Are there any hobby machine swap meets or shows?

R_Lloyd

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They have swap meets and shows for nearly all hobbies, guns, tractors, cars etc. Does any one know of onfor vintage machine tools?
 
Keith Rucker of VintageMachinery.Org and YouTube talks about "Arnfest" which is a combination of tours and swapmeet. Crystal Lake Illinois, so may be driving distance for you. I wish it were closer for me.

http://arnfest.com/
 
I have never been to any of these shows, but I have a few of them on my bucket list. NAMES and Cabin Fever are probably the two biggest and best known model engineering shows in North America. Our friends in the British Isles on the other hand, have a good number of shows throughout the country. I will let one of our members from there speak up on those shows.

The North American Model Engineering Society (NAMES) has their annual show coming up in late April in Wyandotte, Michigan. http://www.namesexposition.com/

Cabin Fever Expo is held in January each year in Lebanon, PA http://www.cabinfeverexpo.com/

The Black Hills Model Engineering Show is held in late September in Rapid City, SD. Use caution on their website, it appears to have been hacked, pushing out redirects to a malicious website which was blocked by my antivirus package. This problem seems to be common for sites that are hosted for free on Tripod, such as this one. I would love to attend this show one year, but it comes during a very busy time of year for me. I am going to make an extra effort to get there soon before it goes the way of the dinosaur as some shows have. Maybe this year. http://www.blackhillsmodelengineeringshow.net/

The Estevan Model Engineering Show is held each year in mid-October in Estevan, Saskatchewan, Canada. Estevan is located about 15 minutes north of the North Dakota border, directly northwest of Minot, ND. Also hosted for free on Tripod, use caution. http://www.estevanmodelengineeringshow.com/

The Oregon GEARS Show used to occur each September in Portland, Oregon, but they seem to have fallen by the wayside due to venue cost and location issues. Their last show was in 2015 and their website is gone. Sad.

Regina Model Engineering Show used to be held in Regina, Saskatchewan. Their website is gone also, or at least the link that I had is no longer valid. This show used to be held in conjunction with the Western Canada Farm Progress Show.

Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion is held each year over Labor Day weekend in Rollag, MN, almost directly east of Fargo, ND. This is primarily a threshing and early farm machinery show, but they do have an area dedicated to model engineering and they even have a youth program each year that introduces youngsters to some simple machining tasks where they get to build their own little wobbler steam engine. Pre-registration is required for the youth program as space is limited. http://www.rollag.com/ I plan to attend this show soon, maybe this year, maybe the next, not sure.


One more place that I am aware of that has an area for miniature engines and such is the Le Sueur County Pioneer Power Association show held each year in August, between Le Sueur and Montgomery, Minnesota. I attend this show each year and their miniature engineering area is not very large, but I manage to spend an hour or so there each year, looking at the engines and chatting with those who have some of their handiwork on display. http://www.pioneerpowershow.com/ They also have a swap meet each year, typically in late April, but I've never seen much there in the line of model engineering items except for an occasional small lathe, power hacksaw, or bandsaw.

There may be other shows in the USA and Canada that I am not aware of, this is definitely not an all inclusive list.
 
Nice list Terry. I only found out about the Cabin Fever show late in January, so I missed this years show. I hope to make it next year.
 
Thanks for the info, looks like there are some good opportunities to try!
 
Checked out that calendar and it only lists when clubs meet. If you switch over to "Show/Expo" you can search through the entire year and come up with nothing.
 
Checked out that calendar and it only lists when clubs meet. If you switch over to "Show/Expo" you can search through the entire year and come up with nothing.

Sorry, I'm afraid that is as good as it gets....
 
Not a problem, ewkearns, I just thought I would put that out there so that if someone else has the same trouble that I did, they'll know why.

Having a list of clubs and when they meet is useful too, glad you posted it!
 
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