#maconmaker

This Maker Spotlight has been a long time coming. Honestly, we'd be remiss if we didn't feature this maker in our series. So raise your glass and meet the Macon Beer Company, the Heart of Georgia's very own microbrewery !

"Engineering Great Beer" is definitely an appropriate slogan for a company founded by engineers who wanted to use their skills, talent, and knowledge to make some great beer. 

This is Jeremy Knowles, frontman and Lead Brewer of Macon Beer Company. 

Jeremy is/was a professional chemical engineer. Like most of our makers, Jeremy decided he was done working for someone else, and he figured out a way to start a business that would be a really cool job. I mean, who else gets to spend their days playing with a super-sized chemistry set and tasting beer all day?

The super-sized part comes later, but these are just some of the chemistry things laying around. Everything is used to create the MBC products that you can find on tap at loads of local restaurants and bars. The flagship beer was released in 2013, and it is cleverly named "Macon Progress." The other craft MBC brews are seasonal offerings that were released alongside major events in Macon as a way to highlight those events. "Macon Love" came out during last year's Cherry Blossom Festival, and "Macon Music" was available for this past Bragg Jam. MBC has also released "Macon History" and a Homebrew brand.

The Macon Homebrew was part of a new Homebrew Competition with last year's Macon Octoberfest. Homebrewers were able to enter into the competition, and the winner got to go to MBC and collaborate with them in creating and commercializing the recipe for what is now the Macon Homebrew. The end result is a peach IPA that truly is unique and limited edition. In fact, it may never be made again! At least not exactly like this. 

Using their seasonal brews and release dates to highlight Macon's unique festivals and events has gained MBC lots of attention and quite the following. They are looking to expand the seasonal selections and offer more than just draft beer. If you're looking to try what's brewing at 345 Oglethorpe Street, check any local restaurant or bar, especially downtown. If you want your favorite restaurant or bar to start supporting local business through our hometown brewery, ask your bartender about carrying Macon Beer. 

Last week, we got to catch up with Jessica Carroll, co-owner of Cherry Street Ink with her husband, Stephen "Structure" Dunn.

Q: How did Cherry Street Ink get started? Why tattoos and piercings? 

Cherry Street Ink got started when my hubby and I had been working in this industry and decided we would like to be in control of our own fate. He has been a body piercer for over 12 years now, and he also sits on the health department's consolatory board, working closely to help improve the understanding and awareness of this industry and also to help regulate tattoo and body piercing guidelines for this area.

He is an amazing body piercer and without a doubt even if you were to pay him double he would not pierce anyone if it would not work on their body. That is the kind of work ethic that it takes to make a business successful.

Well. He never said it wouldn't hurt.

Q: What made you choose this location?

We chose Downtown because this is home. I grew up here--from shopping for furniture to wearing my grandmother's amazing fur coats from Barn's Furs. I have heard stories all of my life from my mother who remembers getting all dolled up and headed downtown to shop. This was the place to be on Sundays! For my husband, this was where he always spent his Friday and Saturday nights DJing at nightclubs. 

Structure still DJs on the side... of his Room of Piercings

The location of Cherry Street Ink was chosen out of all of the locations we looked at because walking up the stairs was kind of mysterious and allowed for curiosity to set in before you get in to the shop. We also love the landlord. He is so helpful and has a deep commitment to building up the downtown area. His ambitious attitude continues to give us the drive to stay successful. 

Gotta say I love the staircase! Jessica is totally right about the sense of mystery or curiosity.

But the actual upstairs is nothing like what you expect...

Cherry Street Ink could easily be mistaken for the edgiest doctor's office you've ever seen. It's clean and neat, instantly dispelling the stigmas you might have about tattoo parlors.

The walls are covered in gorgeous artwork, almost all of which is original work from the artists who work at the shop. 

Q: How did you select the artists who work here now?

Selecting the artists that we currently have was not an easy task. We have had some super talented, but not so nice people, work for us since we opened. It took us a while, but we finally found that amazing talent with a great attitude. These guys are just perfect. They love what they do and love interacting with people. They also continue to get better with their work every day. I am so lucky to have found all of these guys.

Only two of the guys were at the shop when we went by, but we were lucky we got to witness some true artists at work. First up, we have JJ:

Then we have Kevin Dixon, who painted most of the art on the walls:

The shop has these awesome interactive portfolio stations that allow customers to search through the previous work each artist has done as well as previous piercings. If you'd like to check out more of the artist's work, just go by the shop and take a look! They also have tons of examples online if you want to look through them while at home.

