Introducing Clayton Mabry

I am a classified employee of Trinity. My position is Admin Support Coordinator in The Center for Sciences and Innovation. My team, the Moody Cluster, supports Computer Science, Entrepreneurship, Chemistry and Engineering. The Department of Engineering is my main focus.

In supporting the Engineering Department, I have watched the “Shop” morph into the “Makerspace” with great interest. My background from an early age has been a combination of administration and mechanics. My first career was in US Treasury Disbursing Division where we mailed out millions of checks (remember checks???) each month. I was the lead mechanic and foreman for two 42 ft long envelope making machines which were modified to insert the checks while the envelop was being made. I was part of the team that developed the prototype machine. I learned to use a small lathe, surface grinder, hand tools, multimeter, level and a giant lead hammer.

My interest in the Maker Class is to become at least conversationally familiar with modern technology and have some fun working with my hands again.
 

Week 3 - Measuring and drawing the tool tote on the board provided was a little tricky. I did not think through the consequences of using a board that is 11 7/8 wide to make a tool tote with six inch sides. Also, I did not make allowance for the width of the chop saw blade. I used up the entire board except for some possibly re-usable scrap, which I kept just in case. I had already made a cut list from the Fusion drawings.


Cutting with the chop saw was also tricky as I cut the center of the line and was not that accurate. I had to cut the ends and sides a second time on the band saw to match the bottom.

Week 4 - I finished all the band-saw cuts, drill press operation and saber saw cuts for the handle and  most of the
sanding today. Using the shaper router was not easy for me, but Ryan showed me how to hold and advance the pieces for the handle-ends-tray-dividers. I tried to sand everything so when I had finished assembly there would not be much sanding left to do. It is not as smooth as I would like. Also, today, between tasks, Ryan helped me set up the Glow Forge to engrave a caricature of me into the long side pieces of the tote. The caricature was created on a tablet, from a photo of me, by my artistic and lovable 13 year-old grand daughter, Madelyn Arispe, of Round Rock.

Week 5 - I had not assembled my tool tote until this morning before class. I was freaking out as I had a couple of personal crises going on which left me distracted me and enervated. However, the fear of humiliation before the students, faculty and staff of the class forced me to action. So it is assembled and I erased as many of the pencil marks as possible, since I plan to varnish.