bikingman

Hello! Are there any frame builders in the Washington DC Metro Area that would want to share a space? Or does anyone know of somebody nearby that has workspace for rent? Not looking for anything extensive. Thanks!

unterhausen

I would look for a makerspace in the area you are interested in

Andrew R Stewart 

Eric's suggestion is exactly what I did when I returned home after a 25 year absence. Unfortunately the group I found had wooden floors and thus insurance prevented any flame or sparks from being part of the offerings. Andy

bikingman

Yea, I did look into this type of (metal/welding) shared workspace and didn't find anything within the DC Metro area. There are plenty of shared office spaces that I could've overlooked. I did find one that would've worked that closed a few years ago because they couldn't pay their rent (I imagine insurance would have been expensive as well). And this wasn't even in the DC area, it was south in VA. I've even reached out to artist in the area and.


Since posting this, I've found a shared workspace in Baltimore that I'm currently exploring. Their rates aren't so bad and they're open on the weekends. Thinking that I can make the drive up there on the weekends, (I'm in MD on the border of DC) draft/design/redesign during the week. https://www.openworksbmore.com/about/jobs/

CliffordK

Doesn't DC have large areas of single family residences? Could you work in a garage?

Around here there are a number of small shops that cross the line between storage facilities and small space workshops. I'm not quite sure what they are called.

I had a friend that had an art studio with electric welding in a second floor studio apartment in Brooklyn. But the last time I saw him was in the mid 1990's. I think there was a lot of wood in the loft, but a thin covering in the welding area.

bikingman

It has a whole metro area full of single family homes.I posted to Craigslist asking about this very sort of thing, but I didn't hear from anyone except spambots.

unterhausen

I have seen those storage units that have light and power. I think that's pretty common at private airports. DC is a real problem area for that, real estate is really expensive. I'm a little surprised that there aren't any makerspaces.

I helped troubleshoot an airplane at a small airport. There was a guy in a storage unit next to the pad we were parked on that was building his own plane. He was really unhappy whenever we fired up the engine on our plane, complained to the airport owner and everything. Which I thought was pretty funny. But that kind of storage unit/workshop does exist. There was a similar place across the street from our apartment in Utah, there was a band that practiced in one of the storage units. Never seen that back east though.

bikingman

Heh that's a pretty funny story. What did he expect! I should probably call into the local airports. The open works maker's space I've found in Baltimore looks good. Kindof have my fingers crossed with that one.

unterhausen

I'm sure he didn't expect a jet engine at an airport that mostly saw crop sprayers take off. But still, you would think anyone into aviation enough to build his own airplane would have been okay with an F16 being tested a few minutes a couple of times. If I were him, I would have walked over to see what was up, because we were definitely out of place there. If he did that, I would have talked to him and given him a tour. OTOH, I'm half deaf because of those things.

bikingman

Whoa, cool - had no idea you could rebuilt one of those! Wonder why he didn't say hello.