Be aware that the space will be having a meeting at 8pm (to be confirmed by @Boo)
Hi everyone. There were not enough people (in the cause) at the space last Tuesday to have the meeting, so we will be trying again this Tuesday.
Remember, the time for the meeting is at 7:00pm this Tuesday!
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Iāll be there on Tues, been busy with the new semester of Uni.
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Hi Everyone
This is an unofficial announcement that we will be running a photo development induction (class) at the end of this month.
This is free for members and a $5 donation for non-members.
At the moment (right this very second), I am just chowing through some work for uni. I will post up official information when I am done with that.
Cheers.
PS. We will be looking to set up a biodiesel class for next month or there about. This was covered in the last meeting of the science lab, I will be doing up a document and meeting minutes (I have them on notepad) when I finish with this current work.
Just a heads up the dark room is quite leeky, fine for test/education stuff, but would need to be done at night, or patched to get perfect development/enlargement.
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Hi Jace
Thank you for bringing this up.
I actually just accepted this some while ago without realizing it. Half the challenge now is remembering those sort of old problems we used to get away with.
Iāll add that to the list of fixes that need to be made.
Cheers
Hi, I just did up a quick document showing our meeting minutes last week, here is the link:
I used a simple template I found online, if you think anything is missing (or over done) just let me know.
I am also doing up a document to give a general review of the science lab, and its new objectives (as the original cause document suggested)
Someone asked if we would be doing another working bee some time soon, and I think it would be a good idea. The current āthings to be madeā are things like a furnace and pcb etching station, so that should be fun.
Cheers
Iād be very keen to help with the furnace. What temps will it be able to reach?
I would like for it to get over 1600C. This is so I can make fused silica glass. However the limiting factor is the thermostat and insulating material. We have a heating element that can reachā¦ āenoughā
Perfect, I have blob of bronze and gold which I want to use as part of my reclamation effort. Though at the moment itās one large 500g blob. Ideally Iād like to melt it and pour it into some water to increase its surface area to decrease the processing time.
Sounds good. I will need help setting up the furnace, it is still a rather ambitious goal. Maybe it would be better to make a mock up glass working area, then later recycle the parts to make a portable bench type later.
OR better put:
do you if we can get a working thermostat, we can do this pretty quickly.
Hi Everyone
We are doing the photo-development induction tomorrow, sorry for the late notice, I thought I had already posted up the details however it must has slipped my mind.
We will also be discussing the up coming working bee for the science lab. One of the jobs is building a furnace, so it should be fun 
Hi everyone
Mostly eveyone knows I am doing uni while trying to set up the science lab properly, however I would like to see things start happening more quickly.
To do this, I would need some people who are willing to help with small jobs like paperwork, and people who are willing to work on group projects that improve the science lab.
There are plenty of little jobs, and even more awesome fun jobs.
Any level of skill is acceptable and its a great chance to do something a little unfamiliar, you can expect plenty of guidence in case you become stuck on something. Im always contactable on 0431750110
SMS is preferred.
Jobs range between:
-Setting up the wiki and online resources.
-Construcing a furnace enclosure for glassworking
-Setting up an experiment and running a class (this will require some guidence, but should be fun). We have classes in mind, however this is a pretty open category.
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Will there be a glass working class any time soon, Id love to learn to melt glass into usable things!
I would love to have glassworking set up as soon as possible.
We are going to make a furnace from the bricks in the blacksmithing area, however i dont know how to construct the roof.
We have some members who said they would be willing to put in some money to make this galssworking happen. Personally i feel this could be more usefully used on tooling, but thats still up for discussion.
With a stable enclosure, i could install the element (heating), im not sure which type of thermostat to use, and a control circuit isnt necessary if we just want to get started, but it isnt much to add in later.
I thought people used oxy for a lot of it? Pardon my vast ignorance on glass work, had some work done and watched, its sorcery imo.
Why not make the roof like a pizza oven?
cut a plywood frame to support it while the mortar sets then light a fire to get rid of the plywood?
We are going to be pushing the temperature as high as we can go, so its a lot more difficult to use anything which isnt already a premade brick (without expecting cracking). Also, a brick oven like structure is large and we need to get it right first try. Its also more cost.
Ive considered it and i couldnāt really justify it.
Hay Jace. Most glassworkers will start from a blob of glass taken rom a furnace, and a lot of glass blowers use something they call a glory hole (which is a large opening into your furnace, where you can heat the entire peice at once).
A furnace with a heating profile is also used to temper the glass after your job is done.
We would be using the furnace to start with hot glass for simple peices, then heat it outside the furnace to do more delicate work. A flame would be great for this, different fuels depending on the MP of your glass.
Because we want a flexable workshop to experiment with as much as possible we will be using a plasma arc for both heating the furnace and for outside the furnace in place of the gas.
Both will be set up in a way concious of the electricity cost. Which is also why it is temporary until we decide which techniques are best for us.
(Ps, an arc is well beyond anything we need for most things, but if we can do anything with fused silica then we will have a very unique workshop even if primative)
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Hello team, sorry for my lack of attendance in recent weeks. Iāll be back next Tuesday or sometime in between. Have been busy busy busy 
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