The IWF Diary

Our managing editor, Rodney Wilson, recently wrote about his experience of IWF 2016 (which you can read here). So I thought I would let our readers hear about my experience. We went to IWF to introduce ourselves, hand out business cards, sign autographs and kiss babies (OK, we didn’t do those last two). It was a new experience for me and it was really surreal to meet the men and women who create some of the tools that I have been using for so long.

We opened the conference by attending the Freud media event. It was a who’s who of woodworking media, all drooling over Freud’s advancements in the industry. My biggest take-away is that the CNC is here and it is here to stay.

The effort that the woodworking industry is putting into making the CNC more affordable and easy to use for every day woodworkers is incredible. It opens up a whole new world of woodworking to people who may have thought they would never be able to get into it.

Later in the day we stopped by the SENCO booth to learn about some of their new products. They introduced us to a 21-gauge nail gun which they say has holding power close to an 18 gauge but with the hole size closer to the 23 gauge. I would love to give one of those guns a real test and see how it holds up. That could have come in really handy in my past life building kitchen cabinets.

A side-by-side demonstration of the nail hole sizes.

As Rodney said in his previous post, IWF is HUGE. It was my first time at the event, so I had not properly prepared myself for the overwhelming size of the fair. (I also did not wear the proper shoes to walk around the Georgia World Congress Center for a couple of days…my feet still hurt.) The experience was incredible and I look forward to going back and seeing what new inventions the woodworking industry can come up with.

— Jon Russelburg