I know from previous posts there are guys around here that need a place like this. I have no dog in this hunt. Just found it while perusing Craigslist. https://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/tls/d/u...6877958991.html

Wow, how cool is that. Thanks 76-914. Wish we had this in Madison WI. Mark

This is where Forrest “gag”
and 914 toy works on there cars.
This is where they did there six conversions.

look awesome. Unfortunately, most of it would be way over my head.

We had a similar thing in Detroit called Tech Shop.

It failed miserably and went bankrupt.

I tried it for about a year. Mostly for access to a CNC Tormach mill for making some race car parts for a buddy's project.

Equipment was nice. People were nice.

The problem was the rules for wait for it . . . safety.

Really for Liability. Welcome to modern day America. You had to take a class for everything with various costs between $20 and $100 in addition to the membership fees which wasn't cheap.

Want to use a bench grinder - take the class.
Bandsaw? you got it, another class.
Want to use body hammers for metal work - Yup, need the class.
Welder -- Class
Hoist use - more class
Use Digital Multimeter (DMM) -- more class.

Never mind that I learned these things in 9th grade industrial education classes at school and still have all ten fingers to prove I'm not an outright menace.

I would have been willing to just pay a fee and then take an exam (verbal or written) and even demonstrate proper use. No can do! You have to take the class which often was two hours long! More for complicated stuff like CNC equipment.

Not against classes for the purpose of learning. I did learn good stuff in the CNC class but if someone can demonstrate proficiency - don't treat them like a 6 year old.

It was pretty much impossible to get anything done there without running into a need to touch something that you needed to take the class for, other than the most basic of hand tools.

I can see how it would be more viable in S.F. or other urban areas where folks may not have garages, or their own tools. Here in the D - too many of us GearHeads are luckly enough to have a lot of this stuff in our home shops to make something like TechShop financially viable.

Now when was the last time you heard someone say they were lucky to live in Detroit!

I run a business with similar liability issues. Legally, it's a puzzle. Tough to run something like this without exposing yourself to the possibility of a life-changing lawsuit. I can tell you, the owners probably don't want to make people take all the classes, but the nature of the business and the legal climate make it mandatory.