Rapid Rafter at the Do it Best & True Value Spring Market 2026 — Denver, CO

We drove 14 hours from Texas to Denver with a truck full of rafter squares, a prize wheel, and enough branded merch to outfit a small army. The Do it Best & True Value Spring Market 2026 is happening right now — March 6 through 8 at the Colorado Convention Center — and the Rapid Rafter booth is open for business.

This is our kind of show. No corporate buyers flying in from Manhattan. No chain-store purchasing committees. The Do it Best market is thousands of independent hardware store owners and lumber yard operators who built their businesses with their own hands, serving communities where everybody knows their name. These are the people we make tools for, and these are the people we want carrying the Rapid Rafter on their shelves.

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What Is the Do it Best & True Value Spring Market?

If you're not in the independent hardware world, here's the short version: Do it Best is a member-owned buying cooperative — one of the largest in the country. Think of it as the opposite of a corporate chain. Instead of some headquarters in Arkansas telling stores what to stock, Do it Best members own the cooperative. They vote on leadership, they share in profits, and they buy inventory through shared warehouses at prices that let them compete with the big boxes.

In 2024, Do it Best merged with True Value, combining two of the most iconic names in independent hardware. The result is a $6 billion cooperative with thousands of member stores across all 50 states and more than 50 countries. This Spring Market is the first Denver event since the merger, and it's a big deal — the floor is packed with newly combined members meeting each other for the first time.

The market takes place at the Colorado Convention Center (700 14th Street, Denver, CO 80202), right in the heart of downtown. It's a buying event first and foremost — members come to place orders, discover new products, and lock in show-only pricing that they won't get the rest of the year.

But it's also a gathering. For store owners who spend 360 days a year behind the counter in small-town America, this is their chance to connect with peers, attend education sessions, and remember that they're part of something bigger than their four walls.

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Do it Best Spring Market 2026 Schedule & Highlights

The market runs three days, with pre-event programming starting a day early. Here's the full schedule:

Wednesday, March 5 — Pre-Market Training

The day before the floor opens, Do it Best runs hands-on training for members. Epicor training sessions cover the BisTrack and Eagle retail systems that most members use to run their stores — point-of-sale, inventory, ordering, the works. There's also a Rental Center Training School for members who operate tool and equipment rental departments (a growing profit center for independent stores).

Thursday, March 6 — Market Kickoff

The official kickoff session starts at 1:15 PM, where Do it Best leadership lays out the state of the cooperative — sales numbers, warehouse performance, new programs, and the integration progress with True Value. After that, the market floor opens and the buying begins. Vendors like us are set up and ready to demo, and the show-only specials go live.

Knowledge Central also kicks off — this is Do it Best's education track, with seminars running all three days on everything from store layout to digital marketing to hiring in a tough labor market.

Friday, March 7 — The Big Day

Friday is the marathon. The Merchandising Preview opens at 7:30 AM for early birds who want to walk the floor before it gets crowded. The market floor runs all day, Knowledge Central sessions continue, and vendors are doing demos non-stop.

The highlight? Dierks Bentley performs live from 6:00 to 7:30 PM, exclusively for market attendees. Say what you will about trade show entertainment — a country music star playing for a few thousand hardware store owners in Denver is about as good as it gets.

Saturday, March 8 — Final Day

Saturday opens with the LBM & Marketing Breakfast — a dedicated session for lumber and building materials dealers, which is a growing segment of the Do it Best membership. There's also a non-denominational church service for attendees who want it.

The market floor stays open for final buying, last-chance vendor meetings, and those deals that always seem to happen when someone stops by a booth on their way out and says, "Alright, tell me one more time how this thing works."

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What Makes This Market Different from Other Trade Shows

We've done trade shows. We've stood in convention centers from coast to coast, handed out flyers, and watched people walk by with their eyes glazed over. The Do it Best market is different, and here's why:

These People Are Buying, Not Browsing

At a typical trade show, maybe 10% of the people who stop at your booth have purchasing authority. The rest are students, media, tire-kickers, and people killing time before the keynote. At the Do it Best market, almost everyone on the floor owns a store. They drove here to place orders. When they pick up a Rapid Rafter and ask "What's my margin on this?", they're not making conversation — they're doing math.

