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We’ve come a long way in a very short time.  A whole lot of that is from the help and support we’ve had from the community, the city, our fans and followers, and you.  Yes, you there.

Some of the things we’ve accomplished:

• We now have reached our target “Break Even” membership levels, and we did it in less than 9 months from opening our doors.  Talk to anybody who knows anything about a start-up, that’s just crazy.
• We have built some remarkable partnerships with groups in the community, including St. Pius V school’s robotics teams, KIPP Academy, The Community Path, the Lynn Cultural Council, GALA Art, and are making some inroads with the Lynn Public Schools including Lynn Tech, Montserrat College of Art, and more.
• We have launched and are growing the Repair Cafe, where people can bring in their broken appliances, toys, electronics, or what-have-you, and not only do we fix it, but we teach them how to diagnose and repair almost anything while we’re at it.  For free.
• We’ve expanded almost every area that we have – woodshop, metalworking, printing, electronics, robotics…  almost entirely by donations and salvaging reparable tools and equipment.

The list goes on.   But we’re not about patting ourselves on the back.  We’re about looking forward and moving ahead, to meet what the community is asking for.

Which brings us to “Giving Tuesday”.  We’re rolling along pretty well, but we could do a whole lot more with a little help from you.  Here are some of our monetary goals:

• $5000 – This would cover our rent and overhead for a couple of months, and allow us to use our existing revenue stream to invest in some additional tooling and services that would, in turn, help us to bring in more members. (Example: A PBC kit for our CNC router allows members to cut their own prototype circuit board designs on-site and test them. We have, currently, two groups interested in the space who would sign up if we had this tooling – it costs a mere $120.)
• $20,000 – This amount would help us explore expansion of our space, attracting more members and activating some commercial-grade equipment we currently own, but don’t have the space to operate – for example, a 5’ x 10’ CNC router, capable of handling full sheets of 4×8 plywood, which is currently in storage.
• $120,000 – $250,000 – Our most ambitious, yet pressing goal is to hire a core full-time staff with some part-time help in bookkeeping and maintenance, to allow them to fully maximize the potential we see for growth. Our targets – fully establish our class and workshop structure, maximize our community outreach by integrating partners who are interested in collaborating, and provide a more seamless experience for both members and class/workshop attendees.

Interested in chipping in?  Maybe even volunteering to teach a workshop or two?  Give us a call, or drop us a line, here: Contact

Want to make a donation?  Use this link, and you can donate using any major credit or debit card:

 

When we say “Every little bit helps”, we mean it.  Nothing, absolutely nothing goes to waste at The Brickyard Collaborative.

Thanks for all the love, and we know there are big things in store at The Brickyard for 2020…  enjoy the ride!

 

If you hang around letterpress circles for very long, pretty soon you’ll learn that those rubber rollers that transfer the ink to the type ain’t cheap.  After a little research, the best prices we could find on replacement rollers for our (free) Kelsey presses that desperately needed rollers were a slick $100 – $200 if you needed the trucks too.  Yeah, no.

Apparently, from what we gleaned from the interwebs, you want urethane, due to some sweet property it has adhering ink and transferring it to type.  Also, the hardness of the stuff is pretty critical – it seemed like “Shore A” ratings liked to be around 25-30 – about the consistency of an eraser or maybe as soft as a rubber band.

In the spirit of #makedontbuy, we decided to dive into the fairly intimidating world of casting urethane rollers…  with pretty awesome results!  Here’s the step-by-step.

This is the stuff we bought, from US Composites.  This is the 74-30 rubber, which is rated at Shore-A 30.  We also got the mold release spray:

From what our research told us, the rollers want to be very slightly larger in diameter than the trucks – like, maybe about 1/16, so we ordered some stainless tube from McMaster-Carr.  Almost any material will probably do fine, but the stainless seemed nice and rigid with a good, clean inside surface, at a good price.

The idea is to use the trucks as end plugs, and mold directly to the shaft.  We taped the trucks for a snug fit and drilled a hole in some plywood to stand the rig up:

Before assembling the mold, we sprayed the interior of the tube with the release, and the tops of the trucks.

…then assembled the mold:

The goo you see at the bottom is from a previous pour.

The next step is to mix the stuff up.  This gets mixed at a 1:1 ratio.  After mixing, you want to let it sit for a few minutes to try to let the inevitable bubbles work their way to the top, shown here:

Make the pour…

…and get it right up to the top of where the truck clip sits – a slight groove:

Place the second truck on top, just inside the tube, and that locates the shaft in the center.

You have about a 20 minute working window with this material, and a 24-hour cure time at room temperature.  Pulling it apart is no trick at all – pull the trucks off and give it a start with a press or a hammer, and once it starts sliding you can just pull it right out – we found it helpful to clamp the end of the shaft in a big vise, and give it a nice pull.

Next up – we’ll let it sit for about a week, then try it out!

Cost?  The urethane kit was $15, the release spray was $10, the stainless tube was $28 with shipping, so basically you’re looking at about $15 per set of rollers.

 

This weekend we had a special treat – a visit from the St. Pius Robotics Team!  They spent some time touring the shop, then set to work building every imaginable variety of “wigglebot” and powered upcycled vehicles and, well, “things”.

Quote of the day:  “I want to come back.  And learn to use…  EVERYthing!”

Check out our photo gallery, and thanks to our members Noel, Charlie, Hugh and Teresa (you’ll notice member Hugh Pyle in some of the photos, helping out a budding young maker) for their help and support!

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Here’s a little video action:

If you missed our second Repair Cafe, here’s your chance to see a little bit of what went on – we worked on everything from a Macbook Pro’s SD drive to a clogged vacuum cleaner, with a couple of 3D printed brackets and replaced switches thrown in to boot!  Check out the gallery:

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