Makersmiths Newsletter

October 2026 Newsletter

Leesburg Workday: TBD 9am-2pm

Purcellville Workday: 10/3/2026 9am - 12pm

(There's something for everyone -get those volunteer hours in)

Monthly Membership Meeting

Meetings are the first Wednesday of every month at 7:30 PM.

Log on to:

http://meet.google.com/ubz-ykxr-kiu

or

Dial-in: (US) +1 304-609-2532

PIN: 114 333 983#

Want to submit something to the newsletter?

Please email Jen Reese, Newsletter Editor jluporeese@gmail.com

Message from the Board of Directors

James Waldron, Secretary 

Makersmiths Board of Directors met on September 30 in the MSL Classroom and online. The meeting was called to order by Chair Jonathan White at 7:03pm

New Electronics Co-Steward John Jones was appointed, welcome John. President David Lang discussed some Makersmiths issues including poor attendance at our monthly member meetings, and finding co-stewards for tools with only one steward.

Ken Fuentecilla, Membership Chair, reports that current membership stands at 340, just 5 members short of our all time high of 345. We expect to set a new membership record by the end of the year.

Marketing Chair, Allie Graves, reports that you can now find our Open Houses and some of our classes listed in the Loudoun Times Mirror newspaper under the things to do section. Red Tool classes on the new Embroidery machine will be starting very soon and new computer monitor installation is complete. Year to date we have had 247 classes.

We are currently seeking a new chair for out Grant Committee.

Our current financial situation is very good, and, it’s budget time again.
Proposed Budgets, taken from current and past information, will be distributed to Stewards for their review. Next year we will change to quarterly budgets rather than monthly. The proposed budget will be presented to the Board at the November meeting for adoption by the end of the year.

The Purcellville Tag sale was formally recognized as a Makersmiths Fund Raiser, additional consumables were voted for the UV printer, Chris Breitenstein was appointed as an IT co-steward (Welcome Chris), and the new Purcellville Lawnmower purchase deadline was extended.

There was also a workday discussion. While there is no prohibition on working on your project during work day hours, it can be awkward if you are there making sawdust or chips while everyone around you is cleaning up. The general guideline is that one should not be working on their own projects during workday hours but we understand that time constraints may make this your only available time window.

The meeting adjourned at 8:35. As always, details of the Board Meeting may be found on the Wiki. The next Board meeting will be on October 28.

Our Next Members Meeting

For those who are new, our members’ meetings used to be in person. This was before COVID forced us to go online. With so many new members, we need to meet them and welcome them to our organization.

On October 7 at 7:30 pm, Makersmiths will have our next members’ meeting at Makersmiths Leesburg. Please come out in person to meet David Lang, our president, and get to know other members. We will also address important items on the meeting agenda.

At this meeting, members will lead several knife-sharpening demonstrations. Why knife sharpening? Lately in Slack General, members inquired about sharpening knives. Several members mentioned using whetstones to sharpen knives at home.

Chris Breitenstein asked, “If access to whetstones is a problem, would a class utilizing wet-sanding paper be valuable? I could see there being some overlap with techniques used on whetstones, but I don’t know enough about either to say how closely they compare.” Well, his question got us thinking. What if we had members demonstrate how they sharpen knives?

We are looking forward to seeing Lyle Reger use his Work Sharp Ken Onion knife and tool sharpener, Dave Painter use his Tormek, and Ken Fuentecilla demonstrate his ancient samurai-jack-sharpening knife skills.

Marketing Committee News

Alexandra Graves, Committee Chair

Open houses, classes and social events open to the public can now be found in the Loudon Times Mirror. Events will be added each month, so if you have a Makersmith event you want in the local paper, send a short description in the Marketing channel on Slack.

Events:

• Red Tag Sale – October 10. Reach out to Tom Hill (hillkid@earthlink.net) to get involved.
• Artisan Tour – November 7-8, 11 am – 5 pm, Reach out to Diane Painter to get involved.
• Job for the Day – November 18, from 1-4 pm. Reach out to Diane Painter to meet LCPS students and share what you do at Makersmiths for your job or home business.

Coming soon: The Marketing Committee will be launching a form and process to have Makersmiths participate in special events, so keep an eye out for more information! In the meantime, send your ideas to the #marketing channel on Slack.

Purcellville Red Tag Sale
Diane Painter and Tom Hill

For twenty-two years, the Town of Purcellville sponsored a Red Tag Sale on a Saturday in October. This year, businesses in town are organizing this event on Saturday, October 10, rain or shine.

