I went to Flowering Elbow‘s open day on Saturday. It took about 90 minutes to drive from Cardiff, and I finally arrived on top of a hill near Carmarthen where Sam and Steve have built a workshop extension to an existing farm building. Lots of TLC and sustainable design principles have gone into the building, as well as an impressive array of metal and wood machining tools.

Theme for the day was wood, and I chose to make a casing for a prototype small amplified speaker powered by a supercapacitor array. Steve and Sam suggested different bits of timber. I settled on geometrically challenging but good looking holly cuts that they gathered from a hedge nearby sometime ago. I used a bandsaw and a scary table saw to make small holly panels. There was no time to assemble the case, it is now on my homework to-do list.

I totally recommend attending Flowering Elbow’s next open day, Steve and Sam are very welcoming and knowledgeable, and they are keen to share skills and ideas. I have invited them to come to my studio soon, and spend a day on electronics and small scale digital fabrication.