Costa Mesa woodworking show

[Rick Potter]

Leaving in 20 minutes for the WW show in Costa Mesa CA. Hope it's better than last time. Peachtree has a few things I want to look at.

Report to follow.

Rick Potter

[glenn bradley]

Good for you Rick. I've said it before and I'll say it again. People who don't attend because the show "isn't as good as it was whenever" cause a drop in attendance so the show loses participants. MiniMax, Lie Nielsen and others can't afford the cost of a road show if they are not going to reach people. Go to the show in your area, make the merchants aware of its worth and stop whining ;-)

[Ellen Benkin]

Cerritos College was set to have a booth and was told that the "freebies" had to set up in one area outside the main hall. Cerritos would have had to set up in the morning and then take down in the evening and then set up again. That wouldn't work. I wonder if any of the schools are there. I started taking courses at Cerritos because of meeting students at the booth at the WW Show.

[Tom Henderson2]

Looking forward to your report...

I went to a few shows at the Pomona Fairgrounds, but OC is just toooo far to go from Western Ventura County.

-Tom in SoCal

[Rick Potter]

OK, I'm back.

Report: The show is still smaller than the heyday of old, but it was definitely better than the last one I went to two years ago. Peachtree must have had half the hall, representing a lot of companies, like Trend diamond sharpening stuff, Kregg...with a big presence, Miles Craft, Ridge blades, Mirka sand paper, and lots of others. Veritas was there and had mini classes for free, Powermatic, Bosch, several turning booths, Wood Line router bits, two separate booths with CNC or Laser machines, Eagle tool with Saw Stop including the new slider attachment.

I didn't even get to watch more than two demos, diamond plate sharpening, and The Crazy Canadian woodworkers bandsaw small log processing tools. As I was leaving I found out they had demos in two back rooms that I missed. One was several subjects by Wood Magazines Jim Heavey, the other was sponsored by Tite Bond Glue. These were free short classes, as opposed to the free demos on the sales floor.

I bought parts for my upcoming Kreg face frame/outfeed cabinet build, diamond sharpening stuff and a wall mounted panel gluing clamp setup that squeezes and keeps panels flat at the same time.

I had a good time, and may return on Sunday, if I have the free time (80 mile round trip for me).

Rick P

[Andrew Hughes]

Did you see the Harrelson Stanley there, he used to have a booth the Japan woodworker?I always enjoyed talking with him.

[Bruce Wrenn]

For us, it's no show again this year. Closest shows are either Atlanta (6 1/2 hour drive, or Baltimore 7 1/2 hour drive.) Atlanta used to be easy. Fly into Hartsfield-Jackson, take rental car shuttle (they were located across street from show) take in show, then fly back home. It really helps when you have kids who work for three of the major airlines. Jim Heavy's demos were always on my to do list. Snodgrass with Carter is another to do at show.

[Frank Martin]

I went there today mostly to check out the new Veritas planes. They sure are really nice. I noticed that the sole is very thick right behind the frog making the center of gravity very low. Tried the #4 and really liked it. Eved though I have all the BU planes I will ever need, I may get one of these too. One thing that may be an issue is the length of the iron. It seemed shorter than the other BU and BD irons, which can be a disadvantage for free handers. As usual excellent machining and even with the mouth wide open left a very smooth finish on the board I tried likely due to the chip breaker set very close to the edge.

I ended up buying some Kreg stuff and some odd clamps. Spent about 45 mins but it was worth it. Better than the last show I went to several years back.

[Rick Potter]

I went back Sunday just to watch some demonstrations and lectures. Watched two by Fine WW's Roland Johnson(?), one on glues and their best use...gonna try liquid hide glue, and one comparing the Domino to a Lamello biscuit joiner. They were both interesting. Had to miss Jim Heavey from WOOD mag. Watched the Snodgrass lecture on making band saw boxes at the Carter booth.

They are giving away a Powermatic band saw at every show this year, a $100K gift from Powermatic. No luck for me, but it was fun watching the guy who won it load the four or five boxes in his MINI.

Andrew, I was told that Japan Woodworker was bought by WoodCraft, that's all I could learn for you.

I spent two days at the show, and still did not see all the demo's. Just slow, I guess.

Concluding my report: It is still half the size of what it once was, but much better than two years ago, when I last went. I will go again.

Rick P

[Erik Loza]

For us, it's no show again this year. Closest shows are either Atlanta (6 1/2 hour drive, or Baltimore 7 1/2 hour drive.) Atlanta used to be easy. Fly into Hartsfield-Jackson, take rental car shuttle (they were located across street from show) take in show, then fly back home. It really helps when you have kids who work for three of the major airlines. Jim Heavy's demos were always on my to do list. Snodgrass with Carter is another to do at show.

