Beth's DIY shop

[Jon Lesser]

Kelly mentioned this place on the wiki, but I think it's cool enough
to be sent out to the list.

Beth's DIY Shop is tucked into a street accessible basement at 4321
Harford Road. It looks to be about 800 sq feet with low, unfinished
ceilings, and it's packed with shop tools. There are open shop hours
on Fridays and Saturdays and Beth teaches a class or two a week. There
is a MPT feature you can watch here:
http://www.youtube.com/bethsdiyworkshop.

-- Open shop hours cost $10 for the first hour and $8/hr after that.
($7/hr if you purchase in 5 hour blocks)
-- Classes range from $40 to $90 and are capped at 10 people. They
include 4 hours of shop time.

For tools, they have: Table Saw, band saw, sliding compound miter saw,
scroll saw, 18 guage air nail gun, thickness planer, router mounted on
router table, a joiner and assorted clamps and hand tools.

An interesting point of comparison for us.

-Jon
--
http://jonlesser.net

[Adam D Bachman]

We're friends with a family whose 10 yo (homeschooled) son is a member of / goes regularly to a woodshop with open hours. I don't believe this is it, but I have heard of (and walked by) Beth's DIY shop. That's part of my reason for recommending all memberships be "family" memberships: all ages, welcoming to intimidated partners, easier to expand beyond hardcore geeks, etc.

For sure this rocks. Both as community involvement model: open shop hours, friendly approachable classes, project based classes; and as a revenue model: hourly tools use and teaching assistance. Good to keep in mind that for Beth it's a full time, for-profit job, though.


- Adam