Metal working?

Hi @metaltechs, please could you update us on the current status of metal working in the space. I appreciate there has been a constant change in leadership of this area but, it’s been more than a year of requests for inductions and to date I have not had any. We have a mill, lathe, bandsaw, welding equipment and loads of hand tools but who is allowed to officially use these and what state are they in? Not ranting here, just trying to be proactive at getting somewhere… any info would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks! Jonathan

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I’m not a metaltech, but I know a little bit about what is going on.

  1. There is some work going ahead looking at what needs doing to be done with the lathe. An announcement is due shortly.

  2. There are a couple of new metaltechs waiting to be made official.

  3. Any one that wants to become a metal tech should put their name forward to the metaltechs.

  4. The area needs help with risk assessments

  5. Any members that have suggestions of how to help this area can contact them or me or the directors with their ideas.

  6. members can help by keeping the area tidy and ready for the next person to use. This means tidying up after doing work in that area.

  7. Patience, support and positive feedback / input are welcome.

  8. There is a to do list that we started looking at but time constraints have meant this has slipped a bit.

  9. To keep things in perspective there are no big tools in the wood workshop that have had inductions done where non woodtech members can use them unsupervised. (I think. Happy to be corrected)

@dermot maybe we need to have a catch up about progress to try and help things along.

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@boldaslove thanks for the reply, greatly appreciated. Why the holdup with new people becoming metaltechs, surely the quicker this happens, the quicker the rest falls into place?

Not sure what the holdup is? If there are some details about taht that have passed the directors by, please do drop us a message - I’m not aware of anyone waiting (to be a tech, although, I’m sure that is wrong) right now.

Adam and Will are the new metaltechs, that’s already in place for a while

Would be most excellent to have things moving, let’s see what we can do

Are you offering any of your time to help move this forward?
(Hope that doesn’t sound rude, it’s meant to be a straightforward question)

I’m sure there’s stuff to help with. Only way this is going to move forward is with people chipping in. You’ve shown an interest in the area so that’s good

Let’s have a metalarea strategy meeting…

I’ll PM relavent

Speak up if you want to come

I don’t mind helping where i can… I wouldn’t say I’m knowledgable enough on those tools yet (hence the request for induction) to contribute in that way but am open to assisting to move things forward.

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I have no metal working experience (keen to learn), but am happy to help with documentation, risk assessments, organising, making tea, etc.

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Thanks for offering your help. That’s great.

The help would probably be more administrative than practical or technical.

I’ll add you to the PM and see where that takes us…

Thanks for offering your support!

I’ll add you to the PM

Hi @Jonathan thanks for raising this. Bear in mind that the current metaltechs are pretty new - I’m the oldest and have only been a tech for 6 months or so.

There are several things we would like help with. Update on status:

  1. Access control - it would be fantastic to have this up on bandsaw/drill/mill - the current version on welding/lathe is excellent - although I know it’s not the main/integrated access control.

  2. Welding - those who have been inducted can use - more inductions coming, some experienced folk have been getting quick informal inductions.

  3. Bandsaw - access control would be great for this, it is a pretty exciting/hungry to eat you piece of kit.

  4. Drill - I will run some soon.

  5. Hand tools - I will run some soon

  6. Lathe - I don’t know, it’s not my area of knowledge.

One of the most useful things non-metal experienced folk could help with is trying to sort/encourage access control on the kit - cheers.

Will reply to the metal pm group as well soon.

Cheers
Calum

The blue screen access control is a nice interim solution because it restricts access to the techs, but it will become a monster to manage if we want to remove someone from having access, and keeps no records of what actions users took.

I am not sure if the @directors and (Jonathan) @systems have met up to discuss how we move things forward, but it would be good to hear from Jonathan about whether he wants to move forward with the tool control system he built or if we can switch to @Courty’s system.