The kiosks even have software that allows you to test out any script you want done in tons of different fonts! From someone who got a script tattoo, that's one of the coolest things a tattoo shop can offer.

They also have hardcopy portfolio albums and tons of tattoo and piercing magazines for inspiration or something to do while you wait to get inked.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge for you and the business?

The biggest challenge has been to get some of the downtown people to look at tattoos in a different light so to speak. Having them understand that we are not grungy, dirty, tattooed, crazy people who are all going to hell was a bit tedious. I think that when they saw our families and our interactions with the community they began to realize that we are also moms and dads and good people.

Q: If you could do anything for your business and money wasn't an issue, what would you do? 

If money were no object in a land of dreams, I would love to help rebuild the downtown area. There have been so many great improvements and renovations that I would love to be apart of the transformation. It would be amazing to take a stroll around the block and see all of the beautiful architecture restored to its original magnificent state. Not that this is directly for my business, but if the area was filled with more life then it could only help the growth of my business.

Q: What was the coolest tattoo you've done/seen done here? Best story behind one?

The coolest tattoo is a hard one. There have been so many interesting ideas and stories to go along with them. We have heard it and seen it all. Just recently a father and his daughter came in, and they were getting baptized the next day. The father wanted a tattoo to memorialize his journey to where he is today. While this is a simple story, the significance of someone who is firm in their religious beliefs deciding to get a tattoo is not something we see everyday. Usually, it is more ridicule and judgement. 

If you want a tattoo, but can't think of anything, Cherry Street just rolled out the new "Wish Wall." The artists have drawn and sketched pieces that they would love to ink on someone, and they are willing to do so at a discounted price! Each design will only be done once, so you've got yourself an original and unique custom piece.

Q: Why would you call Cherry Street Ink "Macon Made"?

Cherry Street Ink is Macon Made because this is who we are. I am Macon Made from the generations of Maconites that raised me with great pride and the ability to achieve anything and the desire to reach out to my community and offer them high quality, clean standards, and awesome art. My husband is not from Macon, but he chose Macon as his home. His name is synonymous with the music scene here, and he has put his heart into Cherry Street Ink to give back to the community that has been so awesome to him. 

Q: What does being a maker mean to you?

Being a Macon maker is more that just opening up shop. It is about supporting your community and showing your passion for the people that live and work in your community. Going out in the community and be a part of everything that makes this a better place to live, lifting people up and making things happen is what being a Macon maker is all about!  

Q: How do you think the Maker Movement will impact Macon and/or Middle Georgia?

To me this means, being able to be proud of where you come from and showing people that one person can make a difference and choosing to go out and make that difference.

The Macon Maker Movement is a great way to get people to realize why they have taken the path that they have and how they can go from where they are to a place that makes a difference and builds their community up.

We loved getting to know these incredibly talented Macon Makers! We are so proud to have them in the center of downtown as they continue to support progress in Macon. 

This will be the first of our monthly events. We will host a 4 hour Making/Hacking event for the public and SparkMacon members.  The event starts at 5:30pm and ends at 9:30pm. You can work individually or in groups on projects.

This can be anything; a painting, a chapter in a book, a software program, a robot, a table or chair or anything else you can think of. It doesn’t matter what you make. Just make something! We will then present what we worked on to the people there and vote for the best one. There will be prizes!!!

[For more info on what tools and possible projects will be offered, check out the full blog by Michael Rosario.]

In order to compete in the “Open Make Night” to win prizes, you will need to register for this event.

Looking forward to making it a great evening!

Look out, Macon! SparkMacon is opening their doors for First Friday this week for an Open Make, meaning the public and SparkMacon members will be able to come in and try out their own makin' hands in Macon's first MakerSpace. 

Since it's the first #WoodworkWednesday, we are happy to present the first maker profile of the College Hill Tumblr Refresh: 

Prodigy Woodworks LLC

Meet Brooks Patterson, owner and founder of Prodigy Woodworks LLC. Brooks is a maker at heart, and he has been one of the truly lucky ones who were able to make their lives around that passion. He has been tinkering and creating new projects out of old products since he was a kid. Now he has created a new home and life in Prodigy. Seriously, but we will get to that later.

