Posted on 10/27/2016 9:26:24 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
There have been a few posters over the years saying “just you wait, remember Japan used to make poor stuff too, China will be the quality leader of the world too”.
It was more than ten years ago here that I first wrote a rebuttal saying that Japan went from more or less destroyed in 1945 to not just competitive but world class in small engines and motorcycles by the early 1960s. That was 15-20 years, and China was showing absolutely no signs of that kind of trajectory of giving a damn about anything more than putting out the cheapest crap they could.
I frequent yard sales, and always buy tools made in USA or Japan. Cheaper stuff is OK for the occasional handyman. The Chinese tools I’ve purchased from Harbor Freight in 1980, I’m now selling for more than I paid for them!
When my parents passed I took as much of their vintage and antique furniture as I could and had it re-upholstered and repaired...Told daughter to be sure to keep it after I am gone as it has both quality monetary, sentimental value.
New furniture is crap!!
This is bad news for the owner of the factory that made the junk, he is now facing a bullet in his head.
From the article.
Another set of furniture tested, described as mahogany, and bought from Zhuomei Imported Real Wood Furniture Pavilion on Taobao, the e-commerce site, was composed of cottonwood, according to the commission.
If the furniture is made of cottonwood, they would need to soak the whole thing in Git-Rot. It is so weak that branches fall off when the wind isn't blowing.
Have you been to a big box American furniture store? They sell a lot of high priced, poor quality imported cr@p. We buy American made, mostly Amish. Price is competitive a lot of the time, quality is superb. And it’s real wood, which means it’s easier to repair should the need arise.
I was doing a major facelift to my kitchen last spring and we went to a specialized Lumber dealer for various pieces of lumber that we needed to finish the project up in a craftsman style and we could not find any Poplar. The salesman told us that Poplar for the most part is all being shipped over to China for the furniture business is over there. so we settled on other Woods but probably would have been the first choice as it takes a stain but very well and we ended up with 4 in some places on the cabinets and some other pieces of wood that we really did not expect to be forced into buying because of the scarcity of proper Woods that we preferred were not available.
when auntie died we went to her estate and we’re arranging things for sale and to possess that she had no children and I found a box of Eberhardt Faber pencils made in the USA I know covet those pencils and use them very sparingly they are that good.
A friend in high school years ago was an excellent portrait artist who used bowling pencils found in bowling alleys back in the day to be the best pencils for him in thickness and the darkness of the graphite.
I wonder what he went to after bowling centers became computerized?
Poplar? I thought white oak was the wood-of-choice for craftsman furniture...
Some of America’s high priced furniture are made in China. Near here is a furniture warehouse/ headquarter of a furniture retailer and you can see the containers from China there. What a shame...
The problem is not manufacturing but purchasing
Had the buyers bought to their specifications and actually inspected the products to assure the specifications were met, there would not be the problem because there would have been no sale.
Caveat Emptor
I will suggest Git-Rot for the "Great Forlorn Hope."
As for cottonwood, they can be beautiful and ecologically beneficial trees out here on the prairie, growing well where other trees struggle (but yeah, you don't camp or absent-mindedly linger under the old ones). Around here, they are commercially suitable for rough, disposable work (blocking, pallets, chips) and they make a rather cheerful - though lively - fire. As furniture material, it would be pretty bad. I had a Rossi 92 carbine whose forend was made of a very light, porous (presumably Brazilian) mystery wood that was cottonwood-ish, but I don't think it was cottonwood. The thing smelled like a mildewed shoe in grandma's root cellar. It soaked up Minwax sealer/varnish at one end and weeped it out the other until it was more varnish than wood, though once it dried out, it was useable.
Mr. niteowl77
There wasn’t any white oak to be had either. Although I live in an area where White Oak is prolific. After Hurricane Isabel in 2003 there was so much White Oak ripped out of the ground that the local wood Harvesters ran out of room to store it and quite a bit of that white oak was down was left to rot on the forest floors.
You see a lot of Chinese made furniture in stores. On first glance very pretty.
Then on closer examination it’s obvious quality is lacking.
Sadly mfrs. such as Thomasville, Broyhill and others have closed or cut back domestic manufacturing.
A lot of the plants around Hickory,N C are closed. Sad
I bought a desk made from “rubberwood”. Came from Indonesia and sold for $99 at Wal-Mart website. Nice looking desk but the finish needed to be better. Rubs off.
Wiki: Rubberwood is a light-colored medium-density tropical hardwood obtained from the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), usually from trees grown in rubber plantations. See article and links for various guides.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/care-rubberwood-furniture-94275.html
I bought a corner tv stand that was a ‘you put it together yourself puzzle’. Made from that glued wood. It was very heavy. If made from real wood it would have been much lighter.
In 2009 while I was working at a resort condo I encountered an offload of furniture stacked in the parking lot. It was several orders of furniture for sevral different units. ALl of it was pretty fancy Chinese style formal living room furniture. The boxes were in bad shape and many pieces were only half wrapped or just sitting unwrapped on piles of cardboard. I looked closely at the visible items. Some were labeled “made in China;” some were “made in Vietnam.” The Chinese items had veneer peeling and veneer seams that were not closed and looked just shoddy. The Vietnamese chairs and a table all looked solid. One Vietnamese chair had a broken leg and I could see that it was, indeed solid . The Chinese chair with a broken back appeared to be of particle board with a veneer surface.
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