Thread: IWF Atlanta woodworking show 2008

Not sure if this counts as a review but as it is about a past event maybe it is, if it should be in another place then I'm sure it will be shifted.

I have just spent the last 3 months in the USA and was able to include a visit to the IWF woodshow in Atlanta. I'm afraid that our annual woodshow is going to be a bit of a let down for me from now on.

The buildings that the show is housed in is enormous, I think its the same one Kenny went to when he went to the States to check out the Porta loo's. At a rough guess it would be 5 times or more the size of the Darling Harbour conference centre in Sydney. It literallly took me all day to walk around it and I'm still not sure I saw it all. Just about every manufacturer of wood and related stuff was there. One of the things that struck me was the amount of power that would have been needed to run the giant machinery that was installed for the 4 days as well as the air conditioning for the building as it was neallt 38 C outside.

The exibiters were roughly grouped together but as happens when these type of events are on going they eventually end up mixed up. Those who had been there for several exibits over the years have their own spot and anyone who pulled out were replaced with new exibitors. This meant that there were small stands with interesting gear mixed in amoungst the big boys with their giant CNC machines. Not only were they hidden but often located next to machinery which was noisy.

Still there was some good things there. The big PITA is that everything electrical is 110 Volts and all the big machinery is impractical to ship over here or bring back on a plane, so you are limited to drooling and purchasing those products which are for sale at the show and are small enough to shove into a suitcase.

All the new products are showcased in the front hall of one of the buildings so you can check them out and then mark the spots on your map so you can look them over. None of them were fantastic and revolutionary but there were some handy and useful products that hopefully someone will get to import for to us purchase here in the future. I probably missed some or in my mind thought them of no concequence as they didn't interest me but may have been something one of you has been sweating on for years. but here are the ones that I thinks the majority of us would be adding to our workshop for a few bucks.

There is being released a range of vice grips which don't have a screw adjustment in the handle to get the correct spread so you can clamp them up. All you do is open the pliers put them around your piece to be clamped and squeeze, they automatically find the correct width of the object and clamp it tight. If you need more tension a small screw adjustment is available to add it. Once set that tension applies to anything you set out to clamp. There is a wide range or clamps much the same variety as there is in the old style. There is also a set of multi grips which were on the same principle open them up clamp the object and it grips no need to zig zag the jaws to the width of the object. I wanted to buy some on the spot but they were not released yet and orders were only being taken ,damn.

One guy had a table saw cover, it was basically a large sheat of the magnetic sheet plastic that is used to make fridge magnets etc. He had the face printed with tables and other info that a woodworker may want to use if he was constructing or planning to make. He wanted $60 which seemed a bit rich and it was way too big and heavy to put in a suitcase. I think if you wanted a cover for your table saw you could purchase the material here, it wouldn't have the printed info but it would protect the top and be a useful surface to work on. Certainly wouldn't slip off while you were working on it.

One seller was pushing a feather board which had a thin plastic bow on one side as well as the usual 45 deg comb on the other. It fitted into the table saw/router slot and you pushed it up against the timber and the bow applied pressure to the timber. It was adjustable so you could vary the pressure. It worked but it seemed to be similar to the plastic feather boards you can buy here, To release it from the slot in the table you had to give the knobs a good wack with your hand to push the taper down which clamped in the slot. His demo didn't go too well while I was looking as he had to give it 3 wacks before it came loose.

Speaking of featherboards there was also the magnetic ones which we saw last year here. Like a lot of these products the distributors seem to be aiming at the max price to buy these products. Their magnetic boards were about $50 (not 100% sure exactly) and they were selling single magnets which could be bought and fitted to a piece of timber (MDF or ply etc) for $50 a pair. At Home Depot stores in the States "Rigid" were selling the same magnets in a double sided plastic featherboard for $39 and the salesguy told me they made them for Rigid. Needless to say I went to a Home Depot and bought one there instead of one of theirs at the show.

The only other purchase I made was for some table saw top cleaner and protector to prevent the surface from rusting. Called "Boesshield T-9" it displaces moisture and protects all metals with a waxy film, so the blerb says - I have yet to try it out so I will report back if it is as good as it looked to be.

Not sure if one product which was of interest is here or not but it was as simple but good idea. It was a punch which was double ended joined by a spring. One end was hollow so you could put in a small brad, the type you can't hold in your fingers and hit with a hammer without banging the finger first. Yor put the end of the brad in the hollow which held it, you then could hold the end of the punch up against the wood you were nailing into You then pulled up on the spring which was connected around the punch end and let it go. The other end of the punch hit the end you were holding and drove in the nail. you could then pull back the spring again and again to wack home the nail or change ends and use the normal punch end to drive the nail flush or below the surface. It was being touted as being especially useful for painters painting trim who found nails sitting out from the surface as it could be easily kept in a pocket and used without needing a hammer.

One seller was doing demo's on his mitre block designed to allow easy mitreing of mouldings and trims. It was basically a 45 Degree block you placed under the moulding to hold it in the right position to cut the mitre on a drop saw. On it was a set of drawing to show you which way to place the block so that you could do right or left inside or outside corners. It also allowed you to do other angles as you used it to hold the moulding while you changed the saw angle to half of an odd angle such as 60 deg you set the saw to 30 and then depending on whether it was an internal or external angle followed the drawings. The guy reminded me of "Joe the Gadget man" who used to do those adds for Nock and Kirby's he made it look easy but I bet those who bought one would be as confused as hell when they went to use it. The funny thing was I stood there for over 5 minutes and then passed him a few times after and he always had a crowd around him but he never mentioned the price and the girl at the cash register wasn't making any sales.

