Denver Woodworking show

[Steven R. Hulse]

w00t! Today I'm headed to the Denver Woodworking show! I'm all excited, I was hoping to have gone yesterday but had some "honey-do's" that needed to get done first in prep for our early Xmas gifts.

What makes me excited about attending the show is that as a new woodworker, I can get better exposure to all the cool stuff out there than say an afternoon in a single store. Plus there are a couple of seminars I'm pretty excited to attend, Jim Harvey's and the pen turning. I'm mostly interested in the pen turning because I'm really interested in that at the moment. I've held off becasue most of the stuff needed (mainly the lathe) was a little pricey. However when we were in the process of purchasing our early Xmas presents I did find that Sears has a Craftsman mini lathe for around $180.00. This definately caught my eye and made the pen turning interest a little more realistic.

Anyway, I'll post more after I get back, this is going to be a blast!

Yep, I was right, it was a blast! Can't wait for next years show! There was so much cool stuff to see and do there, lots of vendors had their stuff out and all the cool new innovations were on display. We missed the SawStop demo which I really wanted the girls to see that. They bared with me while I worshoped at my alters, the Kreg booth (of course) and the Rockler booth.

It was fun watching my two girls show amazement and excitement of all the cool stuff people have made but the highlight of the day was when they got to turn a pen. (I did too.) I have to say I was plesantly suprised that they liked it.

It took my youngest (above) a little longer but she had a really good time. My oldest seemed to really pick it up quick, although the gentleman mentoring her really didn't offer much guidance. I could tell she was probably thinking the same thing I was, "How much do I take off?" "Am I doing this right?" Like anything new there is a learning curve and with time and practice, not to mention good guidance new skills will be learned.

As i was trudging along I was either going to aggressive or to light. Once I kind of got the hang of it removing the stock was pretty easy. I understnad the good folks running the pen turning booth was trying to accomodate all the visitors to their booth but maybe a little extra few minutes of going over the tools and basic process would have helped.

It was fun, we really enjoyed it and I have to say I could definately get into this hobby. My oldest made the comment when her pen was being assembled, "If we got a lathe, i could make a living making pens!" the gentleman assembling her pen and I had a good chuckle at that and he made the comment of "I hope you like to live cheap, there's not much money to be made doing this." Later I explained to her that he was right, however by making something really cool and personal and giving from the heart is bettere than money any day.

So here they are, mine, my oldests, and my youngests. Our first venture into pen turning. I'm going to start saving up and pick up the Craftsman mini lathe from Sears along with a couple of DVDs and books on it. not to mention spending time in Rockler with the kids drooling over the cool material and planning our next attempt.

The Woodworking Show was definately one of the funnest things my kids and I have done together in a while. With school and extracarricular activities not to mention homework, it's sometimes hard to find time we all can do something together. Oh, if you're wondering about my wife, she didn't go, she workes the overnight shift, this was kind of a good chance for us to be out of the house and let her get some sleep. She's not all big into the woodworking like I am but I think after seeing our pens, she was a little bummed that she couldn't participate as well. Although after I get the lathe and turn a few pens, I bet I'll see her poking around the shop and wanting to try turning as well.

I would like to thank all the vendors and presenters at the woodworking show for a great time today and I look forward to the next one!

[Mike McGuire]

I was at the Toronto show this weekend too. It was great and I came home with a few new tools which is never a bad thing!