Anyone going to the Chicago Woodshow this weekend? I haven't gone in years after having been disappointed and don't think I can drag my butt down there. Besides, the weather is supposed to be nice.
If you see any deals, please post them.
I'll be there on sunday... after I hear about the deals. :-)
My main reason for going is to see the machines in person. Sunhill will be there also, which is probably the first booth i'll visit.
brian
Brian,
Please do give some feedback about your experience there. I used to go to the shows several years ago, but I stopped going primarily: counldn't walk through the aisles without getting your shoulder/butt rubbed by some other visitors and waited in line like it getting tickets to the U2 concert. The last show I attended was in Columbus and I'm thinking about trying the Indy venue in Jan of next year. Has anyone experinced the Indy show? If so, how would you rate your overall experience?
Thanks all!
Mike
I went to the chicago show yesterday. There was a big delta booth. Dewalt and porter cable also had largish booths. jet/powermatic were sort of feeble. the leigh booth had a "show discount". Get this: For an isolock template, the price was $209, and that included a $25 gift certificate for one of the usual woodworking stores. That's a whopping $9 off the price at the leigh website. With the price to get in, you'd break even except for shipping. I passed.
I did pick up a bosch colt laminte trimmer and bosch jigsaw. They threw in one of those router mats and a set of bosch jigsaw blades. I was most impressed with the case for the jigsaw. Makes the porter cable cases look like junk. With the show discount, the prices were a little less than amazon, but not much. But when you conside the freebies, it was a little better deal.
I thought sunhill was going to be there, they wern't. I also went to the sharptools booth and picked up one of their break-in kits for the tormek, which was overpriced, but handy. And the dvd that came with it was great.
Marveled at how ridiculously overpriced the production pocket hole cuttnig machines are. $700-$800 to cut pocket holes. I'd buy one if they got below $300.
The legacy router lathe thingies were there. Also ridiculously overpriced.
I watched a guy try to make one of those bandsaw reigndeer like the carter guide people used to. He didn't put the falloff back in and snapped the leg off. That was kind of funny.
Laguna had a *really* small booth. Three machines. One was a largish band saw with a huge sliding table for resawing entire logs. That looked interesting. The guy tried to sell me a combination 12" jointer/planer. It was $2800, $2500 if I wanted a refurb. On the plus side, it was a 12" jointer. On the minus, it was expensive, the planer was also 12" and the beds were *really* short. Good for a small shop, but I don't really have that problem. I figured an 8" grizzly jointer and a 15"-20" grizzly planer would come in well under $2500. So I passed on that one also. The laguna band saws looked nice. But comparing the $2500 16" laguna to what I know the $1600 21" grizzly must look like, I had to pass.
Also talked to the kettle-moraine people and got directions to their south-side store. I'll be heading there soon.
I'd say it was worth going to. I got to go with a friend of mine that I don't see enough of so that made it more enjoyable also. This friend is a 350lb polish guy. My wife had a coupon to get your "spouse" in free. She joked that we should go as a gay couple so he could get in free. I told him about this within earshot of the guy taking tickets. He laughed and said that it would have worked.
brian
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