Membership  This is a chance to get in on the ground floor, and help put together the makerspace that you want to see.

If you’re ready to jump on board, or if you want more information, let’s talk.  Shoot us an email, let’s set up a time we can get together and, after Feb 1, walk through the space and see what we’re putting together.  As soon as possible we’ll be putting an Open House together with a regular schedule for meetings, tours and introductions.

Hang on…  it’s going to be a great ride!

Here’s the address and our contact information:

  • The Brickyard Collaborative,
  • 71 Linden Street, Unit 105C,
  • Lynn, MA 01905

978 621 5178

Keep making stuff. Take care of people, play nice and clean up after yourselves.

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It’s Official! The Lease is Signed!

That’s right. The Brickyard Collaborative has a home!

After months of work behind the scenes, we were finally able to work out a deal with the landlord at 71 Linden Street, over in West Lynn near the Saugus River for 3600 square feet of warehouse/industrial space. It’s a space we can use immediately, as well as grow into for the future.

The photo above shows you part of the unit we’ll be in – we’re taking a portion of a 12,000 square foot space, ground floor, with garage door and loading dock access. We’ll be moving in on February 1st.

We’re looking at floorplans and designs, but we’re interested in keeping a nice open space… we’ll talk more about that when our feet touch the ground again – you know – coming back down to earth. In the meantime, keep your datebook open some moving-in fun and a party early in February!

It’s been almost a full year since we introduced The Brickyard Collaborative at our Stakeholders Meeting, and we’ve made so much progress it’s mind-boggling. This starts a new chapter. Memberships, classes, space rentals and more.

Now. Where’s that bubbly?

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3D Printer Filaments

Happy New Year!

We’re starting out 2019 with a brand-new 3D printer (THANK YOU SANTA), and are checking back in to what’s available for printing materials. If you’re new to the 3D printing world, let’s just say it’s a fast-changing landscape – last time we looked was about a year ago, and there’s a whole raft of new materials.

We’ve found some awesome reference sites, but the most informative so far is the Matterhackers post, here. What’s new? Well, to us anyway, it’s the NylonX – a carbon-fiber infused Polyamide:

“NylonX 3D printing filament is an amazing, reinforced nylon filament. By adding micro-carbon fibers to nylon, you get a tough filament capable of printing parts with stiffness, impact resistance, and high tensile strength. NylonX filament is an engineering grade filament, ready for home 3D printing, which gives you the durability of Nylon combined with the stiffness of carbon fiber. The best part of NylonX is that the carbon fiber adds stability and rigidity, so parts are much less likely to warp than with standard nylon. With a unique matte black finish, NylonX eliminates post-print processing. Finished prints can immediately be moved to production with no sanding, polishing, scraping, or pesky acetone vapor baths. If you are already printing with Nylon, it’s time to upgrade to Nylon X. NylonX is available in both 1.75mm and 3mm. For tips and tricks on 3D printing NylonX, check out A Closer Look at 3D Printing with NylonX.

NylonX 3D Printing Filament Properties:

  • NylonX filament is strong like carbon fiber and durable like nylon.
  • Best used for tough functional parts, wear parts, and production-ready prints.
  • Printed parts come off the bed with zero post processing required.

Another game changer is the flexible materials – they’re not for beginners, but with this stuff you can go for anything that needs to have the properties of a rubber-like material:

PRO Series Flex is a TPE filament, which is a flexible 3D printing material that feels and acts much like flexible rubber. As with all PRO Series filaments, Flex is made in the USA to the tightest tolerances for precision 3D printing. PRO Series Flex can be used to make parts that can bend or must flex to fit their environment – stoppers, belts, springs, phone cases and more. This extremely flexible 3D printer material will allow you to create 3D prints that will have the properties of a soft rubber, making it even more flexible and elastic than our Soft PLA filament. Due to its flexibility, slower print speeds must be used to keep the filament from binding in the extruder. PRO Series Flex filament is available in 1.75mm and 3mm.

PRO Series Flex 3D Printing Filament Properties:

PRO Series Flex filament creates rubbery, elastic, and impact resistant parts.
Best used for stoppers, belts, caps, phone cases, bumpers and more.
The less infill you use, the more flexible your finished print will be.
For tips and tricks on 3D printing PRO Series Flex, check out How To Succeed When Printing With Flexible Filament.

Let the printing games begin!

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Updates! Updates!

How about an update?  Right?  Well alrighty then.  

Last we posted, we were sitting on pins and needles waiting on the status of two big grants.  Well, now, we got ourselves the contract for the HUD CDBG program (our award is $5000), we hastily called a Board Meeting to authorize us to sign the contract, and submitted it back to the City.  So THAT’s done, and we’re just waiting for the final notice.  

We did hear back on the MassDEP grant, and it’s kind of a good news/bad news thing.  They were very encouraging, but couldn’t back us this year, mostly due to the fact we didn’t have a space locked in.  From the inside story we got, it was killin’ them to have to deny us, and they emphatically encouraged us to apply next year.  You bet we will!  That was a hefty $73k grant that would be directly pointed at our recycling/upcycling efforts.

We’re getting down to the wire with the MassDevelopment grant ($56k) contract, and have made a ton of progress.  We got our inventory of equipment together along with valuations ($28K!!!).  We’re in negotiations with a building, and it’s kind of a “one step at a time” deal, but we’re right on target for the deadline.  When we confirm THAT little step, you can bet we’re going to start planning the party…  and imagine, we might even have a place to have a party!  

In the meantime, don’t forget about our Workshop Gift Certificate deal for your Makers on your list!  Check out the details here: CyberCertificates at The Brickyard