[sreilly]

Well as mentioned in another posting I finally made it to a woodworking show aptly named The Woodworking Show that was held this week-end in Chantilly Virginia about 2+ hours from home. In my mind the trip was well worth it just for the personal time I had with Alex Snodgrass of Carter Products. Alex's video on the bandsaw clinic was what set me straight on resawing successfully and that was huge for me. I sat and watched the seminar on the same program just to glean something more and it was as good as before. He has this down to a science. Carter Products has some great tools and jigs making life so much easier. His father wasn't there due his having an eye surgery but Alex and his wife had things well in hand. Thanks again Alex.

Next big thrill was that Lee Valley was there and they had their tools on full display for all to try and see. I have to admit that this was a big selling point for me as being able to actually feel the tool in your hand is way more informative than any spec sheet or picture. You also see detail the picture can't possible show and have a true perspective of the tool at hand. I can honestly say that these planes are of high quality ad it shows and feels that way. I wish I had gotten the gentleman's name but he was a big fella. Tall and built like a football player. But extremely knowledgeable and very personable. He took time to answer my questions and show me the ins and outs of such planes. I looked at the #4 smoother, the #62 Jack, and one of the jointer planes. While what I really needed was to look at the block planes, preferably the low angle one. I was so excited to see all these fine tools I simply forgot to look at the block plane....... I mean I saw it but didn't handle it. Well I'll be in Vancouver this May.....They didn't have stock on hand for sale but you did get free shipping which I hear is about the best you'll do. Seems they don't have sales except at Black Friday where returns/seconds may be reduced.

I attended one other seminar and that was the Bush Oil Finishing. That was an eyeopener and there's a separate posting on that so I'll move on. I did meet and talk with Jim Heavey with WOOD magazine and what a really nice guy. Just like in his videos. And I met Geoffrey Noden and his wife with Noden Adjust-A-Bench/Noden Furniture Design A couple of really nice people. I was surprised to see C P Johnson at the show and thoroughly enjoyed the doughnut, I had't eaten all day and was determined to stop for BBQ on the way home. On a whim I did stop at the warehouse and pick up some maple for a project I'm working on.I didn't see that coming but it's on the way.....

Next was a stop at Woodpeckers. Seeing all their toys out on tables was making me drool. Although I this I have some of their best products already it was interesting seeing what is available now. They did have the dado stacker as well. And Ridge Carbie was there with some good show prices. Overall I'd say it was a good show, actually my best ever but also my only so the next will be a true test.

 

[sgcz75b]

Glad you had a good time. Sounds as though you hit a home run.
Steve

 

[CharleyL]

They will be in Charlotte, NC this coming weekend. They dropped Charlotte from their list about 6 years ago and this will be their first time back since then. The last time that they were in Charlotte the show had become so small that I had decided not to go again, but I'm hearing that there have been changes since then, so I'm planning to go, probably on Friday.

We have another woodworking show here in NC that is run every year by The Klingspore Woodworking Shops and it costs nothing to get in and no parking fees either. It has been bigger and better than the last visit here by The Woodworking Shows. So I'll be going to the show on Friday, but it might be the last time that I go to one of their shows.

Charley

 

[sreilly]

I ahd seen a post where someone mentioned parking fess but we had none of that in Chantilly. Maybe it's where the venue is held. I paid $12 online for my entree and that was all.

 

[sreilly]

I had seen a post where someone mentioned parking fess but we had none of that in Chantilly. Maybe it's where the venue is held. I paid $12 online for my entree and that was all.

 

[MikeMa]

The Columbus show had parking fees @ $5/day

The show this year was okay. Peachtree Tools wasn't there due to family illness, but hopefully back next year. I had been needing a new dado stack, so I took advantage of the Ridge Carbide pricing and got theirs. I have already done a couple quick projects with them, and they do cut nice!

Once Peachtree is (hopefully!) back they bring in Bessey and Kreg with some very nice discounts with their products. The last few years I have been building my K-Body clamp collection, as their discount on them is typically excellent. (I typically by 4 at time when there, and the price on 4 is usually about what 3 would cost on Amazon). I have room on my clamp rack for 4 more clamps, and I was hoping to finish filling it this year. However there is always next year!

 

[honesttjohn]

The owner of Ridge Carbide is usually there. Not a bad guy to deal with.

 

[CharleyL]

Well, I'm back from the Charlotte show.

It was smaller than their last show here 6 years ago, and parking was $8 instead of the $5 that it had been for previous Woodworking Shows that had been held at this location. I had printed a discount coupon from their website, so I paid $12 at the door with the coupon instead of the $14 show price. Today they were offering tickets that are good for all three days instead of the reduced price if you wanted to come back the next day that they were offering when they were here the last time.
I saw the whole show, walking slow and taking my time in less than 1 hour. Then went back and took in a few classes. Some friends were manning the NC Woodworker Club booth, so I spent the rest of the afternoon with them.

I have a friend woodworker who couldn't go with me today because of other commitments, so I'll likely be back there again tomorrow, with him. It will be his first time at one of these shows, so he should enjoy it. Tomorrow I'll likely spend more time sitting in on the classes while he roams through the vendor booths. I was on my feet way too much today and my metal knees are complaining about it.

If you decide to go, maybe you should bring a lunch, because hot dogs were $4 each today, and a 16 oz bottle of soda was also $4. They were decent size hot dogs, but still way too much to charge for them. Fried chicken with French fries was the alternative, but I didn't check the price for it since I avoid fried food.

