Timber, politics and the quality of life.

[Michael Mcneil]

I have no problem with the spam and etc. You get a feel for the subject in the title as you go. I have no objections to people who live in the USA. Their leaders are rabid facists at the moment and they seem to have had no trouble sourcing evil criminals to #### things up in general. But skill and expertise is skill and expertise in any country.

It is from the US that the move to electric tools has come. And it is in the US that the most experts in their use is to be found.

The US though is not one country. It just happens to be a collection of states that thinks it is a couple of continents. A political problem that will run its course eventually. Nothing to do with woodwork.

Today in this collection of countries that thinks it is England, we put up with the ultimate crap in our homes. This is because of the price of everything. But if we just go to the nearby states of France, Spain, Germany and a few other user friendly places, we can find material that will put to shame most of the plastic and plywood that we put up with at the moment.

I'd have gone on such a trip long ago had I the language skills that are bound to be needed. I doubt very much that I'd find my way around small timberyards in the backwoods of France accomplishing what I want without a good understanding of French.

We get threads on here about PVC windows and their relative strengths and problems. And the consensus is that they are far better than timber windows. But the timber in windows is timber that would not be the first choice of timber in days gone by.

All I wanted to do was find someone on here that had experience of timber yards in the west of Europe. People are taking coaches abroad and coming back with shedloads of cancer drugs and all sorts of useless crap. Why not take a trip and come back with a bootfull of oak section and put together some windows with old fashioned quality and prices?

That sort of thing.

I was motivated by the idea that veneered flooring is taking the country by storm at the moment. I can't understand it. You can't expect veneer on a floor to do a job like tiles and real tree wood can.

[Joe Tylicki]

"Michael Mcneil" trolled onward...

We have laminate flooring in much of our home. It is nearly indestructable, though it does not live up to the character of the real thing. A very good compromise.

Joe

[Todd Fatheree]

Begone, troll.

todd

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I agree. It does some thing BETTER. I have it in my house because it works! Real wood would not work in my application over concrete in my family room. FWIW, the veneer and the underlayers did come from real trees. It was just improved for performance under certain conditions. Ed [e-mail]

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, its a collection of states that thinks it is the whole world, apart from a few irrelevant peasants.

Possibly. However the run process is likely to be uncomfortable.

Or conversely, we find materials that even B & Q and MFI would not touch with a barge pole. I have installed a (cheap) german kitchen. Most of it is now falling to pieces.

Before going to the backwoods of france, explore the backwoods of england. Real wood and real woodworkers exist here as well. You just have to find them. Not easy.

Because I just go down the road for my bootfull of oak sections.

I had to organize a wedding party: The received wisdom was that 'you could get really cheap champagne from France'

I costed the fuel, and transport costs, and the price in Euros, and managed to find the same product at the same price, with free delivery, from Waitrose direct.

Precisely.

No, in many cases it does a better job. It depends what you want. I can get real oak flooring in the UK too. No difference in price. Very different in terms of installation cost and freedom from warping.

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[Rick Dipper]

Enjoy your trip

Rick

[Morris Dovey]

Michael...

I wouldn't be too sure about that. All you have to do is convey that you enjoy making wood beautiful and would like some help in acquiring some. If you don't speak French well, then welcome to the club - FWIW, I discovered that doing one's best at speaking it badly (and maintaining a sense of humour about it) didn't detract from people's willingness to smile back and be helpful.

[Mary Fisher]

Are you speaking for yourself?

You don't know about the rest of us so you must be.

Mary

[Eric Johnson]

Rabid facists? Usually we are capitolist pigs, nice change.

Competition breeds change. Americians are competing for time with their parents by the time they are 4 years old and nearly every aspect of their lives the end result of getting things done in a shorter amount of time is burned in to us from childhood.

It probably wasn't always like that, however that whole give us your unwanted thing went way to far in my opinion. We are now representing 95% of all of the planets cultures in one way or another. What is interesting to me is that the european white males in the US that dominate, industry, invention, ingenuity are becoming the least most represented people in this country. We work 80 hour weeks, can't speak our piece and are blamed for every plague that has run it's coarse in the last few millenia. Yet are rarely recognized for our contributions. BTW there are 2 states, the lower 48 and Alaska those poor bastards up North don't get a say in anything as far as national gov't goes.

Yes but out of that chaos we should hope some good comes of it

New age folks aren't hands on like some of us that have been around a few more years. Let them use plastic.

I disagree about any notion of cancer drugs being useless. But a woodworker in a land without trees? There are 1000's upon 1000's of every kind of wooddorkers here in the U.S. that would gladly spend time with some Brit and figure out some way to send you packing with all the timber you want, we are ingenius, thats what we do..

Sure and some people thought you couldn't make paint without lead in it..

EJ