Between them, Tom Root and Dale Grover have enough cool tools to fill an 11,000-square-foot space. With everything from saws and hammers to 3-D printers and plasma cutters on hand, the partners have made Maker Works the work club for hip nerds—the place where they can go to build that rocket-powered go cart they’ve always dreamed of.
Opened three years ago, Maker Works now has a staff of eight and 651 members housed in an industrial park on Plaza Drive south of I-94. “About 25 percent are using the facility regularly,” says Root, the bearded partner. “We have the tools and the space but the most valuable asset for our members is other members: someone to help with problems—or hold up the other end of a project!”
The common room with its banks of computers, the classroom big enough for seventy, and the tool crib with its array of gleaming metal devices are impressive, but the heart of Maker Works is its four shops.
“The electronic lab is the smallest because the equipment is the smallest,” says Root. “We have digital fabricating tools here so you can make things like a headphone amplifier using vacuum tubes.”
The textile and plastics shop is next with its sewing machines and computer-controlled embroidering machines and 3-D printers. “We have classes basically in how not to kill yourself,” laughs Root. “People are usually appropriately cautious,” adds Grover, the pony-tailed partner. “They understand we have to have these procedures.”
The woodshop is on an industrial scale. “We have all the standard woodworking tools and computer controlled tools,” says Root. “We have a router that cuts on three axes so we can make 3-D relief carving and 3-D weapons like a wooden broadsword.” Just past the woodshop is a smaller room with an anvil and massive hammer. Root explains that many members are into cos play, which just might entail building a suit of armor the old fashioned way.
The metal shop isn’t as big as the woodshop but may be even cooler. “We have sheet metal tools and lathes and manual mills and computer mills, and band saws and welding equipment for all kinds of metals,” says Root. “And we have a plasma cutter.”
Grover hands out protective goggles, Root throws the switch, and the plasma torch cuts the initials “MW” into an inch thick piece of steel. That’s one heavy metal souvenir.
