WW Show Shoping List

[krethjr]

Well, the WW show is coming to town (Sacramento) this weekend. I'll be going over on Friday afternoon. Here's my shoping list so far. Any suggestions for "good deals" you've found? Or maybe just stuff that's easier to find at the show than to buy on line? I'm not in the market for anything big, but you never know.

- Sandpaper (Norton)
- Micromesh pads
- Spiral cut router bits (1/4, 3/8, 1/2)
- Veneer (if anyone has some at a good price)
- Maybe a new shop vac (Festool or Fein)
- 4" DC gates (aluminum to replace my plastic ones)
- Maybe some new pen kits & a new Mandrel

Anything else????

Jim

[beamerweb]

Jim,

Be sure to stop by the SAW booth. Gary and I will be there, as well as some others.

Your list looks pretty good. I get my micro mesh elsewhere because it's cheaper, but the kind i get is the non-padded stuff. Peachtree should have your blast gates, I think.

I guess it's in a different building this year than usual. It'll be interesting to see how all that works out.

I look forward to seeing you there! :)

[krethjr]

Great, see you there.

Jim

[tscheel]

That’s if they have everything you want. I went on Friday to the show in Pleasanton, and the pikin's were slim to say the least. I really thought it would be a better show moving it from Santa Clara to the Alameda County Fairgrounds as this would draw more people from the Valley.

Wrong…..

I did however take the Sommerfeld plunge, and will be building a cabinet this weekend. I also bought the Jointech Miter Table. Setup was a breeze, and it is very cool. Takes all the guess work outa cutting miters to the proper length. Don’t know if I really saved anything with these prices though…

Admin $ 7.00 x3
Parking $ 8.00
3 Hotdogs, 2 chips, and 2 sodas $ 26.00

I did go to the show in Sac about three years ago and it seemed to be a better show. Maybe next year I’ll try that one again…..

-tyler

*****************************
Tyler Scheel
Fremont, CA
http://www.escheel.com

[beamerweb]

The guys I talked to in San Mateo last year joked about the Pleasanton show. Said they thought it was silly to have one so close to the Sacramento show. I haven't been to the Pleasanton one, yet.

This weekend the Sacramento show is in a different building than the usual one of the last few years, so things may be slim here, too.

One other thing I thought of is T-track - around here, the only places you can buy t-track have it so expensive compared to what they're selling it for at the shows. I usually stock up on my t-track every year :P

Sometimes you can find good prices on books, too.

[krethjr]

T-Track --- added to the list.

I hit the Santa Clara show a while ago. I don't really recall too much of a difference. Last year (or maybe year before last), David Marks was at the Sac show and did a seminar on woodworking as a business. I still recall one point he made:

"The bigger the item, the higher the price"

He said that in his experience, for a turned item, even though it only takes 10% more time/effort to build something larger, the price goes up 50-100%. He had an example of a turned platter (for wall display). He made a 10" version and a 20" version. The 20" sold for twice the price, but only took about 10% more to make (time & materials).

I don't see any speakers that I've heard of on the agenda this year but people watching is also pretty fun. There are a lot of us "oddities" that show up at the WW shows.

Jim

[rrich]

Jim,

>- Micromesh pads

Save your money. While these are good while attached to the sander, they are extremely difficult to remove in a condition to re-use. They also seem to leave a rougher surface than a similar grit of sand paper. (I'm assuming the metal sanding disks.)

>- Spiral cut router bits (1/4, 3/8, 1/2)

Do you "REALLY" need a 1/2"? Wouldn't two passes with 3/8" suffice?

>- Maybe a new shop vac (Festool or Fein)

Any of the generic shop vacs from HD, Lowes, Sears, OSH, Menards, etc. will suck just as well for about 1/4 the price. Just not as loud as either F. Save your money and buy good ear protection that you can use with the other noisy shop tools.

BTW - With the online shopping available through the internet, the prices at these shows are not the bargan that they use to be. I've found very little difference between the brick and mortar, internet or woodworking shows. A sign of the times, I guess. It also seems that many of the traditional vendors at these shows are dropping out.

[beamerweb]

>Jim,
>
>>- Micromesh pads
>
>Save your money. While these are good while attached to the
>sander, they are extremely difficult to remove in a
>condition to re-use. They also seem to leave a rougher
>surface than a similar grit of sand paper. (I'm assuming the
>metal sanding disks.)
>

Actually, what you're thinking of is the Micro Plane ... Micromesh is commonly used by turners - usually goes from 1500 grit to 120000 grit (yes, twelve thousand!). Great polishing tools. Seen here: http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/hca/hcahcar3494.htm

I've never tried those Micro Plane things before, they look interesting, but that's about as far as I've gotten. I might pick up one of the handled ones, like a rasp type thingy ... not sure about the ROS ones.

[WoodDrummer]

You're forgetting the Lie-Nielsen booth, now's the time to open a new credit card. ;)

[rrich]

At the last "The Woodworking Show" that I attended, I didn't recall seeing a Lie-Nielsen booth. I could be wrong though.