woodworking group

there are zero woodworking stores on LI.

there are some woodworking coops?(in brooklyn, a far trip for many where I am) not sure of the word, workshops that you can join and use their machinery, but why pay someone else when everyone im sure Id member up with has their own shop, with finely tuned machined, not using machines that anyone can use.

Woodcraft stores have classroom/shop situations for teaching and learning. It is no longer in business, but the Woodcraft store in Merrellville, IN had turning days for the Freedom Pen Project where you purchased the kits and they let you turn in the store. I bought the 10 lathes they used when they bought new (they were 2 years old and like new) to keep the shop updated. Good luck Allen.

Frank Fusco said:

That is the big issue. Nice folks can turn very nasty very quickly if hurt and believe, rightly or wrongly, it was someone else's fault.
But, there is no escaping the fact you MUST address the liability issue. Your solution might be to do nothing and risk it, or to get the best insurance possible, or to not form the group at all.

Click to expand...

The problem isn't usually the people you're working with even, its the insurance companies figuring out who will pay.

Assuming you have someone else working in your shop and they get hurt (or vice versa). The person you're working with may well be the nicest person in the world but once they go to the doctor and their insurance company asks where the accident happened (and they say "well joes house")... then its back to your insurance and up go your rates (assuming no other issues because ?insert some policy exclusion you didn't see that made it uncovered and you're now 100% liable? dropping you because you were doing something "uncovered", etc..). I had a friend who's daughters friend was over and broke her arm on the trampoline and had some issues akin to this, it was exceptionally painful. Sad as it is the liability concerns me enough I don't let other people come work in my shop for the most part (and we carry a ridiculous balloon liability policy which is really pretty cheap/year if you have full liability on your house/cars already and definitely worth it, one small accident can be major $$s).

Jonathan Shively said:

Can I politely remind you that you are in a group right now and in a group that takes its own risk in their own shop. Give a try with what you want with the new group with this group. For example, everyone make a specific thing by a certain date and post it.

Click to expand...

The advantage of a local club is that there may well be someone who can drop by (or you can drop by) to help fix a specific problem. That is often an order of magnitude faster than trying to explain it (especially when you aren't sure what the problem really is yourself, just that "something is wrong") and waiting for round trip time on the interwebs. Also as much as I appreciate everyone sharing their work/tools/experience/knowledge here there is really no replacement for seeing it in person.

You know, there's also something out there called 'makerspaces/hackerspaces'. Generally a 'club' of sorts that people join. Typically they have a rented space somewhere filled with tools that all the members can share.

They must have the liability issues worked out. Might be worth putting it on your research todo list.

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

Just a suggestion...Our church has a big shop with everything!! It's used for one of the local highschools and for building sets for productions. We do a once a month there. Again...just a thought.