This is a follow-up to the introduction of the Hamilton Tool Library. For more information please visit: http://hamiltontoollibrary.ca/about/
We’re entrepreneurs and builders, and we’ve visited tool libraries all over North America. While we think they’re awesome, we couldn’t help but ask, why Hamilton didn’t have one? To answer that question, we decided to build one ourselves.
In our opinion, it doesn’t make sense to own a garage full of tools unless you’re a professional or a serious hobbyist. Most people need to cut a few boards and drill a few holes each year, and some people don’t have room in their garages! So why put money into a bunch of tools that won’t be used? This is where the Hamilton Tool Library can help.
We’ll have thousands of tools available to members free of charge, whenever they need them. We’ll also have a wood and metal shop, complete with modern equipment such as large-bed a 3D printer, a laser cutter and a CNC machine. We will have free workshops so you can brush up on your skills or learn some new techniques!
With each tool we lend, we hope to make Hamilton a little bit stronger and a little bit better. Please join us!
Special call-out for volunteers / helpers from Halden:
Hi all,
Good news: we’ve signed our lease! The tool library will be located at 575 King East—directly behind the No Frills on Main Street.
It isn’t the huge, expansive space that I was hoping for, but it will certainly work for our needs. Importantly, the location and price are right!
I’m going down to Turkstra tomorrow to give them our shopping list and to talk about delivery dates. Currently the space is somewhat cluttered, and will have to be cleaned out. The landlord and property manager will do a lot of that work, but considering how tight our time is I’ll be helping out, and it would be great if some of you guys could lend a hand as well. I’m guessing that with four or five bodies that we could get the space cleaned out in an afternoon.
Once the Turkstra truck arrives, we’ll be building around 14 work benches, some amount of shelving (depends how much steel racking Turkstra can give us—we might not have to build very many), and a few miscellaneous items.
Next step will be to clean and inventory all of the tools. There should be a dozen or so high school students that will help with that effort, but we’ll need some more hands to help that effort and to direct the kids.
All of this needs to be done before the Christmas holidays! …don’t worry—we’ll have more hands to help than are addressed in this email. 🙂
I’ll get a rough schedule out to you all as soon as I can. If you have any questions or comments in the meantime, please let me know.
Thanks so much for offering your help!
Halden
