As you may or may not have noticed, but I am attempting to do more posts, and doing one at least weekly. This week, there are two posts! This past weekend, I attended The Woodworking Shows in Columbus Ohio. I must say, I had a blast! This was the first time I attended one of these shows. This show is mainly about the vendor booths, but there were also some excellent presentations as well. I watched presentations by Paul Moore, also known as The Crazy Woodworking Canadian. He showed off some techniques and products, but was popping jokes left and right and had the audience rolling. I see the same theme coming up at this show as I do at other shows, which is the growth in hand tools. I watched a presentation by Paul Sellers, who is a very talented woodworking. What he did with hand tools in a very short period of team puts most of us to shame when using power tools. Andy Chidwick and Chuck Bender also put on a great presentation as well.
Something that was great about both days I went to the show was meeting up with people. The first day, I brought my Dad up with me. While he has an appreciation of the craft and the tools that go in to them, he isn’t into woodworking to the degree I am. Still, we both really enjoyed the time together. The next day, I met up with Kevin and ran into Sean, both of whom I have had some conversations with online. It is always great to put a real face on those we talk to online!
Finally the tool gloat. 🙂 There were a lot of good deals at the show. After walking around the show a bit, I started making me purchase strategy, which includes the okay from the boss (aka the wife!). Some of my smaller purchases came from the far back corner of the show where there was a tool closeout area. There was a lot of junk there, but a few gems with in
the junk. It was priced so cheaply it was worth the risk on some of it. First off, I bought 4 calipers for the lathe, at $3 a piece. I also got 3 boxes of sand paper for my random orbit sander, also at $3 each. Finally, I bought a file for $2. For my big purchase I bought more clamps. I ended up going with four 18″ Bessey Revos, for under $140!
All-in-all it was a great weekend!!