The Woodworking Shows - Orange County, CA 2014

glenn bradley

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Wasn't sure where to put this as it isn't really OT so feel free to move if desired.

Dad and I hit the show on Saturday (unintentionally managing to miss Rick Potter who went Friday and Sunday) 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 :D.

Peachtree had their usual large layout with a couple of turning stations and lots of goodies.
Dad had picked up a Carter Stabilizer through Peachtree online a couple weeks ago and it showed up with rust on it. We took it along just in case and the folks at the Peachtree area cheerfully exchanged it for us. Woodline was a little smaller but still seemed to have a lot of stuff on display. Wayne wasn't around on Saturday and 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. We did the show and got home with plenty of time to mount some light fixtures up in the attic storage area. We both slept about 10 hours that night; we were pooped.
 
Sounds like a good show. How did the size of the display/demo area compare to previous years?

It was larger than last year which was about the same as the year before. Not like 2005 or anything when nearly every name you could think of showed up in force but, very doable in a day or two days if you wanted to catch a lot of scheduled talks. Lee Valley had an original idea that I didn't get to try but, you signed up ahead of time and got 20 minutes on a small bench with an instructor to go over technique and so forth. They had about 10 small benches set up in an area that was as big as, if not larger than their display area. Most all were in use every time I walked by so I take it they got a good response to the sign-ups.
 
I had a great time at the show; my billfold didn't. As Glenn said, we got a bunch of new goodies. I learned a couple new things.

The show was better than two years ago. I didn't go last year because two years ago was "Oh Hum."

Anyway, I had so much fun that I will go again next year, if Glenn invites me again.

Enjoy,
JimB
 
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