As a nonprofit business, Makersmiths will have a booth at the Virginia Montessori Academy located at 130 East Main Street, Purcellville, VA 20132, from 8 am to 5 pm.

According to the Blue Ridge Leader newspaper, “The Tag Sale has grown well beyond the traditional neighborhood yard sale. It now draws shoppers from across Loudoun County and the surrounding region, many of whom spend the day exploring Purcellville’s neighborhoods, downtown shops, restaurants, and other local businesses” (https://blueridgeleader.com/purcellvilles-23rd-annual-tag-sale-returns-oct-10-rain-or-shine/)

We will have small Makersmiths-made items, cross-stitch patterns, cloth and unused spools of PLA, for sale at our booth, along with a large item book with photos and descriptions of machinery that the ceramics and metalworking studios at MSP will offer for sale.

To purchase the large items, buyers will be given directions to the Makersmiths-Purcellville site where Dave Painter will be glad to handle the big-ticket purchases.

If you are available to help sell items at the booth, please contact Tom Hill at Tom.Hill@makersmiths.org or direct message him in Slack so he can assign you to a 2-hour duty slot. We have afternoon slots that still need to be filled.

Education News

Diane Painter

Most KidWind teams are set for the 2026-2027 school year, but we still have some openings in the Elementary wind and High School wind teams.

Blair Marendt will coach the elementary team again on Saturday mornings in the lower building classroom at MSP beginning October 10.

Contact Blair at bmarendt@gmail.com if your son or daughter is in grades 3-5 and would like to learn about renewable energy and help build a KidWind wind turbine.

Chris Rodgers will coach the middle school wind turbine team with six returning participants. The team will meet at Makersmiths Purcellville in the lower building on Saturday afternoons from 1-4 pm beginning October 10.

Oliver Arend is organizing the high school wind team, but his team will meet off-site in the Great Falls area. Contact oarend@gmail.com if your son or daughter is interested in working with this seasoned wind coach to learn about renewable energy and help build an advanced wind turbine.

No one volunteered to organize a middle school solar team, but those participants from the KidWind Worlds middle school solar championship team have advanced to the high school solar team. That team is now set with six participants and will be coached by Dan Schmidt and assisted by several Makersmiths members with KidWind experience. That team will meet in the electronics room at Makersmiths Leesburg on Sunday afternoons from 1-4 pm, beginning November 1.

Diane Painter will offer free Renewable Energy/STEM training to parents and teachers at Cool Springs Retreat Center from 9 am- 3 pm on Saturday, October 17. This is a wonderful opportunity for educators and PTA members wanting to start a STEM club and/or introduce KidWind at their schools.

Homeschool parents wanting hands-on activities to integrate into their special units of study will also find this training helpful. Register at https://forms.gle/F5TSrhiSsfwjgPaV6 by October 10 so arrangements can be made to provide lunch for everyone.

Twelve Days of Making

Scheduling Committee

A few years ago, we began a tradition of creating 12 Days of Making classes for the holidays. This year, we will have more than 12 days of making classes but we will keep the name of the initiative just the same. The point is to offer make and take classes for our members to create things for holiday giving, or to keep for themselves! We cannot list all the classes in this article because each day someone comes up with another idea to add another class. This is good! As they say, “variety is the spice of life!”

Dave Painter came up with the idea of having three classes for those who have taken the Basic Woodworking class at MSP to give them more practice on specific woodworking tools covered in the basic woodworking red tool class given in the Makersmiths Purcellville’s workshop.

Here is what he is offering to those who have taken that Basic Woodworking Red Tool Class:

Oct 23 at MSP: Tea Lights. In this class, participants will practice using the table, saw, drill press in various sanders.

October 30 at MSP: Santa and His Reindeer. In this class, participants will practice using the bandsaw, the table saw, and the spindle sander.

November 30 at MSP:  Wooden Snowflakes. In this class, participants will use the table saw.

No prior experience or specific skills will be required for the following classes that we have added to the course calendar so far for October, November and December:

Oct 21 at MSL: Holiday Card Making. Participants will learn how to use Cricut cutting machines to emboss cards they make. In addition, they will learn how to import a photograph to flatten the image and import it into a card they make.

Dec 3, 5, and 6 at MSP: Forged Jingle Bells. Jim Waldron is offering five blacksmithing classes to teach people how to make forged jingle bells.

