• See woodworking demos and exhibits in Dallas and the surrounding area.handmade candle box. image by Tom Oliveira from Fotolia.com
  
  Woodworking is a popular hobby across the United States. Whether making cabinets or furniture or turning bowls and pen blanks, a helpful tip or new product demonstration helps woodworkers hone their craft. In the Dallas Forth Worth area, those interested in learning about woodworking, including wood turning, or in improving their work have opportunities to increase their knowledge.
  
  

The Woodworking Show

• The premier woodworking exposition in the United States is a professionally-run show held in multiple locations around the country. Dallas hosts The Woodworking Show, as the exhibit is known, in October. Professional woodworkers and do-it-yourself-ers visit the show floor to see and touch tools and machinery from major manufacturers that sell equipment in the United States. Demonstrations and educational seminars given by renowned industry experts on subjects such as cabinet restoration, inlay techniques and harvesting wood from logs vie for attention with booths manned by supply vendors and toolmakers.
  
  The Woodworking Show in Dallas opens on a Friday and runs through Sunday; admission was $10 per day in 2010. Children and active police, fire and military personnel with ID are welcome to enter free of charge.
  
  

Equipment Demos

• Two major companies, Rockler and Woodcraft, operate retail stores for woodworking enthusiasts in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. These stores regularly bring in experts to demonstrate the capabilities of big-ticket power equipment they sell, such as routers, drill presses and table (cabinet) saws. The Rockler stores in Arlington and Richardson and the Woodcraft stores in Addison & Fort Worth hold these demos on Saturdays. Woodworkers learn about the latest tools and pick up hints, tips and tricks for using them as the demonstrators put the equipment through its paces.
  
  

Clubs: Classes, Workshops and Exhibits

• Woodturning and woodworking clubs in Dallas and its surrounding metropolitan region include the Dallas Area Woodturners (DAW), a chapter of the American Association of Woodturners, an international nonprofit organization that promotes the advancement of woodturning. These clubs host nationally and internationally known wood turners, workers and carvers to hold classes for members and interested non-members. In 2010, for example, DAW invited Michael Hosaluk from Canada to give a chapter demo and three full days of instruction and demonstration. The clubs and chapters also arrange public exhibits of their members' work, such as the 2010 DAW exhibit held at the ArtCentre of Plano.
  
  Each year in October, the Senior Citizens Fair Arts and Crafts Marketplace, a community service project, opens at the Amon G. Carter Museum in Fort Worth with 25,000 handmade items on display. Woodworking projects from area woodworkers are among the many crafts featured at this show and sale.