What Makes a Woodworker?
I got on the elevator after leaving the IWF show at the Georgia Congress Center last week and overheard this comment: “If I had a hundred thousand dollars, I could build a heckuva woodworking shop.”
Earlier in the day, I overheard a product rep explain to a young lady who was interviewing him for a promo video, “All you need is a table saw and a Kreg jig and you can build any piece of furniture.”
Which explains the two extremes I experienced at this huge woodworking show — you can spend $150 on a pocket hole jig, or you can spend literally thousands on industrial machines and each will bring you to the same destination.
After walking what seemed like a couple of hundred miles, I found that woodworking is alive and well in Atlanta. Many of the industrial machines being shown at this convention would require a small flatbed semi-trailer truck and an army of workers to set up for the show. It’s hard to imagine the cost of one of these machines, but I’m sure they’re worth every penny to the cabinetmakers who use them.
Also attending the show were the consumer manufacturers that we’re all a little more familiar with here. Jet and Powermatic both had very impressive booths. Delta Machinery, Porter-Cable, and DeWalt were also there in force. As you may have noticed already, I’ve posted some links to Steel City Tools, Delta, Porter-Cable, and Bosch in earlier reports from Atlanta.
The more I see of Festool and Fein, two European manufacturers, the more I’m impressed. Rikon and Grizzly are two companies that put out some impressive product. Some of the smaller manufacturers with product that caught my eye were R&R Clamp, Elvex (I really liked their line of Laser safety glasses), Free Hand Design Systems (a really cool method for designing the old fashioned way — on paper!), and Happy Feet (a manufacturer of Therapeutic insoles for those of us who need help standing on our feet all day).
So there is a lot to sort through. Some of the product was so new that there wasn’t even photos available. I hope to have more for you soon about some neat stuff from both Powermatic and Jet as soon as I get a chance to go through all the info that I brought back with me.