All the spray equipment manufacturers were there and I looked over the "NEW" products which in some cases were not new at all. A lot of gimicks and useless gadgets on guns which have been on the market for years. One was a paddle run by compressed air to stir the paint whilst it is being sprayed, this is not a new idea I've had one for over 30 years but someone decided to add it to a gravity feed gun which is as about as useful as an ash tray on a motor bike. The paddle can't stir the paint in the bottom of the pot and the passage way to the tip of the gun. Any paint with metallic or other heavy flake will just settle in the bottom under the paddle.

One manufactuer was touting a new designed gun which is supposed to be an advance on the current HVLP guns. It has a stubby front, sort of like a right angle drill looks compared to a normal one. The air coming up the handle only has to make one turn before it hits the air cap instead of going around a few corners and through air valves. Could be it works better but as they wanted $1200 for one I can't see many people (or businesses for that matter) buying one.

One company was selling a spray system that used nitrogen to spray with instead of air, it was a unit the size of a large refrigerator. The advantages of doing such were a bit dubious, the salesman didn't appear to understand what actually took place when paint was being applied. He had a speel down pat but I don't think he had ever sprayed anything in his life and the so called advantages didn't appear to be so great that coughing up for nitrogen to spray with instead of air would be worth it.

One company was selling a lazer which attached to a spray gun that you could adjust so that the two beams intersected and made one dot when the gun was a particular distance from the surface. The idea was to train users to keep the gun at a constant distance which is what is required if you want proper results from you efforts spraying
It would be of use to teachers who had students who had never used a gun before. It was about $300 and had been purchased by a lot of companies to use with new employees, Ford being one. The other product was a bit more high tech. A gun which you sprayed at a TV screen, it made the screen produce a fan as you would get if you actually sprayed a surface with paint. After you finished the screen then told you how much paint you had applied on any section and if the result was satisfactory. So if you moved too slow or held the computor gun too close or far away it sensed this and reported it back to the operator. Bit more expensive this gadget cost $50,000. ( still it saved a lot of paint.)

One of the other aspects of the show that was an eye opener was number of manufacturers involved in producing certain products. Router bit manufactors and saw blade manufacturers were particually numerous actually there was stacks of them over 40 from memory.. Several Chinese companies with their range of router bits plus the well known and not so well known American and other country manufacturers made one wonder if some of them were ever able to sell one of the profiles they had produced.

In another section manufactureres of hardware were on show. I have never seen so many different handles for kitchen cupboards etc. Again you wonder if some of the styles ever made it to a cupboard door there were so many. I'm sure if you took one of each handle you would neeed a large truck to haul them away.

One of the big movers of the show was the soft close door and drawer mechanism. One company had what looked like the normal kitchen hinge that we have been using where you drill the 35 mm hole and then screw the hinge onto the door except these hinges had a small piston and cylinder in the hinge which took the closing action and gently pulled the door closed the last few inches. What was amazing was that they were only $4:50 each. So they will probably be available here for about $30 each.

What was the real eye opener as always was the price of things. This time the dollar was neally on par with the US dollar being over 90 cents so buying was a good deal. It was good being able to tell the Yanks then they asked about our fuel prces that we had come to the States to have a cheap holiday as the gas was so cheap. The look on their faces was always worth it. But!! boy do we get wacked here, it is enough to make you cry when you see how much cheaper things are in the states. Besides the IWF show I went to Grizzly in Springfield Missouri and to Harbour Freight in Tennessee. The prices of the tools is enough to make a good man cry. A Tomak wet sharpener was $169 and they had a stack of them at the front door 6 foot high just to rub it in. I couldn't help buy a metal punch set from harbour Freight at less than $20 we had one which at work which cost over $200.

Back to the show, the Chinese as mentioned were there in droves, with every type of product. you could emagine. All requiring a massive investment in gear to manufacturer what they were pushing. One guy had a nice set of 8 carving chisels in a neat timber mahogany stained timber box. I asked how much not realising he was looking for a distributor. He punched in some figures on his calculator and in very poor English replied $15. Hell the box would cost have more than that. Another suprising thing was a lot of the Chinese could not speak any English and people were finding it impossible to comunicate with them in any way. So a lot of the chinese stalls were passed over by virtually everybody.

This show is held every 2 years in Atlanta, which seems to be still struggling from the effects of staging the Olympic games. Its not a nice city, lots of beggers around more than I had seen in any of the cities or towns we have been to. They even posted a letter from the Mayor under the door of the hotel telling us to report anyone who attempted to ask for a handout as it was against the law. Must admit though there was a masive police presence and one didn't feel unsafe. Next year its held in Las Vagas and if you want to go to not only the Show but see one of the most facinating places for buildings and pouring money into a city then go to Vagas Its really worth a visit. Spend 3-5 days and you won't have a chance to gamble you will be too busy checking out the great theme casino's and of cause the Wood show.