Show-Only Pricing Is Real

Do it Best negotiates special vendor pricing that's only available during the market. Extended dating, freight deals, volume discounts — members who place orders at the show get their best cost of the year. It's a genuine incentive, and it creates an energy on the floor that you don't get at shows where everyone's just collecting brochures.

Knowledge Central Isn't Filler

The education seminars are run by store owners who've figured things out, not consultants who've never swept a floor. Sessions cover real operational challenges: How do you merchandise a 4,000-square-foot store to compete with a 140,000-square-foot Home Depot? How do you hire and keep good people in a small town? How do you build an online presence without a marketing department? These are practical, no-fluff sessions, and the hallway conversations afterward are often more valuable than the presentations.

Networking That Actually Matters

Independent hardware is a lonely business. You're usually the only one in your town doing what you do. The market puts you in a room with thousands of people who face the same challenges — the same supply chain headaches, the same big-box competition, the same staffing problems. The dinner meetups, the bar conversations, the booth visits that turn into 45-minute chats about inventory turns — that's the real value of the market, and it's why people keep coming back year after year.

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The Rapid Rafter Booth: What We Brought to Denver

Our booth is set up and we went all in. Here's what you'll see when you stop by:

The "Lumber Has Changed" display is front and center. We've got a visual comparison showing cross-sections of dimensional lumber from 1914, the 1960s, and 2024. A 2x4 used to actually measure two inches by four inches. Now it's 1-1/2 by 3-1/2 — a change driven by standardized lumber sizing that happened decades ago. A 2x10 has lost over an inch of width since your grandfather was framing. Traditional rafter squares were designed for lumber that doesn't exist anymore — and this display makes that impossible to ignore. "Lumber has changed... shouldn't your square?" That's not just marketing. It's the whole reason the Rapid Rafter exists.

All three editions are on display stands — the original Yellow/Gray, the Red/White/Blue patriotic edition (which we cannot keep in stock — it flies off shelves), and the Rapid Rafter Pro in bare CNC-machined aluminum for pros who want the weight and durability of metal. American flags on every stand, because that's how we roll.

Live demos are happening all day. We open the Rapid Rafter, straddle a piece of 2x lumber right there at the booth, and mark both faces in one motion. The reaction is always the same — people pick it up, try it themselves, and say some version of "Why didn't this exist twenty years ago?" That demo is the best sales tool we have. Once you see it work, you get it.

The prize wheel is spinning. Stop by, give it a whirl, win some Rapid Rafter gear — hats, t-shirts, and other merchandise. We're also displaying our branded apparel, including the "Gettin' Top Rafter" collection that's become a thing of its own on jobsites.

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Now in All Do it Best Warehouses

This is the biggest news we brought to Denver: Rapid Rafter is now available in all Do it Best warehouses nationwide.

That might not sound dramatic if you're not in the distribution business, but for a small tool company from Texas, this is a milestone. Here's what it means in plain terms:

Any Do it Best member store, anywhere in the country, can now add Rapid Rafter to their regular warehouse order. No special sourcing. No direct-ship minimums. No calling us to arrange a one-off delivery. It shows up on the same truck as their fasteners, their paint, and their electrical — just another item in the warehouse catalog.

For independent retailers, that's the difference between "interesting product, but too much hassle to stock" and "I'll add a case to my next order." We've eliminated every friction point between a store owner wanting to carry the Rapid Rafter and actually having it on their shelf.

Why Retailers Are Putting It on the Shelf

The store owners we're talking to at the market keep bringing up the same things:

It's a demonstrable product. Most hand tools just sit in a blister pack on a pegboard. The Rapid Rafter begs to be picked up and opened. Stores that put a demo unit out — or better yet, mount a piece of 2x lumber so customers can try it themselves — see the product sell itself. The "flip" is the moment. Once a contractor or DIYer opens it around a board, they understand immediately.

There's nothing else like it on the shelf. The Rapid Rafter doesn't compete with the $8 rafter square hanging next to it. It's a different category — a patented tool that does something no other square can do. That means no race to the bottom on price, no customer comparison-shopping between four identical options. You're the only store in town that has it, or you're not.

The margin is strong. We're not going to publish exact numbers here, but retailers at the booth are pleasantly surprised. This isn't a commodity item with margin pressure from every direction. It's a premium tool with a premium story and a price point that leaves real money on the table for the retailer.