Prodigy started out in 2005 when Brooks and the gang acquired the building at the corner of Terminal Avenue and Poplar Street in downtown Macon (that's 454 Terminal Avenue, to be exact). Brooks was already working for a cabinetmaker in Griffin at the time. "They weren't using any kind of technology. It was all regular saws and regular equipment" which wasn't working out for Brooks. "I just wanted to do something different, and so that's how we ended up starting this place." 

Prodigy is definitely different from your average cabinetmaker. 

We take on a lot of things because we got tired of subbing it out. We started doing our own countertops, got the machinery to do that, so we could keep it in house. We were subbing metalwork out; we got tired of doing that. Now we've got our own metalworking machines and tools. So we are able to do just about everything. People call us in for design work too, and we are able to design and build our own jobs. 

When asked about what obstacles Prodigy faced, Brooks said it was the money at first. "Acquiring financing was a huge hurdle for us," at first. "That takes years. You don't start out with all the money you want, and you only get fifty percent of what you need. We had to make it work." Another was getting "a good set of people." Brooks says that's another one that took years. The Prodigy staff currently is a really good set of people who were "picked," and Brooks says he works with friends, people he knows work well together. The Prodigy staff now consists of two full-time staff members who work alongside Brooks "in the shop together or out on the property" when they have on-site fieldwork, remodeling, or contracting to do. Then Larry mans the office, quoting and configuring projects and ordering material. Brooks's wife, Leah, runs the books, taking care of auditing and invoicing.

The biggest, by far, was actually learning the technology which is now the backbone of the company. Prodigy started out without any new technology, but learning to use the new tech when they got it was the hardest. "You break a lot of things, you tear up a lot of stuff, and technology is not really easy to fix. I've had to learn that along the way. Adding machines, networking all these machines together--it really, literally, took years to do. [...] And then staying on top of it, because after you get it all done, you keep updating things. Technology changes, and there's always something coming along that's faster."

Prodigy has quite a bit of new technology and machinery in the shop, enough for a separate post! We will cover that exclusively next week on #TechTuesday! There's some really cool stuff they are working with, so be sure to check back then.

We bought up buildings to help the neighborhood around here. That's actually just...fun. It's a lot; we bit off a lot with that. But it's really fun work to me. We acquired this building, which is 454 Terminal, and 310 Sixth Street and 340 Sixth Street, which is right across the street from here. We acquired all of that from NewTown as a distressed property. They had it since 2002. I've rented here since 2005, but I only rented this one little section; the rest of the property was just in really bad disrepair. There were a lot of homeless people living in the buildings, a lot of drug activity down the south end of the street, just a really bad place.We saw that over the years, and I like fixing things, so we decided last year to buy it. It took us a couple of months to actually sit down with NewTown and UDC to actually get that deal rolling. In August of last year, I think, we acquired the buildings. We've had one year into this, and we've done a lot of work. You know, we've cleaned up the streets, cleaned out the buildings, renovating each one of them. We are currently working on two spots right now to lease them out. These are buildings that have been, pretty much, abandoned for fifteen years. [...] We lease to a gym now, which is Rush MMA. They have a lot of members, so the parking lots are full again. It's coming alive, the neighborhood is really coming back. We are renting out two more spaces next month to new tenants. It's actually worked,the hard work we've put in; it's making people come back to this area. [...] We want to build to lofts in the Sixth Street Project, and we want it to be part of downtown again even though it's right across the tracks from it.

Brooks and his team have taken it upon themselves to give back to their surrounding community, applying their skills to support the growth and development of the neighborhood. Brooks said it best when he described how he gets new machines that aren't always so new:

Sometimes we make the tools that make our products to help us make the neighborhood.

If that isn't the best definition of a true Macon Maker, we don't know what is.

Austin Harrison, Civic Engagement intern at College Hill: What originally drew you to apply to go on the Mercer Vietnam trip? How did your experience on that trip inspire you to grow the program as much as you have since returning?

Matt Yin, current president of MPOCs and 5th year masters student in biomedical engineering: The appeal of Mercer on Mission Vietnam is the chance to help people, to see your hard work change someone's life right in front of your eyes, to return mobility and hope to people that thought they would never walk again. After going on the trip, however, students are usually the ones that become inspired. They gain confidence in themselves and realize how capable they are of influencing the global community. That is what inspired us to keep making Mercer on Mission Vietnam bigger and better every year. Each new leg we fabricate means we can help one more amputee get on their feet. Each new student that goes on the trip is another student that will return from the trip inspired to make a contribution to he world.

