Steve,

I'm not Russ and he's gratefeul. :-) 

Sandcarving isn't a noisy, messy or obtrusive process to do at shows. Probably less than laser demos, which aren't a problem.

Steve~
Yes, I will be carving "Live" at the show. There will be a small video camera mounted in the cabinet and a video screen up where others can see what I am doing if there are too many up close.

As "Stunt Engraver" Dave said it is not messy or very intrusive.

In fact the cabinets that A Balst makes are very clean. The cabinet is a self circulating design that once you put abrasive in the cabinet the only time you need to deal with it again is to replace what has been pulled into the filter or to change the size of grit.

You turn on the air supply, the valve in the pressure pot closes and then you do your carving (aka blasting) and if you run out of abrasive you just turn off the air supply and the abrasive falls back in the pressure pot. Once the abrasive is back in the pot you just turn the air back on and start carving again.

A pressure pot design may not mean a lot to you but in simple terms there is a container that the abrasive is in that is pressurized and then the pressurized abrasive is added to another stream of pressurized air. It uses less psi to do the work as compared to a siphon design that sucks the abrasive into a stream of pressurized air.

The air compressor can be a lot noisy but if a small compressor is used that can be cut down a bit. Although it will run almost constantly.

Oh the cabinet I will be using has the filter built on the back of the cabinet and all one piece. At 450 CFM the filter sounds like a small jet engine! But we guys love the feeling of power! Who wouldn't want the sound of a jet roaring in the shop? Hahahaha!

Just booked.

Add

Zona and Steve Hudkins (Zona's Engraved Creations)

Zona

David,
Thursday sounds good for me too.
I too want to offer you my help. If there is anything I can do or bring from the east coast let me know. Also Leslie and I will be there on Tuesday night. We stay at the Hilton. If you need any help there, I can do that too. I can give you my cell # so that you can get in touch with me.
Rolf

Rolf,

Thank you (and Chuck) for your offers of help. At this point, if we end up at Quark's, I can't think of anything that needs to be done.

We seem to be developing what looks to be a good turnout. If we can get 50 people or more, to commit to a Thursday evening get-together, we may want to consider taking the party, directly across the street from the Convention Center, to "The Beach" which is a club where we can reserve a private room, for an all-you-can-eat/drink extravaganza.

We did that with DSSI a few years ago and I thought it was great.

Plenty of space, tables with comfortable chairs, decent buffet, pool table and best off all; all of our forum member friends in one place for 3 or 4 hours, which left plenty of time to hit the town afterwards.

Dave~
I know I am new to the group and would like to help out all I can. I don't know yet what my extra curricular activities are going to be yet.

I do know there are going to be a night or two that I have to go out to dinner with the owner of A Blast. Other than that things are still up in the air. I should know more as we get closer to the show. Still waiting for things to fall into place.

Let me know if I can be of any help before and maybe meet after we get there.

Once agin things are not clear yet but I think we are stying at the Hilton. If not very close to the LVCC>

Garry,

Welcome to the forum from a former Iowan. I know your turf very well. We usually stop for lunch in Clive to break up our family trips to and from Cedar Rapids, where most of my family still lives.