Big date: November 7

Had a good time at Woodstock! Thank you Woodstock for the hospitality and the food! Enjoyed chatting with Lorin and the rest of the Woodstock staff.. Good times with all the FHC people and many laughs along a few brews On the way home a flock of wild turkeys decided to walk across the highway as I approached at 70MPH! Darrin and I almost had turkey for lunch lol.. Here are the pics that I have..

 

And the last 2 pics.. Should have taken more pics!

 

No I don't think they were big enough plus can't stop you at 70MPH..

 

That height would much easier to load for me!

 

Great pics everyone! Looks like good eats/drinks..........nice to see the different stoves! Glad we had a bunch of FHC members there!

 

I'm glad that everyone had a great time and I'm proud to see the support from our awesome FHC members!! I truly would have LOVED to have been there but I had a big tree removal that ended up taking yesterday and part of today to finish up...not to mention the roughly 8 hour drive that it would have taken me to get up there But to meet and hang out with members from our beloved site as well as tour that fantastic business would have been worth it.

I'm glad to have the team from Woodstock talk highly of us. They are quality people, as many of you have already found out many times over.

It was great looking through the pics which allowed me some vicarious satisfaction!

 

Maybe I had a "special" invite.....

 

Your name came due to the great feedback on the Idea Steel. Loren really appreciated the feedback as you helped development.

 

Hey guys and gals, we made it home in fairly good shape although as expected, very, very tired and a bit sore. Certainly very happy to have gone to the Open House and our thanks go out to Tom and his wonderful gang.

Thanks too for all who have posted pictures. Many of them are pictures we got too so will save me from posting. True to ourselves, afterwards we wish we'd taken a lot more pictures, especially of the people we met. The trouble is, we meet people and we want to talk rather than take pictures! And we met some extremely fine folks there. Sadly, there was not enough time as we'd have enjoyed talking to many of them for hours.

I thought many might like to know how close this thing was. When Judy and I left the factory Friday night, they were still assembling the new stoves that would be on display! The first burn-in on the display stove was done after we left so the fire you see in the pictures was actually the second burn-in on that stove! And all day Friday, the entire crew worked like bees trying to get stoves and the place ready for Saturday morning. We got there early Saturday morning to find them still hard at work getting ready.

We do not know the final count on how many guests there were but my guess is close to or over 500 total. I know there were over 450 meals served and not everyone was there to eat. The caterer ran out of meat but typical of Woodstock, more was provided!

I'll post more to try to answer some of the above posts.

Tom had just put the front on this stove. This is the one that was burning during the open house. You can see the cat in the stove and also the soapstone in the bottom. At the time, Tom was working on the bypass. There was still much to do on this stove.

Chris was doing a lot of welding in the final hours getting ready. He is a great guy.

Sadly this picture did not show what I wanted. I tried to get the unfinished stove and on the left is a rack of unpainted andirons. There were several designs from animals to leaves and trees, etc.

In the showroom, the Ideal Steel and the new tools they are introducing.

Woodstocks new sales lady!

Ken at the stove and Mike overseeing. Many have talked with Mike on the phone so now you know what he looks like although he usually does not dress like this. lol

Just look at that dirty glass! This is the second burn-in. It did not take long before that glass was nice and clean again. Someone mentioned wood and it was kiln dried wood. Unfortunately we did not take any wood with us this time but would have liked to and then compared the difference, if any.

 

Some of the trivets.


That's Lorin in the background. She was busy.

Tom busy in the background.

Below is the winning stove!

The pay for designing and building the winning stove.

 

Was great meeting you! Like you, we did not get enough pictures. That Long Trail was good stuff too!

 

Many thanks for the pictures and video Steve. It was a pleasure meeting and talking with you.