Gary Wall, co-founder of MPOCs, Prosthetic and Orthotic Technician at Boland Prosthetic and Orthotic Center, Mercer Class of 2014: As a pre-health major, taking any opportunity to gain experience in the field was a priority in my undergraduate career. Unfortunately, “shadowing” here in the states often means following a doctor around without getting to do any of the work yourself due to legal reasons. When I heard that Mercer allowed an opportunity to not only shadow an M.D. in an orthopedic clinic, but to also fabricate and fit prosthetic limbs on needy patients in Vietnam, I jumped at the opportunity. I think it also helped that I am part Vietnamese and being able to visit the country where my father and grandmother were born proved to be icing on the cake. As far as the actual experience goes, I immediately fell in love with the work Mercer is doing overseas to help not only the disabled, but also with giving students the power to change the world. This experience is what drew me to do everything I could to help grow the program so that other students could experience the same life-changing event that I had the opportunity to experience.

Melina Hettiaratchi, Maker Media intern at College Hill : Do you plan to apply the skills learned on the Mercer on Mission Vietnam trip to your professional careers? In an entrepreneurial fashion?

Matt: Absolutely. Through working on the Mercer on Mission program, we have learned a lot about the prosthetic fitting and fabrication process. I think that the most important thing that we learn from the Mercer on Mission Vietnam trips, however, is not the skills or knowledge. The most important knowledge we gain through this trip is the experience of moving outside of our little bubble here in Macon. By going to Vietnam, we get the chance to see what it is really like in a developing world. We see the living and working conditions these people live in. How does it affect our professional and entrepreneurial careers? Well, it helps us stay on track. It reminds us that we aren't looking to make the most advanced prosthetics or orthotics that money can buy. We aren't trying to compete with microprocessor-controlled legs that cost tens of thousands of dollars. We are making medical devices that are affordable, effective, and easy to maintain.

Gary: After completing my education (Master’s degree in Prosthetics and Orthotics), I plan to start a prosthetic and orthotic clinic in Macon that would have close ties to Mercer. I envision my clinic having a shadowing program for Mercer students interested in pursuing a career in P&O. I would also like to start a central fabrication facility, a place where busy practitioners send devices off to be manufactured instead of doing it themselves, which would allow for engineering students to apply manufacturing techniques they learn in class to an actual business. The facility would also give these students the tools needed to research and create devices for the Mercer On Mission program.

Austin: What does the word “Maker” mean to you?

Matt: Makers are innovators, inventors, and visionaries. At the core, makers all have one quality in common: proactivity. When a maker sees a need or issue in the global community, he doesn't just sit by and wait for someone else to fix it. A maker seizes the opportunity and thinks: What can I do to fix this? What can I do to contribute to the world?

Gary: Being a Maker, and specifically a Macon Maker, means leveraging all of Macon’s diverse resources into one cohesive business model that, in turn, creates an atmosphere for other entrepreneurs to seek and establish their own business endeavors. This creative cycle will ultimately make Macon a place on people’s map for reasons other than a pit stop between Savannah and Atlanta.

Melina: What possible applications do you see for Prosthetic Engineers and the Maker Movement?

Gary: One application that I mentioned before is to create a Central Fabrication business in Macon that employs engineers and technicians who create and fabricate devices for practitioners countrywide. Another potential application for engineers in Macon, given that they have access to the needed equipment, is for prototyping new and exciting designs for both prosthetic and orthotic devices with market potential.

Matt: I see the Prosthetic program becoming a big part of the Maker Movement. Our vision is a fabrication and research center for prosthetics and orthotics. I see the Prosthetics program manufacturing prosthetics and orthotics that we will use to not only fit amputees in Vietnam, but also in Haiti, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, and Africa.

Austin: How could the Macon Maker Movement impact this community?

Matt: The Macon Maker Movement inspires action. It gives a concrete path for visionaries to make their ideas a reality. Through the Macon Maker Movement, I see the opportunity for a proactive, innovative community that promotes growth of business in the community. I see Makers collaborating with one another to create, reinvent, and change the community little by little.

