Wallace has given us a plan for the rest of the week. Here it is.

General Points:

• Be out of present location Sunday February 14th by 5PM.
• Pack skids full and tight because we do not want to rent a 7th trailer.
• Stack tables on trailer and put material under tables on floor, to use total cubes of trailer.
• As you walk around, pick up and pack what you see.
• Pick up trash and sweep as we work.

Wednesday, February 10

• Pull air line copper pipe and stack pipe on orange rack in welding area.
• Disconnect threaded rod and beam hangars SAFELY. We have a lifting cage for the forklift if we have a team of two who can handle this task SAFELY. Beam hangars are not worth someone getting hurt!
• Continue loading pallets and wrapping.
• Stack tables and chairs from conference room

Thursday, February 11

• After 6 PM, four people disassemble ShopBot.
• Pack pallets and wrap

Friday, February 12

• Continue packing.

Saturday, February 13

• Wallace says the doors will open about 8AM
• Load Scott's office and Theresa's office.
• Remove all food from refrigerator and cabinets.
• Disconnect refrigerator, stove, popcorn machine and microwave, move to new location and connect temporarily in the downstairs kitchen area.

Sunday, February 14

• Remove and pack anything left.
• Final vacuum of all carpets.
• Final sweeping of all floors.
• Camp mop concrete floor areas.
• 5PM Lock door and say goodbye to TechShop Durham's first home.
• This is not a sad goodbye. Our new location will be better and will have improvements from lessons learned at this location.

Matt says.....

Wall building

I will be building walls Tues starting at about 8:30 am assuming the plan is finalized and any volunteers will be accepted.

Matthew

Scott says.....

I sent Matt the plans just a while ago, so he has them and you can join him Tuesday morning.

Thanks,

Scott

Today we took two more full trailers over to the new space. There are two more to be filled and hopefully that will be everything.

Peter will be there to open up at 10AM on Tuesday. We're getting closer and closer to the really fun part. That's the part where we say, "It's done!" As always, any help will be appreciated.

We probably need a bunch more pallets and for sure need boxes in the range of 24 to 36 inches in one dimension. Monitors are bigger than we sometimes think. Lots of other stuff like that too. Any you can supply will also be appreciated.

Scott

Today Wallace Newton headed up a crew and got all the heavy machine shop equipment loaded into the trailers. Seems like the more we move, the more there is.

I'll grab a bunch more heavy duty straps and tie it all down Monday morning and I promise to be at TechShop to open up by noon on Monday. Then we will tie down all the heavy equipment and have these two trailers taken over to the new location and have two more empty trailers brought so we can fill them up too. That should do it. We should be at least 2/3 of the way through and all the really heavy stuff is already done.

We sure could use some more help and as always, we are happy supply food and soft drinks to all the volunteers. Get there early and have a say in the choice. We did Jimmy John's twice and pizza today. What do you want Monday?

Matt Rouse and a helper started framing the walls at the new location. I have promised to have the final floorplan for him so he can start full speed Tuesday morning. I have put many hours into the plans and had many suggestions from members. This is, after all, your TechShop and we want it to be the best it can be for you.

We're also renting spaces like crazy so I have added more. We still have some available and if you let me know what size you want, I can still try to accommodate your needs.

Hope you can make it to help us for the final stage of packing and cleaning. I'll be there by noon on Monday.

Thanks,

Scott

Since a lot of people are watching the blog, I will try asking here first.

We need one or two more people Sunday morning at 9AM to help Wallace Newton move the heavy equipment, Mills, Lathes, Plasma Cutter etc. No heavy lifting involved. But you will be working with very heavy items.

If you can help, please email me at scott@techshopdurham.com so I don't have to send out an email to the 1200 people on the mailing list.

Also, we need more pallets. I know I told several people we had enough, but I was wrong. We could probably use another 20 pallets, maybe more. There's a lot of stuff here!

Thanks,

Scott

Boxes too. Looks like we can use more medium size boxes. We have plenty of small boxes but medium size ones are no where to be seen.

Today we moved the two full trailers over by the new shop and got two more empty ones. A lot more got packed today but there is still a lot to pack this weekend.

Sunday we will be loading the heavy machinery. Wallace Newton will be heading up this important task. He has even more experience than I do with this sort of moving so I am glad to have him take this on.

The metal studs arrived today and Matt Rouse went back over and took more measurements. I'll be spending more time Saturday finalizing the upstairs layout so he can start building the walls.

The floor downstairs was finished today. We will not even step on it until it cures.

We're hoping for a big turnout Saturday. People will be arriving at 10. I hope you can join us.

Thanks,

Scott

This is going to be a huge blog entry with a lot of new information that will be exciting to quite a few members. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, scan down to see all the subjects and pick the ones you are interested in.

