Well despite not seeing any fellow forum members I had a good time at the Columbus Wood Show today. For the first time in years the sun was out, usually the wood show weekend has a snow storm or 6” of slushy rain. As always I attended with my Dad and Uncle. And as always the show was packed to capacity, although the price is now $10 - $1 coupon. Here is my take:
Delta, Powermatic, General, Jet, Porter Cable, were absent as the large Columbus dealer stopped participating in the show years ago and runs their own show the same weekend. In the past a dealer from Indy or Cincy came, but no larger tools and fewer portable hand tools to look at this year. DeWalt, Makita, and Bosch did have a presence, and few: others Fein, Milwaukee (I think), Trend (WoodCraft), and some no name stuff. Mini Max and Laguna also had their show booths.
Other changes include TWC almost taking over, Peachtree also had a lot of booth space, these guys sell a lot of stuff from name brand tools to junk Asian imports. Kreg had a much larger booth then in years past with several new products, Leigh, Lie-Nielsen, Lee Valley, Tormek, the Forrest Blade guy, Jointech, Gripper, Freud, CMT, Little Giant, and many others all had quality displays and some good pricing. There was plenty to see and learn. My Dad caught a couple seminars and reported they were very good.
I had a small but lively list, and believe I did well, Lee Valley honored my gift certificate at the show (way to go Lee Valley ), so I ordered the bull nose plane (on back order until Feb) and the Gripper DVD. I stopped by the Lie-Nielsen booth and fondled the tools for a good long time – man I want a 4-1/2 york pitch. I ended up with a nice LN hat, and a couple more planes were added to my list. I also picked up a half dozen 12” adhesive sanding disks from the closeout guy in the corner for $1.75, the disks look as good as any others I’ve seen, and at the best price around. (My Dad bought a huge assortment of name brand bits and blades from them for $75). My main target for the show was a set of forstner bits, but I really didn’t see anything that appealed to me for the price, so I’ll keep looking. So with a little extra tool show money burning a hole in my pocket I sprung for the new Kreg Jig band saw fence. They had a show special and I really liked the one they had on display. This was a fairly impulse buy, but hey, it’s the tool show – you never know what you are going to find. Kreg also has a new mitre gauge that looked very nice and some great package deals on their pocket hole jig. Kreg was also a major sponsor and is definitely stepping up their game, so hopefully we’ll me more great products from Kreg. Lastly, I have an Amazon gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, so I’ll likely pull the trigger on a pin nailer soon. Still debating between PC, Senco, and Bostitch, but all are quality guns it appears.
So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I ended the day with a stop at Meijer who was having half off all clearance toys, so the kids also did very well today. I even picked up a new DVD for the wife.
For me the shows are always enjoyable, a combination of time with my family, new tools, and learning a thing or two as well.
Take Care – John
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Sounds to me like you "behaved" yourself!
Jesada was there with a bunch of bits that looked like they had been shipped around the world a few times. But they were giving 20-25% off of the 2002 catalog prices. I got myself one 1"x2" rabbeting bit for $16, just so I could do some comparing of brands, since I have always bragged on Jesada as being one of the best.
) And I made it home with about $2 in my pocket!
