What is the point of Quality

[Rare Bird]

You know i've always bought high quality what ever it is & always painfully looked after & maintained things but just latley i wonder why i bother tbh.

Solid oak dinner table that cost a fortune now has formed a split ontop (not a joint split)

Solid Oak flooring two shakes have formed

Red red leather dinner table chairs one of them the leather has all crazed & is bugging me ( i look after these with proper leather soap/moisturiser) waste of time & money

Yeh true they are natural materials but i'm afraid it's just not good enough tbh, id rather buy good imitation thats never gonna move from now.

In my eyes the reason i say buy an oak table is i intend never ever to buy another, if splits appear i will be buying another so i may aswell buy an imitation the fraction of the price till it wears out, cheap stuff is technically a false economy but it's seams not to be the case.

[ourdogmax]

Things aren't what they used to be.
Not in this throw away society in which we now live.
:(

[Rare Bird]

Things aren't what they used to be.
Not in this throw away society in which we now live.
:(

:scratch:

Oak grows on a trees like it always has, leather grows on cows like it always has!..What i'm trying to say is as as wanna bee perfectionist the high quality option is not a good idea because it seems to be that the quality items are not perfect.The high quality option involves these natural products. These products & perfection go hand in hand to me, but i'm finding that the imitation man made material seem to be more fitting towards perfection..

[StanleyB]

You are kind of correct that oak is from a tree and leather from a cow. But when I look at an oak tree or a cow the term quality doesn't pass my mind.

[ourdogmax]

You are kind of correct that oak is from a tree and leather from a cow. But when I look at an oak tree or a cow the term quality doesn't pass my mind.

Agreed, The raw material is the same as it's always been.
The lack of quality must be in the processing and manufacture of the finished product.

[Rare Bird]

Ok you want some nice side cheeks for your CD player!

Would you opt for

A:cheap arse MDF with wood veneer knowing that this really is a cost cutting excersize & has no ultimate quality about it because it's an immitation of the real material)

B:solid Hardwood piece (a solid which is obviously the highest quality aswell as the genuine article)

C: I don't care because anything will do in my life

[Ali Tait]

I'd say the wood used nowadays is not properly seasoned like it used to be, hence more of a tendency to split.

Try this if you want to restore the leather seat. I've seen photos of very good results-

http://www.furnitureclinic.co.uk/

[Rare Bird]

I'd say the wood used nowadays is not properly seasoned like it used to be, hence more of a tendency to split.

Try this if you want to restore the leather seat. I've seen photos of very good results-

http://www.furnitureclinic.co.uk/

Thanks Ali.

Well i bought the table as the finest kiln dried European Oak. dried my arse..Thanks for the link

[StanleyB]

The only quality wood I know of is the one we made benches and tables of in the Amazon jungle. They are green heart and the even tougher purple heart. Oak is like firewood in comparison.

[DSJR]

We just buy good used stuff. We've had some amazing bargains which suit us, including a big growning lad, very well indeed. A few years ago, we could have bought expensive stuff brand new, but I'd have been heartbroken had it been damaged through clumsiness.

[Jonboy]

I have just typed an epic responce and lost it, pissing computers



I like the real Mccoy and not veneered shit, but wood is natural it does these things, newer fast grown imported stuff is responsable for most of it, all about price and not quility, try pricing English oak against French or other Europian oak and you will see something like double the difference in price

The proper stuff a chippie mate uses for conservation and listed house work has been seasoned for 30 plus years and smells glorious when cut, the same with leather its tanned using modern methods and not like they used to (as always) where it takes months/years to get a good hide

You must buy what you can afford but i would try to go for quility over price, usually if its cheap its for a reason, very frustrating though if you have paid top doller and its still shit

Modern furniture just aint what it used to be at the end of the day

[magiccarpetride]

:scratch:

Oak grows on a trees like it always has, leather grows on cows like it always has!..What i'm trying to say is as as wanna bee perfectionist the high quality option is not a good idea because it seems to be that the quality items are not perfect.The high quality option involves these natural products. These products & perfection go hand in hand to me, but i'm finding that the imitation man made material seem to be more fitting towards perfection..

Depending on what your definition of perfection is. If you're angling toward duration, then some form of plastic will always kick ass on wood.

If you're more into zen (like I am), then you find perfection in impermanence. Meaning, a fragile, sure-to-be-destroyed-soon tea cup made from clay is much more perfect than the indestructible plastic imitation tea cup.

Ordering a Russian/Ukrainian bride out of a catalog might end up being a good lay, but most of us find perfection in sex by hitting on home grown females. More expensive, more headache, higher maintenance, more prone to break? You bet! Still, very much worth it (for some of us, that is;)

And so on...

[Ali Tait]

Thanks Ali.

Well i bought the table as the finest kiln dried European Oak. dried my arse..Thanks for the link

It's really good apparently. I've seen photos of folk who have used their products to restore the leather interior on their cars. This is from a forum,not the website itself. The seats looked like new when they were done.

[magiccarpetride]

Modern furniture just aint what it used to be at the end of the day

What is it at the beginning of the day?

[Jonboy]

What is it at the beginning of the day?

Trees???

[lurcher]

One of the most depressing realisations I had was 25 years ago discovering the word quality didn't seem to mean what I (and maybe you) thought it did. I was told (as part of the ISO9001/BS5750 brainwashing we were undergoing) it meant consistency and repeatibility. The quoted example of a quality food source was MacDonalds. It might be crap, but they could gaurentee exactly the same crap every time. So sadly, ts far from a new thing :-(.

[Rare Bird]

Tell you what, you want Quality you make the fuc**er yourself..seems the only way.If your usless your well ballerkzed

[Techno Commander]

Can you call a pallet propped up on breeze blocks a table? :)

[Jonboy]

i have seen some nice furniture made out of driftwood and old sleepers before, nice and rustic and certainly well seasoned