Repair Cafe collaboration

[Daniel Hettinger]

Hi people
Thanks for helping me out with my casting issues last night. I'll post some updates as they come.  Again, I wanted to extend the use of our casting furnace to anyone interested.  We've got a Miller 180 mig and Hypertherm plasma cutter too i'm happy to share too, for those of who are getting into some larger projects, so long as I'm around when you use them. 

I'm at living web farms - a non-profit, working educational farm in Mills river.  We lead workshops on a wide range of topics throughout the year, all of which relate to organic ag, homesteading, sustainability, resilience, so on.  Myself and the crew at the biochar facility have been leading mostly workshops on sustainable technologies, including our upcoming work on repairing and recycling plastic waste.

Keeping costs down through salvage, repair and repurpose of junkyard equipment is a big part of what we do.  Modular equipment is a big part of what we do.  Our work is in developing tech that's accessible to farmers on a small budget, mostly low-tech, and useful across many platforms.  Our $300 extrusion machine is an example of this - suitable for animal feed pellet production, sawdust wood pellets and plastics extruding (3D printer filament...... maybe?) 

I found you all initially through a search for local repair cafes.  We're thinking about taking this on next year in lieu of one of our workshops. I'm thinking maybe 3 or 4 times/year.   We've got a decent outreach program going already with low cost workshops and produce donations.  Repair cafe fits nicely with our mission.   We can fund it.   We can keep it funded through donations at the door.   We'll try to cast a bigger net than some of the online repair cafe stuff I've seen: including small engine and equipment repairs, welding, so on.  For us, this is as much about repairing things for those who can't afford it, as it is about starting a conversation about circular economies.

I'm reaching out for volunteers that can cover us with electronics repairs.  And to some extent, collaboration on outreach and marketing, as much as you see fit to help your group cast a bigger net too.  I'd love to hear about your experiences with repair cafes last year - attendance, repair rate, what to expect, etc.

Again, we're looking to start in Jan/Feb, so there's a lot of time to prepare.  Anyone interested!?!

Thanks again
Dan

[Zak Smolen]

I know I'm definitely interested, and I'm sure others would be as well. Our repair cafes have bun fun in the past but small and limited. It would be exciting to have access to tools for larger equipment repair as well.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Asheville Makers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ashevillemakers+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to ashevillemakers@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Daniel Hettinger]

Hi makers
We're going to do 4 repair cafe events next year.  First one is Tuesday evening, January 23.  I realize this is during your regular meetings... but it would be so good to have some electronics help out there.  Respond for details, I promise I'll make sure there's something for you to do to make it worthwhile.   If we're not fixing things, we'll be leading small group training sessions.  We'll most likely be plastic welding and fixing small engines and large appliances this night too.
BTW our plastics work is coming along nicely and has been taking us in all kinds of interesting directions... thanks again for your advice last month.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ashevillemake...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to ashevil...@googlegroups.com.