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You don’t always need a CNC machine or thousands of pounds worth of equipment to get the job done. Here, we’ll be laying out a 4 hole bolt circle suitable for mounting something like a stepper motor or bearing flange using just a ruler, compass and centre punch.

Mark out your material, and centre punch the middle. This will be the punch mark for the central spindle of our motor. Scribe a straight line through the centre in the orientation that you want for the first two of your holes. This is…

It has been a long time since our last update but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been working hard. For those of you who haven’t visited lately it’s looking much less like a building site and we are getting closer to the Hackspace being “finished”. Yes, we really do deserve a good opening party.

Health & Safety

You may have noticed the fire extinguishers scattered around the Space. Please take time to familiarise yourself with them next time you are down and remember if you are not confident…

The workshop and craft area floor is somewhat delicate, and we have been diligently protecting the areas which have been covered in asbestos-containing floor screed from damage. In order to make the space safe for everyday use, and to make cleaning up after minor spills much easier, we decided to have the floor levelled (it was really bumpy, see if you can feel the remaining bumps) and covered with hard-wearing thermoplastic floor tiles.

How well this floor covering will cope with the bitumen…

Remember we picked up a new door a couple of weeks ago? This weekend we fitted it. Replacing the door was quite an important part of preparing to move into the new premises – the old door was not only falling apart and as a double leaf door it was going to be either difficult or expensive to secure in a reliable, electronically controllable way.

Removing the old door was a challenge. Old bricks meant a lot of bolts spun in their anchors and some sections of the old grating had their nuts…