Weekend with WOOD

I and about 219 other middle-aged and older guys gathered in Des Moines, IA recently for Weekend with WOOD, an annual event put on by the staff at Meredith Corporation, publishers of WOOD Magazine and a bunch of other lifestyle and hobby publications including Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, and Parents. This was my first woodworking con, and I have to say it was a great experience that I’ll probably do again.

The pace of the con was nice and relaxed.  There were only three class periods per day, each 2 hours long with a 30-minute break in between, and a 2-hour lunch break.  That gave the presenters time to go into detail on their topics and gave us attendees plenty of time to wander and look at things like the WOOD Project Gallery, where many of the projects from past and upcoming issues are on display.

There were also evening activities after classes.  On Friday night Acme Tools sponsored a shindig where people could see the latest in Acme’s tool offerings while chowing down on grilled burgers.  Saturday evening there was a charity build, in which 27 teams of volunteers built a project from WOOD issue 238 (March 2016).

I signed up to participate in the charity build.  The project was the “neighborhood book nook” on the cover of the issue.  It looks a bit like a bird house at a distance, but the idea is that you stock it with some spare books; your neighbors will borrow them and contribute some of their own.  Honestly, when I saw the issue my first thought was to wonder what planet the WOOD staff were living on where that sort of thing would ever happen.  If I were to stand one of these up in my yard I’m pretty sure the only thing put into it would be an angry letter from the homeowners’ association threatening me with a fine if I didn’t take it down pronto.  What would a charity possibly want with two dozen of those?  Turns out, the charity is a literacy group connected to the public library system.  Okay, that makes sense.  And a friend of mine who recently moved to Iowa told me that these things are actually pretty common out there, so it wasn’t as far-fetched as I thought.

 

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I’ve had nothing nice to say about Ryobi tools since I took every one out of my shop and tossed them because I considered them too crappy to inflict on any charity or school shop.  This experience didn’t change my mind much.  The cordless brad nailer mostly worked well, though about every 10th shot just didn’t fire a nail and had to be redone.  The drill did what we needed, but driving pocket screws doesn’t exactly tax a tool much.  The RIDGID 6-1/2″ cordless circular saws were an absolute horror.  They were murder to keep on a line and couldn’t cut through 1/2-inch plywood without stalling and seizing every few inches.  I don’t currently own any RIDGID tools and the ones I used at this build made me very glad I didn’t win one as a door prize.  But my teammates were great and the build was tremendous fun.

Another fun thing that the WOOD staff did for us was allow us to have our photo taken for a WOOD Magazine cover.  Looks pretty authentic, doesn’t it?

For my participation in the build, I took home a Ryobi drill bit set and a Hart tape measure.  That was cool with me; it’s hard to screw up drill bits.  At least I didn’t get stuck with one of those RIDGID circular saws.

 

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