The Coolest Stuff at IWF 2022
George VondriskaDescription
The International Woodworking Fair (IWF) is the largest woodworking show in North America. It’s held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. In 2022 over 900 vendors were showing their wares.
Who attends?
The show gets MANY attendees from all over the world. Everyone from folks running huge woodworking businesses to hobbyists who want to see the latest and greatest. A four-day show pass is inexpensive, around $25, and there’s lots of value there.
Exhibitors
The array of exhibitors is incredible. Companies show up well in advance of the show to set up HUGE machines (i.e. CNC, dust collection, lasers) that will be running and cutting parts throughout the show. Every category is covered, including solid wood and man-made materials, finish, adhesive, hardware, and portable and stationary power tools. IWF is literally one stop shopping for everything woodworking.
The people we talked to
There’s an amazing community of content creators out there. These people are often working out of their garage or basement, creating cool projects, and also creating videos of their techniques and processes. We took advantage of a number of content creators being under one roof at IWF and asked them about the coolest things they had seen at the show. Their answers give you some insight into what IWF is all about, and also provide you with some interesting products to explore.
Helping you with tools
At WWGOA we like to help you make educated decisions about your tool purchases. That’s part of the reason we attend IWF; so we can see the latest and greatest and bring it to you. Even when we’re not attending shows we frequently provide product reviews that will help you with your buying decisions.
One of the most fun things about a show like this are all the influencers that show up. So I've asked a few that you're gonna recognize. What's the coolest thing you've seen at IWF. Here are their answers. Coolest thing I've seen at the show? Probably the Shaper Plate. That's something that I'm definitely gonna be bringing into my shop and looking forward to testing out with my Shaper Origin. The coolest thing that I've seen at IWF is the TigerStop. So the coolest thing I've seen at the show is called the Wood Chucker. It takes your scrap wood and turns it into sawdust. The coolest thing I've seen at IWF is Shaper Plate. The coolest thing I've seen so far is definitely the Certainly Wood booth, where they have one millimeter thick veneer ingrained wood. It's mind boggling how they do it. Definitely check it out. Hey Dan, with Country Tables here. And the coolest thing that I've seen down at IWF today is Robotiq at Universal Robots. Just broke out my checkbook and that's a $50,000 one right there. So the best thing I've seen so far at IWF? The onslaught of celebrity woodworker over here, they're phenomenal. My name's Stephanie from Uncommon Outpost. And the coolest thing I've seen at IWF is George. And all of the other great woodworkers that I didn't even know were gonna be here. You're making me blush. The coolest thing I've seen at the show is a 24 inch dovetail machine from Northfield Industries. That's big, who knew. So the best product I've seen here at IWF is obviously the Mullet Tools, Dust Cyclone. It's a product that sucks, but in a good way. The coolest thing I've seen at the show so far is the new Zeta from ShopBot. Best thing I liked about the show was PantoRouter, baby. How can you pick? There's so many great tools here. I love all of them. A huge thank you to Ethan, Dan, Char, Stephanie, Michael, everybody else who participated in this goofy little exercise. Coolest part for me, out of this is getting people like this involved with what I'm doing. If you're a woodworker, this is a place you need to be.
I wish there was a show like this in, or at least close to, Chicago. We used to get "The Woodworking Shows" here, and they stopped coming to the Chicago area. They were stopping in Wisconsin, about an hour away from Chicago, and then the show quickly started losing vendors, had to relocate to another venue, then covid, and now they're gone, at least within 100 miles gone. There are a few trade shows that come here, but they're not open to the public.