(upbeat music) marc: i'm heretoday with steve harris. he is the president of the association of fine woodworkers here in arizona, which i am a proud member. how are you doing today, steve? steve: i'm doing just great. marc: excellent. steve: nice to see you.
announcer: now, how long have you guys actually had a booth at the show here? steve: this is our secondyear at this location. when the show was produced over at the fairgrounds we had several years of association with the show. announcer: excellent, excellent. how long has the association been around? like when was it actually-
steve: our association started in 1983. announcer: okay. steve: and started out as an organization to make toys for handicap children, for under privileged children, and we still do that to this day. we actually deliveredover 3000 toys last year to hospitals, schools. announcer: that's beautiful.
what is the yearly associationfee to be a member? steve: a new member will pay $25 for every year and on the first year we ask for an additional$5 to make the badges and do the paperwork. announcer: and if youconsider, i know for me, the discount that you getat all the local stores; the rocklers, woodcrafts, all those stores. steve: you make that up quickly.
announcer: yeah, you definitelymake that up pretty fast. now, lastly, we'd justlike to know your opinion. why should someone join a local guild or a local organization? steve: if you're interested in woodworking we have such a diverse group of people with such a diverse group of skills and everybody seems to lean toward one type of specialty or another.
and it doesn't seem to matter what you want to learn. there'll be somebody there to help you and everybody in the woodworking field seems to be just friendly and always willing to help and that's how i ended up in this club. announcer: now, i'm actuallya semi-active member. i don't get to go toas many of the meetings
as i'd like to, but theones that i have been to have been excellent. you could learn so much at these things that i highly recommendlooking up your local guild, your local association and you'll meet a lot of great people, learn a lot of great things. steve, thank you very much. steve: pleasure to see you again.
announcer: great to see you. take care and enjoy the show. steve: thank you. interviewer: here we'restanding with mike van pelt, owner and operator of american sycamore and tool guru. (laughing) mike: very good. interviewer: yes.
so, what brings you to thewoodworking show, mike? mike: i'm here representing delta. i teach the master clinics, demonstrations on the table saw, band saw, joiner, plainer and bestcollection management. interviewer: sounds like you're busy. mike: yes. interviewer: so how long have you been attending the shows?
mike: this is my second year as a representative for delta doing the master clinics, but in my career i've been doing woodworking shows for over 20 years. interviewer: promoting those tools, right? mike: yes, promoting and selling tools. interviewer: so what aresome of the other cities that you're gonna bevisiting besides phoenix?
mike: i'll ask you too. i know from week to week, but please visit my website at www.aswrs.com and we go to the 'where's waldo' section and it'll tell you what cities and what we're up to at american sycamore. interviewer: great. so what's your general woodworking background?
mike: industrial arts teacher and found out that thatwasn't my cup of tea. i loved woodworking, but i didn't like the babysitting part of that. so i started selling equipment and tools and i always dreamed of having a shop and a place where icould share information with other woodworkers and that led me toestablishing american sycamore.
interviewer: so what's new for 2007, american sycamore? mike: we've changed the shop all around. new layout in the shop. delta has provided us with some new equipment this year and now that porter-cable and dewalt and delta is all one big happy family under the black & decker family
we're adding new dewalttools to our shop as well. interviewer: that's great. so do you have a favorite tool? mike: i would say theunisaw, the delta unisaw. nothing says i love youlike a delta unisaw. the perfect gift. (laughing) interviewer: so do you have any advice for new woodworkers thatare just starting out and setting up their shop on a budget?
i would recommend that they go to school, whether my school or anyone's school. the education that's available today didn't exist 20 years ago. what they could learn in a week at a class or a seminar would behard to learn yourself in five or six years. that way you'll be armedwith some information when it does come to buying equipment
and you won't get hurt and be safe. interviewer: well, you have a great time at the show and thanks so much for speaking with us. mike: thank you, bye-bye. interviewer: bye. (laughing) mike: why not? announcer: all in all, i would say it was a pretty successful2000, what year is it?
2006 woodworking show. honestly, if you go tothe woodworking show and you go home and you feel energized and you're happy andyou're just, you know, you're full of energy,you didn't do it right. you're basically, if you're not tired, if your feet don't hurt, if you're not losing your voice, you didn't really do what you
were supposed to do at the show. there's just so much to see here and there are so many different booths, manufacturers, there's so much to learn, not just buy. you should be walking out of here with your head pounding with knowledge, your wallet sagging with use and your feet should be killing you
from all the walking around. so very good experience this year. did i have fun? i had a ... stop looking at me. i had a great time, actually. we met quite a few new people that we didn't get to meet last year. but, yeah. i mean, the wood show,
even if you go home empty handed there's always an awesome experience. there's a ton of free information. you just get a lot of hands on with tools. if you've got questions on two different types of tools, you see a powermatic and a delta. they make almost the same type of tool. you want to know whatthey look like in person.
which one would suityour particular needs. you could come here andactually look at it, talk to the reps, maybe get some hands on on a machine. you just can't beat it. it's a really effective way to shop and to compare different items. and we'd also like to take a minute to thank the woodworking show staff
and the management that allowed us to do this in the first place. i know it's a little unconventional. it's something different that they haven't really done, but i think if this is a sign of their willingness to embrace the future and the types of technology that are out there, i think it's a really good sign
for the woodworking shows in general. really, everything is about the internet these days and that'swhat we're all about too. so i think it's a really effective way for them to spread the word and for people to seewhat the woodworking shows have to offer. so i think right now we're gonna sit for a little bit and get a breather.
and then i think it's off to boston market for some meatloaf healing and then we're gonna go home. so all in all, awesome show this year and we'll be back next year. bye. voiceover: ladies and gentlemen, the soothing sounds of nicole. nicole: (singing)
♫ do-do-do ♫ ♫ do-do-do-do-do ♫ ♫ do-doodly-do ♫