The Moncton Wood Show is part of the Canada Premiere Woodworking Shows that includes shows in Kitchener, London, Ottawa and Moncton. The photo above shows a view of half the show venue at the Moncton Coliseum.
The featured speaker this year was John Sillaots of the television show ‘In The Workshop’ fame. Though the show hasn’t been on for a few years John still ‘packs them in’! I caught his ‘Getting Better Tool Performance’ presentation which he spoke on how to use the tools in your shop to their full potential. He still shares his practical woodworking knowledge in the humorous style we always enjoyed in his shows. In fact, the only thing that I can see that has changed is that he no longer sports his famous moustache:
Charles Bernard, the ‘Woodchuck’, was also there. The ‘Woodchuck’ has been a mainstay at the show for years and always a thrill to see.
He is a self-taught artist who brings a unique style to his carvings as you can see here:
Grantham Books out of Waterloo, Ontario was there with a fantastic book and magazine display. I was able to pick up several past issues of some of my favorites for just over $3.00 each!
And speaking of magazines, Paul Fulcher was there from Canadian Woodworking magazine. I used to subscribe a few years ago but dropped it for another subscription. However, he made an offer I couldn’t refuse! 🙂 I also see that they went to a glossy page format and as I flipped through several of the free issues I got with the subscription I seen a quite a few articles and projects that look interesting.
One of the neatest, and newest, products I saw was the Cut ‘n Crown system for cutting crown moldings more quickly and easily than the traditional method. This system of jigs was invented by Sheldon Smith, a contractor and carpenter with over 20 years of experience, who also did an energetic presentation. I only wish that I had ‘molding in my future’ to warrant a purchase of this too cool tool!
I spoke with Frank Holland for a bit about chair caning. Frank was demonstrating his art and had several chairs on display showing his fine work.
Jim Smith was also there displaying his great looking woodturnings:
And the Atlantic Tool Collectors Association had a great display, as always:
The Moncton Wood Carvers Guild was there with an extensive display and several carvers diligently working on a variety of projects:
Some of the companies that were new this year included Powermatic, Incra and Jess Em. It was great to see their products outside of the magazine ads. 🙂
Saw Stop saws were also on display and had periodic demos showing how they work, immediately stopping and retracting the blade (within 5 milliseconds) upon accidental contact. Here is the brake system and blade after one such demo:
Vern Shaffner was displaying his finely crafted kayaks and he also had this cradle on display:
Too bad it wasn’t larger because after several hours of walking the floor I believe this would have been a fine place to curl up! 🙂
I always enjoy this show, in fact there have been years where I went each of the 3 days. 🙂 This year there were over 70 exhibitors which made it one of the best. It’s just a great time mingling with other woodworkers, talking to dealers and seeing new products.
I picked up a couple of sweet pieces of Cocobolo, a new ripping blade for my bandsaw, some magazines and a whole slew of things to add to my Christmas list! 😉
Back to the shop…