Believe it or not, that's what got me into woodworking a few years back...

I would visit these furniture stores looking for a nice piece of furniture
and noticed that everything was made cheaply -- particleboard with "SOLID
wood veneer". Anything I did find that was constructed well and out of real
wood cost a fortune! So I started looking at how some of the pieces were
built and said to myself "I could build that out of something solid for far
less than they charge for the fake!" So I picked up a few power tools, and
a few years later, I have a small shop (222 sq. ft.) loaded with nice tools
and custom made benches, tables, carts, jigs, etc. Now it's my favorite
hobby!

I was suprised when I once visited the very-well-known Thomasville Furniture
store. I had heard so much about how magnificent and expensive their
furniture was. So as I walked into the store, the first thing I noticed was
a coffee table with this very intricate looking hash pattern on the top...
That's when the brakes slammed on and I said "wait a second -- that's not
possible to do out of solid wood!!!" They had a pattern that looked almost
like parque (sp?) wood flooring, where some of the little planks were
perpendicular to the next set of planks (perpendicular grain). That's fine,
except that the whole top was so snug that these was no room at all for wood
expansion -- and with a top that size, it's going to expand! So I started
poking my head underneath all of their furniture and noticed that they all
had some sort of underlaying protecting the bottom of their furniture -- or
hiding the fact that it's all just particle board with a veneer top!

So what I've learned about "quality furniture" is that the quality is a
measure of how well they can hide the seams and disguise the veneer finishes
to look solid. Mass producing furniture shops have gotten VERY GOOD at
doing this. The average person can no longer tell if it's solid or just
veneered -- soon many woodworkers may not be able to tell either without
some sort of disassembly!

Whenever I ever build something for someone, I usually make sure they
understand the difference in quality first.

X_HOBBES



"BobS" wrote in message
...
Paul,

It was over a year ago when my sister-in-law started on a kitchen
remodeling
that I got involved with. One of the tasks was to help come up with a
design for a small cabinet / desk / storage combination. So off we went
to
a couple of the high-end furniture retailers to see what kind of ideas
were
out there. We found exactly what she wanted. It looked like a drop-front
desk but was built higher so that a stool was needed instead of a chair to
sit in front of this desk.

After carefully looking it over, it had 4 solid wooden legs and one other
piece of real hardwood that was used for the edging for the drop-down
writing area. The rest was painted MDF with a couple of ceramic drawer
pulls. Admittedly, it did look good for a painted piece. I figured I
could
make the whole thing in hardwood for about $100 in materials and that was
a
high estimate.

Sister-in-law just had to know the price of this piece (they don't put
price
tags on items at this store) and called over a salesperson. After a song
'n
dance about how and where this "piece" was made, the craftsmanship and the
"top-quality" materials used in its construction, she said it was
available
on special order for only $1,995.....

I nearly fell over but told the nice lady that this was made from MDF -
how
can it cost so much? I doubt she knew what MDF was but the reply was,
"Well, it's not so much what its made out of - as the craftsmanship that
went into making it..." Now if you think a couple of dado cuts in the MDF
sides to slide some MDF shelves into is craftsmanship....

MDF and a veneer or some other applied surface materials have taken over
tabletops and other flat areas of furniture pieces from what I've seen -
while still demanding high prices. Even Stickley furniture is using MDF in
their line of products I'm sorry to say. Like others, they say quality but
mean - cheap. Well, at least we purchased ours back when the word quality
was not watered down.

Its unfortunate that most people don't know what to look for or what to
ask
when making costly purchases. If they did, I think a lot of the pro's that
hang out here would be doing much better at making "real" furniture pieces
and not trying to beat MDF prices. That boils down to educating the
consumer - and who has the resources to do that?

Besides, it's made from real wood, cheap, smooth, flat, heavy and it
doesn't
expand or contract - what possibly could be a better material than termite
barf for making expensive furniture....?

Bob S.


"Paul Hays" wrote in message
thlink.net...
I was killing time before my movie started this evening by doing a
little
window shopping and saw something new: fake "thinply" edgebanding on
retail
shelving!

In otherwords, plastic edgebanding with thinply-like banding and color
was
added to retail shelving to get that industrial, avant guard look.
Funny
that plywood is considered a luxury material now!