Questions? Please contact Jennifer.chu@makersmiths.org, the chair for this committee.

Images: tea lights, Santa and elf, wooden snowflakes, holiday cards, forged jingle bells that are in the library already.

Cricut AI and Art Tool

Diane Painter

Cricut AI and the Photo Art Tool are new tools currently in BETA for Cricut design users. These tools help turn an idea or photo into a transformed image ready for the next project. By harnessing the power of Cricut AI™, you can generate styled artwork in varying looks that you can download and bring into Cricut’s software, Design Space. Input a prompt, a photo (or both) into the Cricut Photo Art form. Choose your style, click “Generate”, and the magic of our tool will create a custom transformed image to download. Regenerate as needed, but be aware that doing so uses another one of your Cricut AI credits. In order to ensure you have enough AI Credits to interact with Cricut AI and this Photo Art Tool, you must be a paid subscriber to Cricut Access. Whenever you utilize Cricut AI features, tools, or images, AI Credits will be used. Each Cricut Access Subscription and its AI Credits are tied to the Cricut Account, not to a particular Cricut machine, and are shared across your use of any Cricut AI tools, including our Design Space software.

Please Note: Cricut’s AI partners may block images that include children, especially when a child is the only or main subject of a photo. For best results, avoid uploading images where a child is the main subject. Once the tool finishes, you’ll be prompted to Download your transformed image — simply choose the format that works best for you, whether that’s PNG or another supported file type.

When you upload an image to Cricut Photo Art, it is sent to Cricut’s AI image generation service to create your transformed image. Cricut does not currently save these uploaded images to Cricut servers, and these uploads will not appear in your Design Space uploaded image library. After your transformed image is processed, the original upload is discarded by Cricut. Because we don’t store these uploaded images, there is nothing you need to delete on your end.

Remember, Cricut Photo Art is currently in Beta, and the ability to delete your generated transformed images is not yet available.

Ceramics Update
Glenda Skelley, Ceramics Steward

Good news in Ceramics

Our new Shimpo 30” Slab Roller is now assembled and ready for use by those members who have been through the Ceramics Red Tool training. It’s a great addition to the studio and will likely see a lot of use since many of our members like hand building. It’s a very nice piece of equipment and should last decades if taken care of properly. With that in mind, please take a few minutes to review the following information before using the new equipment to ensure we are all working with the same set of guidelines. 

• ·      The Slab Roller can be used to roll out slabs of clay as thin as ⅛”, and as thick as 3”
• ·       There are 4 sets of canvas for use with the different colors of clay. 
• ·       One set = 2 pieces of canvas. Canvas sets are to be used when rolling out slabs to prevent damage to the rollers.

Using the appropriate color canvas will prevent contamination between clay colors. Please select the color canvas used for the color clay you are rolling. All canvas pieces are labeled with the appropriate color:

• WHITE for white and very light-colored clays
• TAN/LIGHT BROWN for beige and light brown clays
• BROWN/BLACK for very dark brown or black clays
• RED for red colored clays 

Clay should be placed between the 2 pieces of canvas on the non-marked side of the canvas. The marked side of the canvas should be on the outside, and should NOT come in contact with the clay. This also applies when using the Slab Mats (™) 

There are 2 sets of Slab Mats (™) available for use. These are used as “pockets” in which clay is placed, then rolled through the slab roller to obtain a flattened slab of clay. There are 2 sets of mats; one for light colored clay bodies, and one for dark colored clay bodies. Please be sure to use the correct color mat for the clay you are using.

IMPORTANT - DO NOT USE ANY SHARP IMPLEMENTS ON THE CANVAS OR SLAB MATS

• This includes needle tools, metal ribs or any metal tools that might score, cut or puncture the materials.
• When finished, wipe down the slab roller with a damp sponge.
• ·Clean canvas and slab mats by brushing off loose clay & wiping with a lightly dampened sponge. Do not wet.
• Lay mats flat to dry to prevent warping and creasing, 
• Hang canvas sets back on hangers. Be careful not to crease fabric.

These instructions are also posted on the wall/cabinet behind the slab roller. Please reach out on the Slack Ceramics channel if you have questions, or if you need help using it the first time.

Whatcha - Making?

Dan Schmidt  

This is a panel I made to close the gap in a cable rail system at the top of the stairs at my brother's beach house.   14 ga steel cut on the plasma CNC, then powder coated.

