The Instrument Shop is available to build or repair equipment from any academic department at Carleton.  Although we can make almost anything, the focus of the shop is on equipment that can’t be purchased from a catalog.  In general, if an apparatus that meets your needs is available as a stock item it is more cost effective to buy it than have the Instrument shop make it.

Type of Work

The shop will make or repair apparatus used in teaching or research. Projects generally fall into these categories:

  • Demonstrations in the classroom
  • Student use in the teaching labs or studios
  • The research activities of faculty and students

Cost of Shop Services

There are no labor charges for work done in the shop.

There is also no cost for materials that are on-hand.  However, you will be charged for any materials that are purchased for your project.  This includes both the materials used directly in your project as well as any other consumables, such as cutters or welding rod, that is purchased for use on your project.  Any materials that are left over at the end of the project remain in the shop inventory for use on future projects. 

Using materials on-hand is generally preferred, but is up to the discretion of the shop whether to use material on-hand or purchase new for a given project.

Priorities

We will always strive to meet your schedule but at busy times we may have to negotiate a bit.  First priority is given to apparatus that is needed for scheduled classroom demonstration or for teaching labs. 

Samples

Here are some sample projects completed in the Carleton Instrument shops. 

Send an e-mail if you’d like more information about any of the projects.  We’d be happy to share more details about any of them. Many of the projects have CAD models and a few have complete drawing sets available in PDF form.