Oak Furniture Land - how's this for hype ?

[Phil Pascoe]

And if you went to the same guy (I have no idea what he does) and asked him to do a job for you for £20, he would probably call you an *****. They invariably know very well how to price their own time and work.

 

[transatlantic]

Surely you just need to give them a rough estimate (over estimate to be safe?) up front and save yourself a lot of hassle. I'm sure that is easier said than done, but at least it would weed out the people expecting stupidly low prices.

 

[RogerS]

Surely you just need to give them a rough estimate (over estimate to be safe?) up front and save yourself a lot of hassle. I'm sure that is easier said than done, but at least it would weed out the people expecting stupidly low prices.

It is. You want to try and meet the customers request as much as possible. So using the least number of boards means first checking to see what you might have in stock (OK...doesn't take that long) then seeing what's available from elsewhere. Probably just one plank. Minimum order cost maybe. Cost that up, anyway. Expensive delivery. Cost that up. Then your time. Cost that up. How does the client want it finished ?

On the other hand you might think to yourself "I don't really want to do this" and so you give a silly price. Then word gets around that you are 'Blimey...don't go to see X he's bloody expensive'.

So yes, it is easier to say than done.

 

[JohnPW]

I don't think it's very useful to compare mass manufactured furniture made in a factory with one off custom stuff made by one person. One person is never going to compete with a factory on price.

I suppose it's the size of the pieces of wood, even a “solid" wooden table top is going to be made with several pieces of wood, depending on the size and wood. As already mentioned, it's a way of using up smaller pieces of wood and off cuts. And as long as it's priced appropriately, I don't see anything wrong with it. As for aesthetics, that's a matter of taste, and wood grain is random anyway （natural product!) so having different grain in different areas like in the pic up thread is just the nature of the material.

What I can't stand is veneering, yes I know it takes skill to use it and was used by furniture makers for hundreds of years, but to me it's fakery.

I went into Homebase once, there's a concession in there (I forget the name) selling fitted bedroom furniture made from chipboard faced with plastic that has fake wood pattern printed on it, and the price is in the thousands! The nature of the material is not made very clear, I think they called it something vague like foiled backed laminate panels or the like. I really feel sorry for people who buy that stuff.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... furniture made from chipboard faced with plastic that has fake wood pattern printed on it ...
That is far, far more dishonest than OFL. (OFL ... it rolls off the tongue easily, doesn't it? )

 

[custard]

Surely you just need to give them a rough estimate (over estimate to be safe?) up front and save yourself a lot of hassle. I'm sure that is easier said than done, but at least it would weed out the people expecting stupidly low prices.

+1

I usually do a couple of the big County Shows each year, instead of messing around with Price On Application mystery price tags, I put the price on everything upfront. It saves customers embarrassment and it saves me time.

Incidentally, it's been my experience that trying to turn a profit on anything that's even remotely available on the high street is just a fool's errand.

This desk/table gets delivered on Monday, £2200. One single board, 50mm thick, waney edge Bubinga top with the most stupendous waterfall ripple grain. Oak legs, scorched and iron stained. If the client can find the same item cheaper then I guarantee to match the price!

Joking apart, that's a price that yields a modest but reasonable profit. However, taken across a full year, if it wasn't for the fact that my overheads are peanuts then I'd still be little better than minimum wage.

 

[DiscoStu]

I think the issue is that OFL is appealing to people because they are getting solid oak furniture at a fair price. I think the issue comes when people want to sell their hand made oak furniture and people compare the prices. I guess a lot of people will be happy with OFL and if they are then is that an issue? Well maybe not as much as we might first fear. I'd imagine that most people buying in OFL are not the sort who would have been buying handmade in the first place, so probably not loosing any sales to OFL. In fact it might even be that people buy from OFL and then think they want better and get something handmade? I'm not sure if OFL is as bad as it might appear. Maybe it also raises the question of quality and people might then seek better quality? Who knows


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AndyT]

