I was following a thread on another blog as they discussed and pondered why people buy mass produced lower quality furniture instead of going to their local crafts person and getting something really nice,and long lasting.
The discussion was quite illuminating. The reasons for buying cheaper goods were in some cases quite compelling. Many people think they are saving money buying cheap. I know that cheap is seldom a money saver, but that is tough to make most people believe. Time is another reason, it is quicker to trade money for a bedroom suite than it is to build one, also much quicker to just go to the store and bring it home in pieces, you will have the whole unit assembled before the craftsman has the wood milled and cut to size.
It was also generally decided that lack of knowledge and education has meant that many people can't really tell the difference between solid wood and veneer covered sawdust board so they can't understand why a crafts person feels their work is worth 5 to 10 times the price for "the same thing". We see that same situation with food in restaurants all the time. Many people have not eaten enough good food to know the difference between fine food and fuel.
Without any experience or education people also often don't realize how much work or skill goes into making things, be they dovetailed boxes or hand knit sweaters. Many people grew up with out making anything, their free time was filled with sports and group activities, not shop time. If a role model was not into crafts or woodwork then the person just won't know. So there are two problems, one the customer don't know the value of the materials and the second problem is they have no idea of the time investment the crafts person makes.
Relating to the question of time an area that most people do not understand is non-billable hours, sometimes even other crafts people. In my past life I managed a law office so billable hours were very important, tracking them, collecting on them and....being sure that the work being done was billable. A work shop is filled with work that is not related to one particular project or invoice related item.
Last Friday afternoon is my most recent example:
Last Friday afternoon I worked in my shop for 3 1/2 hours, doing nothing specific to a project but working non-the-less.
Let's review how that time was spent:
1. I swept, cleaned and vacuumed the shop, top to bottom front to back. Most days I do some cleaning but now and then it demands a serious full on assault on dust and little bits of wood.
2. I gathered off cuts and sorted them into fire wood and keepers. At every saw and machine there is box of off cuts. Usually 2/3 of the off cuts are fire wood, the remaining 1/3 are combined, glued and used for small projects, jigs etc. Sorting them out takes time and saves money in the long run, I think.
3. After all the cleaning the dust collection system and the various shop vacs needed to be emptied. If you have ever wrestled with the bags on a dust collection system you know that that is work and takes time.
4. Sharpening. chisels, knives and pencils. Now I don't let things get too far out of hand but it still takes time to do. Recently I spend an entire day getting my sharp tools in shape.
5. Sorting my way through the wood rack. Pieces of wood get pulled of the racks randomly and so now and then the rack needs to be reviewed and re-stacked.
6.Changed a band saw blade. My very least favourite job in the shop, very least. But I use one of my band saws, everyday.
7. Washed the paint brush cleaning sink. It looks terrible but...would be even worse if I didn't give it 5 minutes every week or two.
8. Filled glue bottles. I buy glue by the gallon and put it into little bottles for ease of use. This always takes time to fill and to wipe up the little bit of spilled glue etc.
9. Putting away the coffee cup full of loose screws, dowels, nails etc. I have reduced this to a manageable task by limiting the amount of random bits and pieces to one coffee cup,when it is full it must be dealt with. I used to use a coffee can. A cup of mixed screws and nails is a few minutes of work, a coffee can a hour. ( in truth I ended up with several coffee cans full of crap and good stuff. The crap hid the good stuff and it all went into recycling one day)
Those are all jobs that needed to be done. Ultimately a couple of times per month half a day is used up on non-billable tasks. To make a shop pay that half day cost has to be included in the invoiced products somehow.
It is tough to get people to understand those costs and so they don't want to pay for them. It is the same problem musicians have, the customer doesn't think they should pay for the time spent practising either.
I admire people that make their living producing quality products that are beautiful and will last for generations. I wish we could get the world to fully understand and reward that commitment.
I can't see how people still manage to stay alive by making furniture. A master can get up to 50Eur/hour - but never making furniture. Thing is: People don't care if it's pressed garbage (as said), when they buy at ikea, they even eat up the fact that it's basically just laminated with the picture of wood and not even veneer. But as a craftsman, shaping of pennies of your work don't try to sell them something from high quality ply even if it may be better than HW- that's all of a sudden inferior garbage. That's why there is no more good furniture, people aren't willing to cough up 10.000+ for a nicely ornamented piece of furniture. While modern styles ask for cleaner lines and very little ornamentation, it's not an issue, but if something like rococo should ever come along again, bricks will be shat about how much that actually costs. I can't imagine such pompous things being mass-produced. I'm sure though, better times will come again.
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