Up here in Portland (well really the western suburbs) we had a rather ambitious TechShop start up about a decade and a half ago, but they didn't last a year. I made a decent sized donation at the start because I liked what they were doing, and took some great classes there on woodworking and CNC. The woodworking instructor in particular was really interesting as he was an old school pattern maker (patterns for casting) which involves different techniques than finish or furniture carpentry. He could build to 1/64" tolerances by using various combinations of sanders, including a stationary disc sander with a 1 yard diameter. That thing was a pretty cool piece of equipment.
Unfortunately I'm sad to say besides the finances they had some cultural issues. A few of the instructors went pretty heavy on the "boys club" style humor in a way that would clearly alienate a lot of women.
Double Union is a women-only makerspace in the Mission in San Francisco because there's something about makerspaces that they seem to trend in that direction, so a women-only makerspace is necessary.
Up here in Portland (well really the western suburbs) we had a rather ambitious TechShop start up about a decade and a half ago, but they didn't last a year. I made a decent sized donation at the start because I liked what they were doing, and took some great classes there on woodworking and CNC. The woodworking instructor in particular was really interesting as he was an old school pattern maker (patterns for casting) which involves different techniques than finish or furniture carpentry. He could build to 1/64" tolerances by using various combinations of sanders, including a stationary disc sander with a 1 yard diameter. That thing was a pretty cool piece of equipment.
Unfortunately I'm sad to say besides the finances they had some cultural issues. A few of the instructors went pretty heavy on the "boys club" style humor in a way that would clearly alienate a lot of women.