Handcrafted Amish Furniture Quality

[nodule]

Aaron,

Thanks for your thoughts. I will be dealing directly with the Amish builder for my office furniture, not a middle man, retailer or online dealer. I will actually be
driving out to his shop in rural lancaster county to look at his showroom, pick my wood choice, touch, feel and inspect his work and hopefully order custom
sized computer flat top desk, matching hutch and 2 drawer lateral file cabinet. He also invited me to inspect his shop personally and show me around. Its
himself and 4 other men.

By the way, even through the vast majority of the Amish woodworking shops do NOT have websites, more and more of them are having online catalogs created
by web designers they hire.

I think the two larger Amish online dealers like Dutchcrafters and Amish Avenue are reputable, honest businesses. I, personally, would not buy from them, as I really
need to be able to touch, feel and inspect the furniture and verify the build quality for such a large dollar purchase.

[drcollie]

Here's a good Amish worker story..

Many years ago one of my highly skilled cabinetmakers, a man named Doug St. Clair who lived in Chambersburg PA used to have his 1-man shop and I was giving him more work than he could handle. He was a fantastic worker, best I've ever seen in terms of build quality, accurate eye, finishing excellence and SPEED. The latter being what many woodworkers lack (for example, my ace cabinetmaker John Buchanan has the first three but lacks the speed). He has his workshop organized better than any I had ever seen. For example, he would have six routers suspended from the ceiling near his workbench on springs. That way, he never had to change bits on the router and that saved time - he would just reach up to get the one he needed and it was ready to go.

Anyways, Doug decided that he needed help to keep up with the orders I was giving him. He didn't want to hire an older woodworker ("too slow, too set in their ways" he would say) and decided he would hire a young man whom he could train to work at his level. There was a 22-year-old Amish man two farms over that wanted to learn woodworking so Doug hired him, on the condition that he had to realize they used electric tools in Doug's shop and that wasn't going to change. His new employee was good with that and they set to training in the shop.

I came up in my truck a week or two later to pickup a set of Chippendale chairs in tiger maple and I asked Doug: "So where's your new guy? I thought he'd be here?"

Doug says: "Didn't work out. By the third day he announced that he was offended by my bare arms and said if he was to continue to work here I would have to wear long sleeve shirts."

I almost fell down on the ground I laughed so hard. Long sleeve shirts in the summer in an un-air conditioned workshop? Riiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhttttttttt!

*************

I have a little saying in this handmade business as well which I coined after a discussion with a guy making windsor chairs in Connecticut back in the early 90's. His name was Jerry D_____, and he wanted me to carry his chairs in my store as in that time period I was selling more high-end windsors than anyone in the country. Jerry would say "Why won't you carry my chairs, Duane?" And I would tell him "Jerry, you're too expensive relative to the four other chair-makers I already represent - yours are nearly twice the cost". And he would reply "But mine are all hand-made from scratch! The other ones you carry all use production parts!"

So one day I stopped by his shop in CT on a trip to New England in my Freightliner, because he was relentless in calling me all the time. I walked in and took a look around. Jerry was glad to see me. Over in the corner was a large box of spindles from a spindle maker in Maine. Next to that were two boxes of leg turnings that I know come from a maker in Vermont that supplies to everyone making this class of chairs. Then another box of bows, and finally CNC cut seat blanks stacked in the overhead storage area. I looked at Jerry and said "You're buying parts from all the same supplier sources as everyone else." He stumbled and bumbled and didn't have much of an answer other than "Well, people can come to my workshop and actually TALK to me when I build their chairs for them, they can't do that anywhere else." True that, I guess they could. But I never did buy Jerry's over-priced chairs.

So what's my buzz phrase? "You can buy Sizzle or you can buy Steak. Anytime you walk into someone's shop to discuss your custom build chances are you're buying mostly Sizzle."

[aaron]

I almost fell down on the ground I laughed so hard. Long sleeve shirts in the summer in an un-air conditioned workshop? Riiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhttttttttt!

I guess that's why I've never heard of an Amish glassblower?