Could you make it for this price?

[Chris Knight]

My wife needed a chest of drawers in a hurry for her sewing room and we bought one some years ago at a craft fair we had gone to. It looks similar to the ones shown here http://www.thefurniturecompany.co.uk/pr ... ProdID=177 albeit somewhat taller and having eight rather than five drawers (ours has two half width drawers at the top.

The wood could indeed be plantation rosewood. The finish is a serviceable but somewhat ugly shellac finish.

The joinery is again not pretty but serviceable. The drawer fronts/sides are joined with two large half blind dovetails that could have been made with a jig or by hand. The drawers are numbered and although nominally of the same size are sufficiently different as to need mounting in their own numbered slots.

The piece is clearly hand made (in the sense it doesn't come out of a large factory) and I've seen shops in both the Far East and this country who could have turned out something similar. At the price we paid, I'd guess it came from the Far East.

It is a very useful piece of furniture and although no design icon, it isn't unpleasant. Well worth the money we paid I think (I don't remember exactly how much it was but a bit less than the prices shown IIRC)

 

[moz]

Almost identical to a product sold by a local wholesaler, imported from Indonesia. In contrast, that company are honest about the origins of their products and ethically and environmentally accountable. Teak, mahogany and rosewood were planted by the Dutch so I see no reason to describe the rosewood as 'my arse'.

Assuming the piece is about 750mm x 750mm x 280mm, do a quick calculation as to the amount of timber required then work out the cost of the timber alone in solid mahogany (not sapele/utile/insert other alternative). Anyone in this country producing this piece at that price would save themselves a lot of work and time by just putting their hand in their pocket and giving the customer a few hundred quid of their own money, which would effectively be the same net result.

John

 

[newt]

Not quite to your taste then Tom.

 

[Anonymous]

Nope.

I would suspect 'hand cut' and 'hand made' include a router and a wide belt sander etc.

I cut dovetails by hand all the time (cut 18 yesterday!) and wonder about the marketability of them. At the end fo the day, 99.9999999% customers don't care a jot how it was made as far as I can tell - I hand cut them becasue I like doing it, no other reason

 

[moz]

I would suspect 'hand cut' and 'hand made' include a router and a wide belt sander etc.

Not really. If you were on £1.00 a month, hand cut dovetails wouldn't be expensive. Cheap labour mitigates high technology solutions. The price of a top level belt sander would pay several craftsmen for years so why bother?

John

 

[devonwoody]

£1 per month sounds like prison labour.

 

[newt]

£1 per month sounds like prison labour.

It is

 

[Escudo]

Guess I will have to think about increasing the missus allowance. :wink:

 

[jonny boy]

Hello everyone,
Just for interest Mike, who was the Sheffield maker. I work in Sheffield and might know who it is that's all.
Cheers,
Jonathan.

 

[jonny boy]

Ah, The furniture company.
I suspect it's the volume that brings their prices down. Making 50 units at a time in a production line manner I suppose. I bet the standard of work and attention to detail is much higher on the trade show samples than the shop bought one's.

Jonathan.

 

[filsgreen]

If the dining table is anything to go by I would probably steer clear of them.

www.thefurniturecompany.co.uk/prodtype.asp?CatID=50

 

[BradNaylor]

As others have said, this furniture is quite clearly manufactured abroad; my guess would be Indonesia. The importer doesn't make this clear but there is no particular reason why he should. Furniture hand-made in Indonesia is still hand-made.

I see no reason to get sniffy about it. The stuff on the website looks like perfectly well made and not unattractive boring old-fashioned furniture; the sort of thing hundreds of workshops and factories all over Europe were churning out until a few years ago when far-Eastern competition made it unviable. This sort of furniture has a good market among the less design-conscious sectors of society, particularly at these prices, which represent excellent value for money.

I've been to Indonesia many times on business and by local standards workers in furniture factories are not poorly paid. Working conditions are also generally very good. It is only when wages are expressed in terms of US dollars that they look very cheap - but if a week's wages pays for your family's shelter and food what's the problem?

All that this tells us is that anyone hoping to make a living in this country by making traditionally styled solid wood free-standing furniture is on to a loser. This is why virtually every professional furniture maker in the western world now relies mainly on fitted furniture from man-made boards for his income. It makes him 'China-proof'!

Cheers
Brad