Just my 2-cents: If the show is local, sure, go. But if you need to "arrange" or "pay for" travel, I would save it for either the AWFS Vegas show next summer or the IWF Atlanta show in 2016. The hobby w'ing trade show circuit (I did Felder's first Costa Mesa show and then several times with Minimax...) never really bounced back from the recession and instead, the flea market-type vendors came to dominate the shows rather than the machine vendors. I'm not knocking the hobby shows because those are good folks who run them but the landscape has really changed and I don't know that it will ever be the way it was. In my opinion, IWF and AWFS ae the shows worth making travel plans for. Just my opinion as always,

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Erik Loza]

Good for you Rick. I've said it before and I'll say it again. People who don't attend because the show "isn't as good as it was whenever" cause a drop in attendance so the show loses participants. MiniMax, Lie Nielsen and others can't afford the cost of a road show if they are not going to reach people. Go to the show in your area, make the merchants aware of its worth and stop whining ;-)

Glenn, I did the trade show circuit for MM from 2004 (traveling 2X-3X a month during the show season..) up until we stopped doing the shows around 2007, due to the recession.

To put it into perspective for folks, the total cost of one of our booths for the average show (one booth, enough to house a bandsaw and combination machine) was as much as $10,000 per show. That was for transportation of the show crates (two crates: One for the combo machine and one for the bandsaw), booth cost (including union labor for electrical hookup), and then airfare/hotel/car rental for one sales guy. Point being that we needed to CLEAR at least $10K per show just to break even. It's expensive to do trade shows!

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[glenn bradley]

Glenn, I did the trade show circuit for MM from 2004 (traveling 2X-3X a month during the show season..) up until we stopped doing the shows around 2007, due to the recession.

To put it into perspective for folks, the total cost of one of our booths for the average show (one booth, enough to house a bandsaw and combination machine) was as much as $10,000 per show. That was for transportation of the show crates (two crates: One for the combo machine and one for the bandsaw), booth cost (including union labor for electrical hookup), and then airfare/hotel/car rental for one sales guy. Point being that we needed to CLEAR at least $10K per show just to break even. It's expensive to do trade shows!

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

Thanks for the input Erik. I knew it had to be expensive but, the actual is even MORE than I would have guessed. For that kind of money there really does have to be some quantifiable return on not only the expense but the people-time as well.

Dad and I hit the show on Saturday (unintentionally managing to miss Rick) and it was a fun time. I came around a corner and almost ran right into Jim Heavey. He's been doing this for so long that when he looked me in the eye and said "Hi!" his demeanor and all made me wonder "why would Jim Heavey know who I am?". Then as he passed on by I realized he just has that developed knack with strangers and I stopped being confused .

As stated, Peachtree had their usual large layout, Woodline was a little smaller and Wayne wasn't around on Saturday. The guy who appeared to be running the booth was a bit frazzled and I thought about telling him "breath buddy, you have a lot of shows to go this year."

Powermatic and Jet had a decent presence but, although Jet had their new drill press (same sloppy quill as other contenders) they did not have their new lathe that dad wanted to see. The PM2800B drill press that was there lacked the sloppy quill of the one I got my hands on at Tool-r-Us so I guess the PM QA on these is still hit and miss. What is it that is so hard about making a decent drill press today?

Lee Valley was doing the no tax / free shipping thing as usual and dad and I both took advantage. Dad also grabbed the show special on some turning tools and a Rikon grinder as his Porter Cable bit it and parts are, of course, near impossible to get. We made three trips to the car despite not really going to the show to purchase things; we're more into getting our hands on the things we normally only see in the ads.

All in all a good time and well worth $10 each plus $7 to park.

[Paul Hingco]

Hey Rick I was there Sunday as well and sat in both Roland's class as well. I was the one in the festool shirt. I really enjoyed both classes and am glad the shows included them. Last year was the first time they had them if I'm not mistaken. They were also in a much larger building last year and were able to segregate the vendors from the classes, which made finding a specific class much easier. I heard a lot of people saying they didn't even know there were classes. Which was ashamed because the few I sat in were pretty good. Hopefully next year they could do a little better job at layout.

Yes the vendor list is sparse. I really wish they could somehow entice boutique dealers like benchcrafted, blue spruce, vesper, to come but that's prob a tall order. Oh well maybe WIA will come back to Pasadena one day.

[Rick Potter]

I remember Paul mentioning someone with a Festool shirt in the Domino class. Never turned around to look. You must have been sitting right behind me .

[Bruce Wrenn]

Erik, as for paying for travel, our children work for three of the four major airlines. Nuf said. Used to get up in morning and fly to Atlanta and back for show. Missed IWF this year, as younger daughter had surgery, and needed transportation to doc office. Been to IWF five times since 2000.