Apr 18-19-20 at the Expo Center.
Cost is usually $8 to get in.
Carpool parking is $6/car if you go an a group (in one car) of like 3 or more.
For folks who haven't been, gun shows also draw replica kife & sword vendors of all prices & quality levels, -AND- they're good for military uniform costume touches such as uniform buttons, ribbons, medals, stripes, & insignia, epualets, or ceremonial daggers (hint: PUMPKIN SCISSORS!)
Gun shows can also be a good source for (unregulated/unrestricted, non-firing) gun & weapons parts and solid plastic replicas of firearms. Or you can start with a wooden or plastic stock, or a PVC pipe, and trick it out with sights, a forward grip, parts of a tactical flashlight or a pickatinny rail, a cheapo-scope, a bipod, a muzzle brake the size of a club sandwich, etc. Perfect if you're trying to cobble together a realistic looking (but non-firing) replica of, say, Priscilla's 30mm rifle form Hellsing, or the Mauser-looking infantry rifles from Pumpkin Scissors, or any other outlandish toys often seen in anime:
![](https://www.kumoricon.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.opusnet.com%2Fguy1656%2Fyikes.jpg&hash=c31d0d83e072b016373c71cca347b5f169d78810)
(And if you're over 20, clean record, and an Oregon resident you could even buy, say Rally Vincent's CZ-75 from Gunsmith Cats, or the Beretta-looking 'thing' that Levy carries in Black Lagoon. But you couldn't bring them to a con - drat.)
Also great sources for history/coffee-table books on Japanese (and other) militaria, so you can identify all that early 20th-century stuff they use in Ep 1 of 'Coyote Ragtime Show,' or get historically accurate source materials for Japanese military styles from 1853 - present. There is often enough WW1 - WW2 source material to be useful for Grave of the Fireflies, Silent Service, or Zipang, and even for other steam-punky / 19th-cen fantasy series too: Sakura Taisen, Last Exile, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto, Steamboy, etc.
So: Anyone want to meet for breakfast (say 9:30am, at a restaurant nearby, such as off the Delta Park exit of I-5) and then go in as a group? I'm usually in-n-out in 1 1/2 to 2 hrs. Plenty of time to drift over across town for Uwajimaya's festival in the afternoon.
- G