This one was a little bittersweet.
Austin Waldo, who created the Texas Woodworking Festival, is stepping away after this year. Unless someone new picks up the director's role, this may have been the last one. We hope it isn't. Some shows are a hall full of vendors. TWF has always felt like a room full of people who build things, and that comes from the person who started it. Thank you, Austin.
The floor felt a little smaller this year, and we didn't mind. In place of a wall of people three deep for an hour, we got longer conversations with more of them. The kind where someone asks a second question, then a third, then tells you what they are building in the shop and why. That is the conversation we drive nine hundred miles for.
Next door: Makers MedKit
Our booth neighbor was Michael Alm, there with Makers MedKit, the first aid kit he started with Brian Granvall, a trauma and critical care PA and Navy Corpsman veteran who also runs a furniture shop.
The idea makes sense the moment you hear it. Makers spend real money on real tools: the saw, the router, the dust extraction, the clamps. Then the first aid kit is whatever came in a plastic box and ended up in a drawer. Makers MedKit is built the other way around. It is a real trauma kit, assembled around the injuries a shop actually produces: a tourniquet, hemostatic gauze, burn dressing, trauma shears. It comes with the knowledge behind it, and content on how to use it is on the way.
It got a live test before the weekend was out. Michael and Brian treated an injury from the spoon carving booth down the row. That is the case for the product in one sentence: when something goes wrong in a shop, the right kit and someone who knows what to do with it are the only things that matter.
We had already been talking with them before Austin about a Systainer setup, and the weekend only made us want it more. For anyone in the Systainer ecosystem, a Makers MedKit fitted into an S 76 and hung on a SYS-RLZ S 76 rack lives on the wall in plain sight and comes off it in one motion. We want to find a way to make that work. We are always glad to find partners who love makers and are solving real problems in the shop.
In our corner: the Systainer Store
Tim was with us all weekend for the Systainer Store. Spending time with him is always good, partly because of how much he cares about Systainers: the cases, the ecosystem, and where they could go next, inside the maker world and well outside it.
A good part of the weekend went to that question: how to grow what we do together and get more Systainers into more shops. Hearing a partner talk about his product in our booth, to people standing in front of the things we build for it, is the whole reason to share the corner.
In the booth: Steve I Designs
Steve from Steve I Designs was in Austin with us, Mr. Link in the Bio himself. He is a great sounding board and, when we need one, the voice of reason. He was also immensely helpful in the booth, through setup and through teardown. Thank you, Steve.
The Dash-Board, in person
The Dash-Board Portable Workshop drew a crowd all weekend, and nearly everyone did the same thing first. They put both hands on it and pushed, exactly the way Rob, who builds it, does in his videos. They got the same result Rob does. It didn't move.
That moment does more than any post can. Social media doesn't convey build quality or engineering, so the price is hard to understand from a screen. With it in front of you, it makes sense.
It also carried nearly everything we make. BenchGrip pods ran along the sides. AnchorPod and AnchorPod Edition pods sat on top. SYS-FIT and SMR racks hung off the edge. Cardo and Corso came on and off it all weekend for anyone who wanted to see them work. One bench, the whole system on it, doing the job together. That is the version of FORG3D that is hardest to show online and easiest to understand in person.
Across the aisle: the Purple Heart Project
Directly across from us was the Purple Heart Project, a committed group of veterans working for their fellow veterans. They introduce combat-wounded veterans to traditional hand tool woodworking: they send them to week-long workshops, put tools in their hands and a bench in their shop, and keep them connected afterward to the people they learned alongside.
Along with Team Fidelis, they bring a real passion for getting veterans into woodworking and for the healing that comes with it. Standing on the floor and learning how they reach the people they serve was one of the best parts of the weekend. We want to find a way to support and work with them going forward, for those who served. Their work is at thepurpleheartproject.org.
Dinner with Three Splinters
We also got time with some of our favorite people: the hosts of the Three Splinters podcast, Jason Bent, Brian Sedgeley and Ronnie Fulton. Nothing serious came out of it, because those three don't really do serious. It came with dinner at Leroy and Lewis Barbecue, though. If you are ever in Austin, go, and get the tri-tip.
It also has us looking forward to SplinterCon in November.
The people who came back
Part of why we go back to a show is to see the people we met there last time. Several who bought kit off our floor last year came by to tell us how they have been using it: what earned a permanent spot on the bench and what they paired it with. There is no better feedback than that, and there is no other way to get it.
Then there are the friends we only see at events. A show is where we catch up on life and on what everyone is making.
The part nobody sees
Every booth has the same quiet problem. After the fortieth conversation of the day you start asking yourself whether you already told this person about the AnchorPod or whether that was the last person. The other half of the problem is that we do a lot of things. Somewhere between workholding, bench surfaces, organization, racks and now Cardo and Corso, you have to decide what to show someone in the few minutes you have them. It is a good problem. It is still a problem.
Everyone who came by
Thank you to everyone who walked over to Booth 48. Signing up got you an S 76 from the Systainer Store, a SYS-RLZ rack from us, and an entry in the drawing.
The four winners will be announced in the October issue of In the Forge. If you signed up, watch your inbox.
The road home
Nine hundred miles each way, and nothing worth reporting. No breakdowns, no detours, no surprises. On a drive that long, boring is exactly what you want.
Thank you to Austin Waldo and the Texas Woodworking Festival, Steve I Designs, the Systainer Store, Makers MedKit, the Purple Heart Project, and everyone who stopped by. We drove nine hundred miles to be there. It was worth every one of them.
Your Workflow. Without Limits.
FAQ
When will the Texas Woodworking Festival giveaway winners be announced?
In the October issue of In the Forge, our monthly newsletter. Winners are also contacted directly by email.
What is Makers MedKit?
A first aid kit built for woodworking and shop injuries, started by Michael Alm and Brian Granvall. Find it at makersmed.com.
What is the Purple Heart Project?
A nonprofit that introduces combat-wounded veterans to traditional hand tool woodworking, including funded workshops, tools, and a community afterward.