JimR wrote:
"evodawg" wrote in message
news:3ijVj.564$5b3.81@trnddc05...
First of all Dude, I'm a master carpenter and furniture builder and I know
how to cut a board!

But can you join two boards together? Do you have the skills and the time
to make joints such as at
http://www.chinese-furniture.com/cgi...9.73.227-16201 -
- I don't think so.

[snip]

Some of my high end customers are asking me to
build them the furniture they want. Why? They know China builds crap and
try to find furniture made in US. It does not exist, except in high end
studios and specialty shops on line.

Q: Do you know what you get when you buy cheap furniture? --

A: Cheap furniture!

Low quality Western-style furniture is ordered by the U.S mass marketers to
be competitive in a mass market. High end Chinese furniture is much more
expensive and may take years to produce. It's very difficult to
special-order a piece of good furniture because the construction time and
attention to detail makes the delivery date months or even years away.

You've been looking in the wrong places, for the wrong kind of product. To
see good Chinese work, you should read Chinese Domestic Furniture in
Photographs and Measured Drawings by Gustav Ecke and you should look at good
Chinese furniture products. You'll find a level of workmanship and
attention to detail that doesn't exist outside of China. A Chinese
woodworker will routinely make compound joinery with a level of complexity
that is an order of magnitude greater than in Western furniture. The design
will be braced and counter-braced with no mechanical fasteners whatsoever
and the joinery will be unusually complex in order to hide the joinery
methods..

I have a Huanghuali (yellow rosewood) altar table in an antique design, made
in China with antique lumber recycled from a demolished house, of
extraordinary design and extremely ornate carving and joinery. For our
bedroom I bought three imported 8'W x 9'H teak walls with a hand-carved
border flower motif that runs the length and height of each panel.
Something this intricate and detailed could never be produced in the U.S.
because American woodworkers don't have the attention to detail, the
attention span -- or the market -- to produce and sell such an item.

The difference is that even good Western furniture is eventually disposable,
replaced after its useful life is over.

Good Chinese furniture is built to be a permanent fisture, handed down
through the family for generations.


That is a very accurate description. Anyone who thinks the Chinese "make
crap" doesn't understand big box. Big box buyers scour the earth looking
for the cheapest stuff they can buy in order to maximize their margins.
They have large marketing budgets to tell you you are getting a good
deal from them.

China has one of the oldest civilizations on the earth and they are
smart and skilled. When a big box outfit places an order for furniture
made from particle board with a picture of wood glued on it that is
fastened with staples that is exactly what the Chinese will build.