Anyone else having this problem with cheap ass crap coming over from China. Did a bunch of odd jobs yesterday and one was hanging a rather large mirror.After hanging it and while I was standing there admiring my work and the customer standing there to, one side of the hanger bracket broke. I caught it just in time before it crashed to the floor. The customer looked at me like I was an idiot. Upon further review the ring on mirror that hooks to the hanger on the wall completely separated. It was not welded just pressed together. I explained this to the customer but of course it couldn't be her problem since she bought a cheap piece of crap from China.
You really can't be held responsible for failure of materials provided by your customer. Its a shame some people are so critical as to blame you.
Its true there is a serious quality problem from goods made in china but only part of it is the Chinese fault. Part of the blame is for the companies who buy manufactured products with only price in mind and never inspect the facility or send anyone in person. There is a reason these things are so much cheaper than goods made in the west, its because we ask for it and we got what we pay for and corners are cut in every place they can.
China is developing quickly. Pretty soon their workers will get payed more and the recent quality problems in the news will force a culture of change in the manufacturing community there (it is already happening) as a result the prices will climb and we will be complaining about the same thing from goods made elsewhere (likely vietnam next).
If your customer wanted a quality mirror, she should have payed more for it.
We all seem to want stuff priced next to nothing but we complain when we get what we pay for. Damn are we spoiled.
Its actually far more complicated than that. Even if you try to make quality goods, counterfit components will sneek in and get you anyway.
Did you complain about the boards you used for the other projects being too long? Or not being pre-nailed?
Sometimes "ready-to-install" items are not and must be adjusted, tuned, shaped, re-worked, twisted, sanded, or even, god forbid, "some assembly required."
Ever buy a toilet that came with a wax ring? Or a "pre-hung" door that had a tube of caulk in the kit?
What "adjustments" do you recommend being done on a mirror bracket that likely had a bad weld or was made from soft material?
What "adjustments" would you recommend for the bag of soft hardware (bolts) that if it had an honest grade it would likely be -3 my friend bought at home cheepo for a project he asked me to help him with?
Don't buy 3/4 inch galvanized nipples made in China either. I put a pair on a water filter I installed. The first set made it a month or two before the leaks began. I replaced them, and one of the new ones is going after a year. I just ordered up a pair of american made nipples to hopefully put the problem to rest once and for all.
First of all Dude, I'm a master carpenter and furniture builder and I know how to cut a board!
And your point is?
Why would you need a tube of caulk for a door? Obviously you have never installed one. The only time I use caulk, painted crown molding edge treatment.
A lot of what you buy you don't even know where's it's made. Lot of what you buy from China has hidden defects. Defects that you would not think would fail. Bottom line, China makes crap and they know it. The companies that sell the crap know it to. Profit and volume is the only thing that drives these companies not quality.
It's finally starting to hit some of the American public and they're starting to take notice. 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.
Okay. Maybe that's why your doors leak and mine don't. Or it might be because you install better than I. I just caulk everything that could conceivably leak and they don't.
Ever buy a Ford, Chevrolet, or Chrysler? Ever buy a home?
But can you join two boards together? Do you have the skills and the time to make joints such as at
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- I don't think so.
[snip]
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.
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