Cleaning

While this is probably the least interesting part of moving, it is one of the most important. Keeping things clean while we are moving and then finally cleaning each space and closing the door on it needs to be done and anyone who will help with this part will be everyone else's favorite person.

Trailer Loading

Things are moving quickly with the loading. The first two trailers are full. They will get taken away and two more will replace them Friday morning.

There's still a lot of stuff to get palletized and wrapped. You can come down and help with this any time you want to.

Building Walls

We will be receiving the studs for building the walls on Friday.

We are still looking for three more helpers for this project. Some skills in reading a tape measure and running a screw gun are helpful, but not required. If one person was able to do some lifting would be good too. We will need to hand carry all materials up the stairs by hand. I wish we had a way to forklift it up there, but we don't. We even have a crane available just up the street, but no way to get it in upstairs. Oh well.

Floor story

Carolina Debris has removed the carpeting from the downstairs floor and is in process of epoxying that space. This should be done by Friday or Saturday and ready for use by midweek next week. The way this all came down resulted in my redesigning the shop spaces and I really like what has come out of it. I have not yet shared the designs because ... well, I don't know how to post them. I will get on that and post where we are with the floor plans as soon as I can.

Music at TSRDU

Music at TechShop Durham has always been a problem for a lot of people. Most of us like to have music around us. But we all know that not everybody likes the same music. We have held a hard line on music ever since the beginning largely due to Headquarters stance on this due to safety reasons.

I have again talked to HQ about this subject and found they have new policies in place and we will be doing the same.

At TechShop RDU, you will be able to use your iPod or similar device to play music anywhere except while using any machine. You will also be able to have low volume music in any private space, the kitchen or hub area or any space that is not around any machines. Please respect the people around you. It could be your favorite music but the person near you could hate it. Hopefully there won't be any complaints and we can continue this policy.

Open hours

TechShop Durham's hours have been 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

TechShop RDU's hours will likely be the same when we open, but we are expecting to be open longer hours very soon. We have quite a few people renting spaces at TSRDU and many want access to their space for extended hours. We may handle this one of two different ways. We might simply extend our hours, with an employee and access to all the shop spaces, or we might lock all the tools and equipment and give all renters a front door key and keys to their individual space. The new layout seems to offer this choice, and I am looking into making this a reality. After all, our goal is for TechShop RDU to be open 24/7.

You can help us succeed

We Need Your Help! This is not a done deal yet. In order for us to finish our buildout and get everything up and running we need people that will pitch in and help in one or more of these five ways:

1. Pledge to Become a Lender ($25,000 or More)

2. Pledge to Buy a Lifetime Membership ($5,000)

3. Pledge to Become a Monthly Member ($99/mo Auto-Pay)

4. Pledge to Make a Donation ($25 or More)

5. Pledge to Volunteer Your Time for Build-Out

Make Your Pledge or step forward with money Right Now. To pledge, please send email right now to "scott@techshopdurham.com" and indicate how you would like to pledge to help us finish TechShop RDU. Please include your name, phone number, and email address. If you want to step forward with money right now, you may email or call me to set up a time for us to meet.

Take pictures

We cannot have too many pictures of the beginnings of TechShop RDU. If you are coming, and have a camera, bring it and take pictures. We'll figure out how to post them soon enough. You might be the one to tell us how to do it best or even help us do it.

That's it

OK, that's it for now. I told you there was a lot. There will be more tomorrow too. Talk to you then

Scott

The first two trailers are here and we are:

• Sweeping floors
• Stacking things on pallets
• Stretch wrapping pallets
• Filling the first trailer with 26 pallets
• Then filling the second trailer with 26 pallets

We would love to fill the first trailer tonight and have it taken away Friday and another trailer brought here. This would give us two trailers to fill over the weekend and we would have a big chunk of this done.

If you want to come and help with this part, that would be great. Just show up.

Some food and drinks will be provided for workers.

Thanks,

Scott

The first truck is expected at 1PM today, Thursday and you are invited to come help us load it up. We'll buy food a bit later this afternoon and drinks are on us. (soft drinks, that is).

So come on down if you have the time and want to help.

Thanks,

Scott

Just a short note tonight. We're still working on the plans and should start the actual building of the walls on Thursday. So many people are wanting private spaces, I had to go back and add a bunch to the plan.

They're working on the floor and I will give a full report on that tomorrow.

Thursday will have us receiving one or two semi truck trailers. Not sure just what time, but we should be ready to start full speed Friday filling the first one or two up. We expect those to head on over to TSRDU on Monday. Then two more and we should have everything all packed up and waiting for the building to be ready. You can call to see if we need any help, but Friday for sure, if you can make it, come on down.

I promise to have a lot more information for you in Thursday's blog.

Scott