Sorry for the delay, but because of Labor Day this edition of our Maker Monday Profile will have to make its appearance on Wonderful Wednesday instead. This week I had the privilege to sit down with Mollie Davis and Andrew Eck, who are not only two of Macon’s most involved makers, but also friends of mine and fellow students, who in their spare time are working on receiving their education from Mercer University.

  This dynamic duo has begun making everyday items out of used pallets, salvaging them from assured disposal. Crafting everything from easels to bar signs, Georgia Pallet has gained recent notoriety resulting from their willingness to accept and embrace strange and of the wall requests. In true Macon Maker fashion, there isn’t much these two can’t or won’t make.

Here are Mollie and Andrew showing off the easel that was custom made to display the Macon Made seal a couple of months ago.

Q: You probably get this question a lot but, why pallets? How did this unique idea come about?

Mollie: I was off campus last summer and needed a coffee table for my place. My Dad runs his own company and he has a lot of pallets at his warehouse. We decided to make a coffee table out of a pallet and then a close friend of mine dared me to sell it and I did. I made a lot more money off of it then I expected, but still needed a coffee table, so Andrew and I decided to begin making them regularly.

Q: What pallet product are you most commonly making? What is your favorite to make?

Andrew: We are making a lot of bar signs recently, although I prefer the coffee tables.

Mollie: Well we started off just doing tables, but now people just love the custom work and we are doing a lot of signs including the work we did recently for the Macon Beer Company. I personally love the signs because of painting. A lot more creativity goes into the project when you combine pallet and paint.

Q: Describe as best you can the normal process for your most common requests?

Andrew: Someone will message us with something in mind, almost everything we do is custom work. Which keeps things interesting. It's challenging but rewarding to have to meet someone's expectations but with creative leeway. After deciding how we are going to attack the project, we then begin the work with the pallets.

Mollie: We usually start by cutting down a pallet. We prefer oak pallets, because they are sturdier. We try to find oak if we can but most of the ones we find are made out of pine. After getting the pallet, we take the boards from the back and bring them forward to make the table uniform. Then we take the bars from a separate pallet and cross them to make the legs. But that’s just the process for a table. Almost everything we make is something we’ve never made before. People want things that are just made for them, therefore we have to be flexible and creative with each process we use.

Q: Any tips for aspiring furniture craftspeople/ entrepreneurs?

Andrew: Do it! If you're passionate about something do it! Sit down and write out what it would cost to do it and ask yourself if it's worth making or doing whatever and not making anything and if or when you can make money is when it becomes exciting.

Mollie: I mean just recognize that what you do is valuable to someone and get what you do out there. Especially when it’s something you enjoy doing because then it hardly feels like work. If you do it because you love it just do it and then get the word out. Creating a twitter was probably the best thing we ever did. Over 500 people follow us to learn about pallets. How cool is that?

Q: What does the word “maker” mean to you?

Andrew: A maker to me is a hands on entrepreneur, he literally makes his business.

Mollie: Yup, that sums it up pretty well.

Q: What is the most exciting part of the Macon Maker movement for you?

Mollie: Most exciting for me is working with other makers by interacting in community. For example getting to make pallets with Macon Beer Company for Bragg Jam. People who love Macon are also loved by Macon. That creates support from all over, whether it be Warner Robins, Spark Macon, or College Hill people really want to see small businesses strive in this area.

Andrew: Yea I agree. It would definitely be meeting other makers and entrepreneurs who are similarly passionate about making or doing creative things. It's fun being recognized as the pallet people and often times we get into more conversations than we would like about pallets. People donate pallets to us it's a little out of hand at times. But it's great to hear time and time again the support from people who are excited about the furniture or us being entrepreneurs. I would love to see Macon as a maker town. As a place where people come to be creative. We have all the parts we just need to put them together.

Here is an action shot of Mollie and Andrew hard at work.

  If you like what you have read here and want to test Mollie and Andrew's creativity or just get them to construct your next pallet coffee table, you can find them on their aforementioned Twitter, as well as Facebook or Instagram.

As you travel a ways down Forsyth Road to the Monroe County Line, you’ll pass a sign for “Tom’s Precision Sharpening”  right on the county line, that is simply impossible to miss. If not for the sign though you’d undoubtedly drive right passed it because Tom Morgan and his son Matthew run this dynamic sharpening shop out of their back shed, stationed directly behind their home.

