Well quite a disappointment this year -- I was really looking forward to it after last years cold and rain dampened show -- which nevertheless had some wonderful sights, and great tool bargains.
Last year:
http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,8576.0.htmlBut this year, the crowd was huge, but the show lacklustre. I brought my camera but actually took no photos. The really big beautiful engines were missing. A lot of little motors, a fair number of tractors, one ragged looking steam engine (the most interesting part of the show for me. But nothing to really grab my interest. Nothing unusual.
The vendor area was overflowing with booths, but there was a high proportion of knick knacks and household goods, video tapes, jewelry, beeswax items, plants, rocks and minerals, a booth of fake cast iron toys and somebody selling wooden boxes they had branded with letters. Ho, hum.
The tools were the biggest disappointment for me. Prices were high, nobody seemed in the mood to accept a counteroffer. Sellers seemed impatient. I heard a fair number of rude comments back and forth.
I didn't see anything I really wanted to buy this year. Nothing specialized for the home machinist. No ER collets, no machines, few good measuring instruments, old indicators for $35, no lathe parts, Worn taps for $5-10. And it seemed everyone was trying to sell rusty wrenches, thousands of them for $3 each (and having no luck), or old style soldering coppers. There must have been half a dozen of these at every table. Lots of crappy old plastic hand drills, circular saws, etc. But the prices were a substantial proportion of new.
It was really just a lot of overpriced junk. In the end I spent some money at a seller of inexpensive imported supplies -- bought a box of new paint brushes, a few new fuel filters, a package of sandpaper, some packaged drill bits, and a little plastic de-magnetizer.
Perhaps the planets weren't in proper alignment.
Hoping next year will be a return to more of engineering interest!
