IWF Atlanta 2024 recap
ShopBot recently exhibited at the world’s largest woodworking machinery show, IWF (International Woodworkers Fair) in Atlanta, GA. For those who have yet to attend, the scale of this show is bigger than anything you can imagine, with most companies taking up city block-sized booth space with machinery so big, setup and breakdown are just as impressive as the functionality of these machines, themselves! While our company and products are on a smaller scale than most who exhibit at this show, we felt right at home. ShopBot offers industrial grade USA-Made CNC machines at a fraction of the price of many other USA-Made CNC brands. We cater mostly to small and medium-sized shops and businesses. However, shops of all sizes, including cabinet and furniture shops appreciate the value and efficiency of adding ShopBot CNC machines to their work-flow for prototyping, custom jobs, and more. We invited ShopBot owner and operator, Andy Glass, of STV Racking to join us at the show. Let’s kick off this recap with a video interview and booth walk-around featuring Andy and ShopBot’s Brian Owen at IWF –
At the booth:
We debuted the PRS5 series (5th Gen PRS series) at this show with a 4’x4’ cutting area, automatic tool changer (ATC), and vacuum hold-down table. Displayed on the spoil board was a full-size patio chair profile-cut to perfection with all parts nested on one sheet of birch ply. We ran a giveaway at the show for the two chairs present. It was fun seeing folks walk off with a piece of furniture created with a ShopBot CNC machine from our booth.
The rotary indexer installed in front of the PRS5 machine mesmerized everyone who walked by. The demo had our material spinning at a decent clip and shaving off just enough to show detail of the tool path. See more indexer action in the video below.
In addition to the large gantry style CNC machine, we brought our Desktop model that was cutting dovetail joints with our edge clamp joinery jig, and the Desktop MAX ATC that was cutting the same design as our full-size patio chair but scaled down to miniature size. A 1mm end mill bit was used to achieve tight tolerance and a precise cut. Lots of great conversation was had about the timesaving and precision that our desktop models provide.
Our sample table featured projects made by ShopBot CNC owners and employees. Notably, the new alphabet series called “The ABC’s of ShopBot CNC” produced by John Kuiphoff in partnership with ShopBot Tools. The first batch of videos for this series were featured on our two big screen TVs at our booth. Attendees were able to handle letters A through E and ask questions about them to get inspiration for projects they wanted to try. A common statement by many people observing our sample table was, “I didn’t know you could cut leather on CNC!” were happy to describe how to get into it.
Observations / Conclusion:
It was great fun walking around the show and observing all the huge automation machines doing their thing. And while sales leads are integral to our success, the most important aspect of IWF is getting to know what the customer needs for their business. We have a full line-up of CNC machines for any size project. We’re listening and we are always looking to improve. We hope to chat with you at a future IWF show. We’ll see everyone next time around.
