Woodworking Shows this Fall
This is a brief reminder to set two weekends aside for two UK woodworking shows. One is held at The Great Yorkshire Show Ground in Harrogate in Yorkshire, 18-20 November starting at 10am each day. I can best describe this show as a compact show in a tight arena where the elbow to elbow aisles means you cannot swing an axe or adze with any degree of safety. Despite the tight parameters, my experience is that there’s a lot to see, in terms of tools and equipment and the convenience of seeing and buying in one competitive location has many advantages in that there are often show discounts and you have no shipping and handling. The organisers SK Promotions sponsor several demonstrators at the show but there are no full demonstration areas and so the show is not so much an educational show as an industry provider show.
I visited the show last year and I enjoyed picking through the secondhand tools at Tony Murland’s Old Tool Store. Ray Isles was informative and makes many fine tools. Digging around and finding people to talk to is fun of course, but it’s at venues like tis that the world of woodworkers in its many diverse forms and shades comes together and it’s this that fascinates me. Talking to a woodworker at Harrogate is not too different to those I met earlier this month in Las Vegas, Nevada. The essence of being there is working wood no matter the methods and techniques nor the end result.
All the demonstrators seem willing to share their knowledge with visitors