The story sells. Invented by Peter Toomey, a 40-year framing carpenter from Texas who got tired of flipping boards. Won Popular Mechanics Gear of the Year 2025. Family-owned, American-designed. That narrative resonates with the customers who shop at independent hardware stores — people who choose the local store because they value craftsmanship, innovation, and supporting small business.

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What Is the Rapid Rafter?

If you've landed on this page because you searched for the Do it Best Spring Market and you're wondering what this tool is — here's the quick version.

The Rapid Rafter is a patented double-sided rafter square that straddles a board and marks both faces simultaneously. Every carpenter in history has dealt with the same problem: you mark one side of a 2x board, then you have to flip it over or walk around it to mark the other side. The second mark never quite matches the first, and the whole process eats time that adds up to hours over the course of a job.

Peter Toomey spent 40 years on framing crews in Texas watching this problem repeat itself hundreds of times a day. He finally designed a tool that eliminates it entirely. The Rapid Rafter opens like a book, straddles the lumber, and when you draw your line, it appears on both faces and the top edge — one motion, zero transfer error.

It's not a gimmick. It's not a novelty. It's a fundamentally better way to do something carpenters do hundreds of times a day. That's why Popular Mechanics named it their Gear of the Year in the hand tools category, and it's why we're seeing adoption grow with every trade show, every demo, and every carpenter who picks one up and says "oh."

Want the deep dive? Read our complete guide to rafter squares or learn how to use a rafter square step by step.

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What We're Seeing on the Market Floor

Walking the floor at the Do it Best Spring Market is always a snapshot of where the independent hardware industry is headed. A few things stand out this year:

Independent Retail Is Adapting, Not Dying

The narrative that big-box stores killed independent hardware is lazy and wrong. The North American Hardware and Paint Association (NHPA) has been tracking this for years — independent stores are holding market share and in many segments growing it. What we're seeing at this market is a channel that's evolving — embracing e-commerce, investing in contractor services, building rental departments, and curating product assortments that the big boxes can't match. The Do it Best / True Value merger is part of that evolution. Combined buying power, shared technology platforms, and a deeper product catalog give independent stores tools to compete in ways they couldn't five years ago.

The LBM Segment Is Growing Fast

Lumber and building materials is the fastest-growing segment of the Do it Best membership, and the market reflects it. The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association (NLBMDA) has been highlighting this trend industry-wide. Saturday's LBM & Marketing Breakfast is packed. The pro contractor is the customer everyone wants to serve, and LBM dealers are investing in the tools, inventory, and service levels to keep them. Products like the Rapid Rafter — designed by a contractor, for contractors — fit naturally into that strategy. And with lumber quality continuing to decline, tools that handle imperfect boards are more relevant than ever.

Unique Products Win

The store owners we talk to are hungry for products that differentiate them. They can't win a price war with Home Depot on commodity items, and they know it. What they can do is curate a selection that you won't find at the big box — products with a story, products that solve a specific problem, products that a knowledgeable staff can demo and recommend. That's the Rapid Rafter's sweet spot, and it's why the conversations at our booth keep turning into orders.

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Getting to the Colorado Convention Center

For attendees still planning their trip:

The Colorado Convention Center sits at 700 14th Street in downtown Denver, CO 80202. It's hard to miss — look for the 40-foot blue bear peering through the windows.

From Denver International Airport (DEN): The airport is about 25 miles east of downtown. The RTD A Line train runs directly from the airport to Union Station in about 37 minutes for $10.50 — it's the easiest option. From Union Station, the convention center is a 10-minute walk or a quick rideshare.

Parking: The convention center has attached garages, but downtown Denver fills up fast during events. If you're driving, arrive early or plan to use the RTD light rail. Most of the Do it Best hotel blocks are within walking distance of the center.

Weather: It's early March in Denver. That means anything from 60°F and sunny to a foot of snow — sometimes on the same day. Bring layers. Check the forecast the morning of. Don't let the mile-high sunshine fool you — it can turn fast.

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Come See Us

We'll be at the booth all three days. Stop by, pick up a Rapid Rafter, straddle a board, and see for yourself why this thing is winning over carpenters and store owners across the country. Spin the prize wheel. Ask us about warehouse ordering. Give us a hard time about whatever you want — we're from Texas, we can take it.

If you can't make it to Denver, you can check out the Rapid Rafter online, read the complete rafter square guide, or just call us. We answer our own phone.

See you on the floor.