Just in case anyone still thinks cheap furniture is probably good enough - may I remind you of this post from Mailee? He didn't name the retailer, but the cupboards in question were made in China and had doors (with the wrong hinges) over a drawer that couldn't be pulled out!

chinese-tat-t71652.html

 

[Racers]

Even the expensive stuff can be poor quality/badly designed, John Lewis have a dining table where the planks go across the top and the display one is bent like a banana, both ends drooping visually.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The worst can be where the design and the method of construction are incompatible. I had to fix a chair that broke across the base of the tenons - as the rails were tightly curved and therefore the tenons were short grained. My cousin bought them, so I told him top send the lot back as not fit for their purpose but he said it was a lot of bother - it was only one chair that had broken. I told him they would all break in the same way eventually ... and they all did ... all one hundred and fifty of them. It was 1994, when I bought my first battery drill - I couldn't face the prospect of putting 1,800 5/8" x 6 screws into beech without pilot holes. :shock: Had the rails been laminated they would probably still be OK.

 

[RogerS]

Just in case anyone still thinks cheap furniture is probably good enough - may I remind you of this post from Mailee? He didn't name the retailer, but the cupboards in question were made in China and had doors (with the wrong hinges) over a drawer that couldn't be pulled out!

chinese-tat-t71652.html

Woodmonkey posted this in that thread...

He bought the stuff from a well known retailer who doesn't want to respond to his complaint. It was described as 'solid european oak' but the price and manufacturing quality clearly showed it was from India or China. All large components were 'engineered' with no effort to match grain or colour.

Surely it couldn't be ......?

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I don't think it's very useful to compare mass manufactured furniture made in a factory with one off custom stuff made by one person. One person is never going to compete with a factory on price.

I suppose it's the size of the pieces of wood, even a “solid" wooden table top is going to be made with several pieces of wood, depending on the size and wood. As already mentioned, it's a way of using up smaller pieces of wood and off cuts. And as long as it's priced appropriately, I don't see anything wrong with it. As for aesthetics, that's a matter of taste, and wood grain is random anyway （natural product!) so having different grain in different areas like in the pic up thread is just the nature of the material.

What I can't stand is veneering, yes I know it takes skill to use it and was used by furniture makers for hundreds of years, but to me it's fakery.

I went into Homebase once, there's a concession in there (I forget the name) selling fitted bedroom furniture made from chipboard faced with plastic that has fake wood pattern printed on it, and the price is in the thousands! The nature of the material is not made very clear, I think they called it something vague like foiled backed laminate panels or the like. I really feel sorry for people who buy that stuff.

I used to feel that way about veneers too, but I've come to understand they have a place. I'm not talking about a veneer of say, flat sawn oak, but certainly, if someone wants a really fancy wood like birdseye maple, the solid boards really dont exist in the quantity needed. It is fakery of sorts, but if you veneer some birdseye over some flat sawn 22mm boards, it's still maple to a high standard. That was my realisation and it was a bit of a turning point for me personally.

It's all about perception I guess and my approach being new to this industry, is to try to explain to potential customers exactly why they pay what they do. I'm not out to fleece them and I don't have 0% finance sales which end tomorrow. That concession you talked about is typical. Total and utter junk sold at ludicrous prices. Only today, I came across a small boardroom table which on further inspection turned out to be chipboard faced with an oompa lumpa orange beech veneer, almost as if it had been irradiated. Horrible, horrible thing. As I have an "in" at the company, I asked what it had cost. £2,500. Ouch. Double ouch. Same thing in solid beech though, certainly no change out of £5,000 and I think thats the problem. Why would they pay more when they don't need it to be an heirloom piece, or particularly hard wearing. Then theres the availability of such stuff, which can be next day.

If I've learned anything so far, it's that this is a very difficult market indeed and the rewards are not financial in nature.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Even the expensive stuff can be poor quality/badly designed, John Lewis have a dining table where the planks go across the top and the display one is bent like a banana, both ends drooping visually.

Pete

Perhaps it's just sad that it's still in the showroom? :lol: