KC Woodworking Show

[Rob]

The KC Woodworking Show was great today. They had everything from cabinet saws to router bits. I could have spent thousands.

Rob

[Lawrence L'Hote]

I'm a bit chagrined about my rant on a previous post (OT) Woodworking Shows Rant from earlier this week, because I was really amazed, surprised and delighted at this years show. About mid afternoon I got back from the woodworking show in KC(actually Overland Park Kansas)... I had a real bad time getting my preshow ticket to avoid the line like you see in the first picture....all-in-all it was a VERY positive experience and not, at all, like last year when it was held at a different, smaller location... The place was packed and I spent 2x as much $$$ as I planned on....///early next week I will put most of the pictures on one of my sites along with some text...the ones below are just a small fraction of what I took..

[WD]

By 9.30am the lobby area was full. I spoke with someone while waiting for the door to open, he too like me was there yesterday and went back cuz of the crowd. By noon you could not even move around and decide to call it a day.

I asked the price at Hydroflow for the Hitachi M12V. "$179". I told him I could get it cheaper from Lowes or Amazon, he snapped back, "can you get it now?" ....and mumbled "F#$k you" At Freud, I enquired the price of miter corner bit, I told the guy it's too expensive, he replied "we are not cheap import". "Freud is an import from Italy" I said! He, replied..."oh, yes but we are better than the cheap Chinese stuff..." I told him I bought the "cheap (and good) Taiwan stuff" from Lee Valley!

After spending close to two hundred bucks, I still think I am better off buying from LV, at least they're very NICE, HONEST and appreciate my business. Next year I will see but no buy!

[NoNameAtAll]

Overall I thought the show was good but I was extremely disappointed with the prices for almost everything there. I was hoping to buy a planer and a jointer. Not only was I surprised by the extremely limited supply of those kinds of power tools, but it seemed like the vendors who did have them actually jacked up their prices. Delta, for instance, was selling their 22-580 planer for more than the DeWalt 735! I can get it for about half that on the internet! The only thing I bought was a Kreg pocket hole jig, which everyone tells me is a fantastic little tool. Even my wife was amazed when she saw it in action.

[Rob]

Another place to check out is Overland Tool in Overland Park. They run their show at the same time as the woodworking show but at their own location. They have manufacturers reps from Delta, PC, DeWalt, Milwaukee, General, Hitachi, Bosch, Makita, etc. And they have great deals on power tools.

They are located just a few minutes from the other woodworking show. They are open again on Sunday. I went there today and bought a DeWalt 12" double bevel compound miter saw. (I got tired of trying to cut crown molding on my Unisaw.)

Rob

[Lawrence L'Hote]

Had I known about Overland Tool I would have stopped by. FWIW I went to the place they had the show last year and found it locked up tight. Luckily, I just headed south and looked for the expanse of parked cars. I guess I'm getting old but I had a little trouble getting out of the WW show. From floor level there is NO exit signs visible. Only when you find the exit(entrance) can see the small exit signs and the hand lettered "for emergency exit" on a pair of doors. And then I got lost in Leawood(nice upscale neighborhood) and had to get out my map. Regarding tool prices at the show...veteran attendees know about the pricing but you may have to work at bargaining. I needed a set of Bessey corner clamps and I saw what I needed and asked the guy about his best price on four of them.."Well, their usual price is $59.95 but because you're getting 4 it will be $55 each." I asked him that sounded okay but would he throw in some hold downs for the clamps($6+) for each. He said,,"Sure." So that made it less than $50/each which is $10 less than any of my ww catalogs list.. Also, I remarked that the $12 clamps he was selling were at Home Depot for $8 and the $8 clamps for $5. He said,"yeah, sale prices locally are sometimes cheaper than even I can get them."

Larry