The International Woodworking Fair (or IWF) is a biennial woodworking show held in Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center. This year’s show was held Wednesday, August 24th – Saturday, August 27th. It is the largest woodworking show in the Western Hemisphere and the place to see and be seen in the woodworking industry. JB Cutting has proudly attended every year since 1988! This is the first year we have displayed at the show. This year’s show started a day early for us; we caught a flight from Detroit to Atlanta on Tuesday and headed straight to the show floor to set up our booth.
After we set up our booth, we walked over to “Stiles City”. Stiles Machinery is one of the world’s leading providers of advanced manufacturing equipment and the largest exhibitor at IWF. This year’s display spanned 26,000 square feet and featured more than 50 working machines. A short video of their experience is available on their Facebook page. After a little sneak preview of the highlights of their booth we headed out to dinner. With the long week ahead we needed an early night!
Wednesday morning, we headed out to the show, eager with anticipation. We were not disappointed!
Walking in, we were in awe of all the exhibitors – over 1,000 spanning two large halls. Even though the show had just opened, there were many attendees milling about checking out all that the exhibitors had to offer. Our first stop was at our booth where we worked scanning badges and determining where our products could help out potential customers. Our relief arrived in the afternoon and we got busy walking the show, seeing what new products our vendors were offering and finding the latest and greatest!
One of our first stops was the Omnova booth. They manufacture 3DL (thermofoil). Omnova is offering many new colors this year, with a focus on their SURFX line – a high durability thermofoil product. They’ve published a visual translation of emerging design trends called Insights. If you’d like to see for yourself, an online version is available here.
Next on our list was a stop at the Uniboard booth. Uniboard manufactures TFL (board). Riviera Oak is the newest EIR (embossed in register) synchronized texture created with their Woodprint Duo Technology. It is applied on both sides of the panels (a real trend at this year’s show). One of our favorite new colors is in the Aura finish, it’s called Cardamom.
Continuing on our tour, we stopped at another 3DL company, SSI (Surface Source International). We created some pieces for their booth and think it came together very well! We made ourselves right at home in their cozy, welcoming environment!
In addition to their 3DL product line, SSI supplies StyleLite and Zenolite and has recently added an edge banding line from MKT. StyleLite is an extruded lamination-specific polymer sheet with an ultra-high gloss acrylic top layer. Zenolite is made from two layers of acrylic, co-extruded into a single sheet. A vibrant color layer is fused with a stunningly clear top layer to create a panel of incredible depth, gloss and clarity. Thanks to SSI for their hospitality during IWF; JB is proud to partner with SSI!
Another 3DL vendor on our list located close to the SSI booth was Riken USA. They’ve got some very beautiful soft-feel thermofoils. Love the textured of the pressed panels they used as their backdrop! Thanks for posing for a quick pic and your hospitality during the show.
Once the show closed, we high-tailed it over to the Stevens Industries booth for a networking cocktail reception. We got to see their new colors up close and personal! Their dual sided, registered embossed textures: Legno, Artika and Rain featured prominently in their booth. JB Cutting produced door samples which were on display for everyone to see.
We ended the evening with an enjoyable networking dinner with a current customer. Cheers!
Join us next week for the continuation of our adventures in HOTLANTA!