Over the last 4 years we've slowly replaced older equipment and this year added a new Timesaver thickness sander, Denray downdraft sanding table, a half dozen Dynabrade sanders and upgraded our planer with a Shelix spiral cutterhead which is the same configuration our 12" Grizzly jointer has. A brand new dust collection system was also apart of the improvements so the whole power tool area stays much cleaner than our old facility.
There are still upgrades to equipment planned and we'll continue to phase in refinements throughout the coming years but the program and facility have gone through a major evolution in just these past 4 years. Below is the other guitar lab adjacent to the power tool room.
Students each have their own workbench and our classes are arranged in 4, 6 or 7 week blocks depending on the course and semester. Even though it's a full-time 8 hour a day commitment, this allows students to have only 1 or 2 classes per week for those blocks of time. We've been able to get to more content with this arrangement, another improvement to whole program.
