This Saturday night 6-10 pm the Columbus Idea Foundry is having its grand opening event for the new space which is now 400% larger than the previous space. You may have heard about this awesome community workshop as the host of the Ohio Tool Racing Championships (www.toolraces.com) along with several other really fun events. There will be live flaming demos, blacksmithing, welding, ShopBots, metal art gallery, Free PBR & Cupcakes… if you live within 100 miles of here and don’t show up you should probably just stop reading now, there is nothing for you here.
The old shop space was great but it was more of a club house for a few of us guys. The new space is a true community with a dozen individual studios for artists and small craft businesses as well as a vast influx of new shop equipment including an entire fab shop from Metaldelphia, new laser cutter, several new donated shop items and a generous sponsorship from Bosch Power Tools & Ohio Power Tool. And we mean generous including miter saw, table saw, cordless 18v tools, router & table, nibblers, shears, grinders, air compressor, planer, sanders and just about everything you would ever need in power tools. Apparently they know a tool guy. Now the shop is really well set with almost anything you can imagine. When the apocalypse comes this will be my first stop to fashion a few hand made shanks and weld some more steel plating onto the truck. There is a huge main community work areas with movable tables to work at in addition to all the stationary machine. Basically a little slice of heaven.
It is an amazingly wonderful place to be a part of and build things because there are so many brilliant and knowledgeable people just hanging around who love to give advice or even lend a hand when you are ripping 4’x8’ plywood. More to the point if you want to learn a new skill say welding, jewelry making, the CNC ShopBot, Laser Cutter or any of the other awesome gizmos there are classes you can take each month for extremely cheap. There are also group meetings that are free where you can basically learn from the best in the area, which is the case with Ethen’s monthly MakerBot meeting.
The Press
We have received some really great local press in the past two weeks which highlights several of the new artists & business in the space. Really looking forward to a full house Saturday. Come early!
….in 614 Magazine:
http://614columbus.com/magazine/01-01-2011/too-much-metal-for-one-space
…in the Metropreneur:
http://www.themetropreneur.com/columbus/at-work-columbus-idea-foundrys-new-community-space/
…and in the Columbus Alive:
http://www.columbusalive.com/live/content/features/stories/2011/01/20/columbus-idea-foundrys-new-space.html
….on the Fox 28 Morning Show with Johnny DiLoretto:
http://www.myfox28columbus.com/newsroom/gdc/videos/vid_483.shtml
Artists & Small Businesses
There are some very talented people you might be interested in checking out.
Little Alouette is a small, family-run woodworking business that makes baby toys.
Sonarcana, a small business that designs electronics related to music, audio, and animatronics.
Refab Studio, which specializes in design, fabrication, and refurbishment of interactive exhibits and kiosks.
Columbus CNC, design something in CAD and they can make it come to life in wood, plastic, metal
Metaldelphia, custom metal fab shop and artist
Local metal and glass artists David Murphy and Sharon McJannet.
Local welding sculptor Mark Rosen.
Local artist, photographer, sculptor, and furniture maker Allison Meade.
Local artisan blacksmith and bladesmith Adlai Stein.
Local artist who designs interactive audio devices Matt Bowman (latest project)
Among many other talented wizards & ninjas…
