This coming Saturday, SparkFun and local business McGuckin Hardware are teaming up to offer Boulder-area residents a crash-course in beginner soldering.
Join us on Saturday, March 29th from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. at McGuckin Hardware at 2525 Arapahoe Ave. in sunny Boulder, Colorado. We'll be working on our SparkFun Weevil Eye Kit to teach you the in's-and-out's of through-hole soldering.
All are welcome and the event is free! We hope to see you there!
"Most of my colleagues go on backpacking trips when they have to do some thinking. I go to a good hardware store and head for the oiliest, dustiest corners. ... If they're really good, they don't hassle me. They let me wander around and think. Young hardware clerks have a lot of hubris. They think they can help you find anything.... Old hardware clerks have learned the hard way that nothing in a hardware store ever gets bought for its nominal purpose. You buy something that was designed to do one thing, and you use it for another. " - Neal Stephenson "Zodiac"
McGuckin=Great! Sparkfun=Awesome! McGuckin+Sparkfun=Super Great Amazing Awesome!
Scientific proof that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Glad you guys are teaming up for this. Very cool.
McGuckin is a treasure. I know of no other store that carries such an encyclopedic inventory of hardware. There is tremendous value to the entrepreneur or scientist or home owner in being able to roam what is essentially a vast well-curated selection of hardware, and see and touch that inventory. I visit Boulder at least yearly, and typically spend 3 hours each trip at McGuckin roaming and thinking and buying. The experience is similar to what it was like visiting Fry's Electronics in Silcon Valley in the 1980s and 1990s, or, today, visiting, Powell's Book Store in Portland. The sales clerk are extremely knowledgeable and personable. McGuckin is the heart of Boulder.
Are working on Weezil Eye or Simon says as in the photo? Do we register? How much time should we plan for?
It will be the Weevil Eye. McGuckin actually made that photo and they probably just grabbed some nice looking imagery. But yeah - Weevil Eye, not Simon. No registration is required. It is a first-come, first-served situation but I can't tell you how crowded it will be!
I must disagree with other posters' enthusiasm for McGuckin Hardware. My mistreatment at the hands of their security, when I had stolen nothing, was not just unprofessional, it was un-American! As a former store detective, I say so from experience. SF is blameless for associating with them, but I will not attend.
A lot of us who've wandered around the store at length probably know what you're talking about. It can get kind of ridiculous. You have to weigh this, though, against the thing where they have like 6-15 versions of everything and the geometry of the store is a mystery you only begin to unravel after years in Boulder. Occasionally there's, like, a harp player. There are individual aisles, some of them probably afterthoughts, which render entire secondary categories of retail store unnecessary.
McGuckin Hardware is like a pocket universe designed by some minor deity of consumer civilization as a demonstration of the beneficence of the modern supply chain.
(Edit: Not to dismiss your beef, to which I have no doubt you're entitled, but a good hardware store is a thing of rare beauty in this day and age.)
Sorry about your poor experience. I've lived in Boulder for 25 years and have always had great service from McGuckin's. I particularly appreciate that most of the floor staff are retired experts in their respective aisles (one of the bolt people designed spacecraft for Ball), and they don't give you blank stares when you're trying to do something totally different than what a part was intended for. I've had four employees trying to help me get from a particular pipe thread to a completely incompatible tubing with the minimum number of adapters.
"So what are you making, anyway?"
"A balloon filler."
"Neat!"
I've definitely had that conversation before.