Robin Hudspeth Schenck 

Added to my gift. HTV & Cricut cut Hubby/Wifey shirts, custom made card, UV printed discs for the avid disc golf couple with the theme of their invitation, 3D printer disc holder for wall display.  

Mike DeWan  

I finally finished 2 norfolk island pine vessels. One is 9" tall, 8"  top diameter. The second is 7" tall by 5 " diameter.

Sheryl Dufour 

Finally, 12 oz mugs

Dawn Martin  

Daniel and I made some little leather shoe tags for our hiking boots.

Diane Painter

Jon Coate

The most frivolous thing I've ever made. Sinister hands for my cat.

Colleen Borley 

I used the laser to cut the felt and the ring to support it.

Dana Eddy 

30 sublimated plaques for the Grease Steam and Rust Association. This is the first piece to a large order for their October event.

MS-L

Oct 6 UVL-R100: UV Printer Red Tool

Oct 7  3DL-R100: FDM 3D Printing (Bambu) Red Tool

Oct 13 BRL-R100: Big Red CNC Red Tool

Oct 13 BNL-R100: BN2-20 Print Vinyl Stickers Red Tool

Oct 14 PML-R100: Axidraw Pen Plotter Red Tool

Oct 15 LCL-R100: CO2 Laser Basic Red Tool

Oct 27 BNL-R100: BN2-20 Print Vinyl Stickers Red Tool

Oct 29 LCL-R100: CO2 Laser Basic Red Tool

MS-P

Oct 3 MSP-G000: Workday

Oct 4 WPP-R101: Welding – MIG Basic Red Tool

Oct 8 WWP-R100: Woodworking Basics Red Tool

Oct 12 WWP-R200: Woodworking Advanced Red Tool

Oct 14 MWP: R100: Metal-Working Basics Red Tool

Makersmiths Runs on Volunteers

Consider teaching a class or holding a workshop! check out the #class_planning_and_requests channel on Slack and join a meeting to get some help with your idea!

Monthly Open Houses

Every Tuesday In Purcellville from 6pm-8pm

785 South 20th Street Purcellville, VA 20132

Every Thursday In Leesburg from 6pm-8pm

106 South Royal Street SW Leesburg, VA 20175

Tool Authorization Groups

Dean Williamson

Makersmiths members are very fortunate to have access to a wide variety of capable and powerful tools. Many of the tools are designated as “red tools”, meaning individuals require prior authorization before they may operate the tool.

This is necessary to promote personal safety and support equipment maintainability. Stewards for red tools and red tool groups (along with other shop areas), are nominated and approved by the Board of Directors.

Methods of authorization vary depending on the tool group. Examples include completing a red tool class, demonstrating proficiency to a steward or their designee, or attending an introductory class with a subsequent independent “check-ride”.

The chart below identifies the current Tool Authorization Groups, the assigned steward, and the applicable authorization method. This list is not exhaustive of all equipment available at Makersmiths and does not include shops or tools that are not designated as “red tools”. Contact the steward with any specific questions about a tool group.

Tracking of authorizations involves monitoring red tool class attendance, confirming authorizations with instructors and stewards, coordinating tool applicability with stewards, and incorporating changes from the Board of Directors. A member may view their current tool authorizations by logging into the Makersmiths website and viewing their own member profile. The “Members Only” section of the website also provides lists of all authorized members by tool group.

Makersmith Board Officers

Board Name/Officer | Position | Term

Brad Hess | Board Member, Vice Chair | 2025 - 2028

Bo Wernick | Board Member| 2024 - 2027

Evin Grano | Board Member/Chairperson | 2024 - 2027

Jennifer Chu | Board Member | 2024 - 2027

Jon White | Board Member, Chairperson | 2026 - 2029

Rob Donahue | Board Member | 2026 - 2029

Mary Waldron | Treasurer | 2025 - 2026

Jim Waldron | Board Member/Secretary | 2025 - 2028

Mike Brady | Web Admin | 2026

Rob Donahue | IT Steward | 2026

David Lang | President | 2026 - 2027

Did You Know...

You can find the newsletters from the last several years archived on our website?

Makersmiths also has a Blog, Instagram, and YouTube!

The Newsletter could always use some new blood - share your projects, pitch some article ideas, tell us about something cool you've seen in your Maker travels!

Makersmiths Leesburg: 106 Royal St SW, Leesburg, VA 20175

Makersmiths Purcellville: 785 S. 20th St, Purcellville, VA 20132