Houston WW Show

Well, I went.
I was not expecting much as the web site did not indicate that many vendors
were coming, Leigh Jigs, Dubby/In Line Industries, and Laguna were not going
to be there.

Well, I was surprised, my wife and I had a great time for about 4 hours.

While TWC? was not there with all their accessories and supplies, PeachTree
filled in nicely with a few booths that were double the size of the old TWC
booths.

The usual were there, and there were lot's of demonstrations going on. the
turn out on the first day seemed quite impressive as there was quite a crowd
and every one seemed to be buying.

Festool was doing well as we saw several people walking out of the show with
Festool products. Two vendors were selling Festool products. The Domino's
were on being demoed at both locations.

MicroJig has come out with a new splitter that looks to be far superior to
the original designs. The originals were all plastic, the new Pro versions
are stainless steel covered in a clear plastic. The retainer pins are twice
as big in diameter and about 1/3 longer. 4 splitters per kit, plus 4 pull
away splitters.
I bought the double Grripper #230 kit including a DVD and they sold me the
Pro Splitter kit for $15 plus threw in 4 extra splitters. The DVD really
opened my eyes as to what kind of cuts are possible using the Gripper. I
was unaware that it is possible to cut a straight edge on a S2S board with
the GRRiper, or cut very thin veneers in narrow strips, and or cut flukes
down the length of a dowel on the TS.

Makita is getting ready to come out with a new generation LITE Weight 18
volt Lithium Ion battery. The drill with that battery felt like there was
no battery in the drill, almost top heavy, certainly much lighter weight
than any 9.6 I have ever used. Now 18 volts is starting to make since. The
battery is about 1" tall and about the same width and length as the typical
Li-Ion 18 bolt battery. About the size of a pack of cigarettes and probably
not much heavier.

Steel City was well represented by The Cutting Edge

Delta has badged the Osborne Miter gauge with the Delta name and in the last
2 years the Osborne/Delta miter gauge still has lots of slop then set to the
45 degree miter setting with the away from the blade end of the fence
pointing forward. The end of the miter fence can very easily be wiggled 2
to 3 degrees on the Delta/Osborne miter gauge, I find this to be the case on
all the latest versions of the Osborne miter gauges. 2 to 3 years ago when
I was upgrading my miter gauge I had the slop problem with the Osborne and
all the units at the supplier had the problem. Osborne personally denied
that the condition existed. If you are considering one, check it out before
buying.
I pointed the problem out to the Delta rep at the show and I got the "I have
heard this before" answer of, The miter gauge sees a lot of abuse being
loaded on and off of the truck going to the shows.
Apparently Delta is looking the other way also with this inherent design
flaw.

Minimax had a much more impressive demonstration of their products than they
did last year. Last year they had a bunch of guys/salesmen swarming around
the band saws and tipping the saws over by yanking on the blade guides.
This year more clean cut and easily identified rep's were treating the saws
with a lot more respect. Oh, no broken down machines at this years show
either. ;~)

Anyway I really enjoyed the show and learned a helpful tip for setting up my
3 year old Kreg Miter gauge from the Kreg guys.



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