As their logo suggests, this father-son duo specializes in sharpening “anything that cuts things,” from saw blades to kitchen knives, but these two talented makers don’t limit themselves to just sharpening. As the new parents Jessica Walden and Jaime Weatherford can attest; they just had Tom’s Precision Sharpening restore a large piece of iron they used to make a headboard. These crafty makers can do it all, considering there isn’t much Tom and Matthew Morgan haven’t sharpened over their near 45 years of combined sharpening experience.

  The experienced twosome are pictured above with finished products in hand. That is Tom on the right, and his son Matthew on the left.

  Q: What all can you guys sharpen?

Tom: Anything pertaining to cutting, whether it is wood cutting or metal cutting. We sharpen all items that cut things, everything from kitchen knives to drill bits, saw blades, and planer blades used to cut large stacks of paper. There are a lot of different things we sharpen.

  Here is a before and after shot of a sharpened tool commonly used in the plumbing industry. Tom mentioned to me that you can often restore a tool by sharpening it, and he charges a fraction of the price it would cost to buy a new one. Sharpening old tools is becoming a more practical, inexpensive solution for handymen everywhere.

Q: What would you say is your most common sharpening request? How does the process to sharpen that item work?

Tom: The carbide tips on the saws is probably our most common request, and for that we first check the saw blade for any missing teeth and if there are any we mark them and put that blade in a different stack than the others. Then my son Matthew puts the tips in wherever they are missing and then he brings the saw blades back to me and I set up the machine depending on how many teeth are in it and how big it is, and once the machine is set up the sharpening is automatic for that one. Some things are automatic but a lot of stuff we do is manual also.

Q: What is the strangest sharpening request you have ever seen?

Tom: Well see, a lot of people buy these samurai swords off of those knife shows on TV and they will bring it in here and want it sharpened. There you’re talking like a 36 to 40 inch long blade and they want that whole edge razor sharp, yeah that’s probably the strangest.

Matthew: Outside of sharpening though we do plenty of other things, like the restoration of door hinges and other metal materials. Sharpening is our main thing, but we are always doing other stuff too like we just finished restoring a piece of iron that Jessica Walden and Jaime Weatherford turned into a headboard, so it’s definitely not just sharpening for us.

Q: So how did you guys get into the sharpening business? How did this become the family affair it is today?

Tom: I started out when I was about 17, working for “Ream Tool Company,” where we specialized in sharpening tools and a guy I worked with over there taught me pretty much everything I know, and then I taught my own self some things. From there I went to “Bibb Sharpening” and then to “Bibb Tool and Cutter” but once they shut down I got all the equipment and decided to open up my own shop and over the years I’ve moved here and there but always sharpening. I’ve had this particular company open for almost three years now.

Matthew: As far as making this a family affair, I started working for my dad when he had his shop inside Bibb Tool and Cutter and that was in about 2005, I think.

Tom: Yeah, that sounds about right

Matthew: So when the economy slumped in about 2008, and the housing market slowed down people stopped building so they weren’t dulling tools for us then. So my Dad had to let me go. But in 2011, when my Dad’s business partner, James, bought out Bibb Tool and Cutter and my Dad bought all the equipment from him to open up this shop here, he immediately hired me back because he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the work load on his own. So I’ve been sharpening in this business for about 6 or 7 years.

Q: When you hear the word “Maker,” what does that title mean to you?

Matthew: From what I’ve read and seen on social media from you guys it seems like a positive community of small businesses and entrepreneurs that are…

Tom: Just trying to make it

Matthew: Yeah, just trying to make it. I definitely dig the idea of it, from what I’ve read about it.

Q: What potential do you guys think the “Macon Maker” movement has for our community and Central Georgia as a whole?

Matthew: I think if people get behind these small businesses and makers around here it will definitely boost the economy and keep Macon’s money in Macon. I think that is definitely the most important aspect for me. It’s going to be a way to bring all of us small businesses together and help with getting the word out through advertising and such, but most importantly it’s about keeping Macon’s money in Macon.

  Here is Tom in action, using the aforementioned manual sharpening method. 

Email the guys, Facebook them, or call 478-992-9091 to sharpen up some of those dull tools sitting in your garage or let these makers craft you a metallic masterpiece. 

Stay tuned to all of College Hill's social media outlets for more information on the Macon Maker movement and be ready for next week's Maker Monday Profile featuring Jason Frost. If you are interested in featuring what you make on the Maker Monday series, email [email protected].