Outside the entrance to the show was a Woodmizer demo, but he only had four 12" logs to cut, so he would only make a single cut if he thought someone in the crowd might be willing to buy, so not much sawdust being made there. Inside was 3 aisles of vendors plus a few larger vendor booths across the back. 6 or 7 class room type setups were off to the left side of the vendor area, and one along the back wall. Two woodworking clubs had booths and were doing demos and "getting started in woodworking" type classes. Carter had a pretty good size booth and demonstration/class area for band saw demos. Triton was well represented with two locations. I ended up buying Triton's oscillating spindle/belt sander to replace the Ryobi oscillating spindle sander that I've been fighting with ever since I bought it. I also bought a few pieces of thin craft wood. Grace Tool had a nice display of a variety of tools and supplies similar to what has been offered by Peachtree Woodworking in prior shows. They were doing well, since Peachtree wasn't at this show. Sawstop and an imported sliding table saw were the only large tools at the show.

One booth selling Scrollnado, Drillnado, etc had a Powermatic floor standing drill press there, but it was for demonstrating their Drillnado. They have a new ....nado dust collector for band saws and had one there to demo, but they had no stock of it to sell. I liked the demo of it, but couldn't buy one at the show, so I decided to wait to order one later. It uses a small piece of magnetic rubber with a blade slot in it that attaches to the underside of the band saw table, and a special magnetically attached vacuum fitting that was connected to a Dust Deputy and a shop vac with what looked like 1" spiral flex hose. It seemed to do a very good job of collecting the saw dust, but it won't likely work well if you ever do any ferrous metal cutting on your band saw.

If I learn anything new at the show tomorrow, I'll add it here.

Charley

 

[CharleyL]

Went back to the show today (Saturday) with my friend. He had never been to one of these shows before, but went to the Klingspore show with me last October. I was there with him mostly to show him around, but now we both have Triton oscillating spindle/ horizontal belt sanders. The Rockler booth was selling them for $199 plus tax. Almost everything in the Rockler booth was Triton equipment and it seemed to be selling well. Another booth was selling Triton drills and hand held power tools, and the Rockler booth was selling the larger bench tools. I'm not certain if the Triton hand power tool booth was Rockler or not as they were on opposite corners of the show.

I picked up a few small items today that I had seen yesterday, but didn't return for them until today. Nothing much, just a squarish sanding block with velcro bottom designed to use the round sander sand paper. Two opposite sides had velcro in an arc up the sides to allow folding the opposite edges of a round sanding disk to fold up and be held in the finger areas on either side, so roughly square pad designed to use the round Velcro backed sand paper.

I also bought a package of twenty four 9" ball bungies. I've grown to like these in smaller sizes for use holding cables to tripod legs and light stands in my photo studio, but I haven't had any this large before. The price was right at $7 for the bundle of 24, so I couldn't resist. These ball bungies are really great for holding cable bundles, etc. together or attached to something. I've started using them to bundle my vacuum hose and sander power cord together when I use my sanders on my workbench.

To keep the excess loop in this bundle from dragging on the bench and my work I have a plastic clothes line and spring loaded rewind reel attached to the ceiling above my bench that I attach to the approximate middle of this hose/wire loop. The spring tension of the clothes line reel holds the hose/wire bundle just above the bench and makes moving the sander around very easy without any dragging dust hose or power cable problems. If I remember correctly, when I first started using the clothes line for this, the tension was slightly too high, so I removed one revolution of the spring tension, and it has been perfect ever since. I attached a Velcro cable tie to the hard plastic fitting on the end of the clothes line and use this tie to connect it to the center of my vacuum and wire bundle. When not in use the spring tension of the reel keeps this plastic end up against the opening in the enclosed reel and the Velcro tie hangs down just far enough that I can reach it easily whenever I want to use the clothes line to hold up my hoses or wires.

We wandered the show together for most of the afternoon, pointing out points of interest to each other and he seemed to really enjoy himself. It's too bad that it wasn't as big of a show as it had been about 10-12 years ago. For lunch, we each had the special today, a poorly made Philly cheese steak sub with almost no cheese, on special today for $10. At least it made a better meal than the hot dogs did yesterday.

I realized today that when Norm Abram retired and ended the New Yankee Workshop show that he did it at about the same time that these and other woodworking shows and woodworking magazines seemed to have begun downsizing. I think his show got a lot of people interested in woodworking, and no one else has come along since he left to really fill his place to keep so many interested in our wonderful woodworking hobby. Does anyone else feel this way?

Of course, there are still quite a few of us that were woodworkers long before Norm's show, and many of us are still around doing it just as we always have, but the variety of woodworking magazines as well as the number and size of these wood shows just seems to have peaked and subsided at about the same period that The New Yankee Workshop Show began and ended. Are there any others here that think that this might have had something to do with the interest in woodworking bubble that we now seem to be on the downside of? I personally think that we need another guy like Norm, even though I didn't always agree with some of the ways that he did things on the show. But I can remember that I always made it a point to see every one of his New Yankee Workshop shows. He made woodworking and furniture making interesting for many who
would not likely have become woodworker hobbyists without his show, and these newby woodworkers bought a lot of tools and magazines in order to learn this new hobby.

Charley

 

[Roger Leclercq]

I used to go every year to Baltimore firs week of January and sometimes to Chantilly in March for 18yrs I haven't been in two years. Alex definitely has the best presentation. Jim Heavy is a nice guy. The shows keep getting smaller and smaller It seems since Black and Decker/Stanley bought up Delta,Oldam and Porta-Cable also Incra stopped exhibiting the selection isn't as good. The shows seem to be structured more to Wood turners than anything else. I used to get some great deals but they don't seem to be there anymore. Festool,Lee Valley and Woodpeckers prices are outrageous for the hobby woodworker even-though they have some nice tools. Over the years I have bought Delta 6" planer,Jet full sized lathe,Dewalt thickness Planer,Powermatic band saw,Kreg Jigs Porta-Cable Routers and many Viper Router Bits and SummerField Bit sets