Excellent 12 minute video of quality makers at work

[Graham Orm]

Doucette and Wolfe

Desk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDDeC0QQenY

Corner chairs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD7UQ8uosE

 

[SteveF]

wow

 

[davem62]

fantastic,true craftsmen

 

[blackrodd]

Yep, me too, WOW! Rodders

 

[Alexam]

Beautiful work by a craftsman who knows how to achieve perfection. A pleasure to watch.
Alex

 

[hanser]

Stunning. Makes Norm look a bit 'ordinary'

 

[houtslager]

nice to see "old world craftsmanship" but I wonder if they get the right money for their efforts. In my world, it would take me about 6 weeks to make such a fall front bureau bookcase, [ not allowing time for the wood to "settle"] and at €40 per houor that would cost me +/- € 9600,00 plus the materials +/- € 6-750,00 the the dreaded VAT giving a break even price of € 10,500.00 so to make a decent profit , say 30% the selling price would be € 14,000.00 :shock:

Anyone have clients that will pay that for a BB ? when there are other "repro" versions on the market for much less

just my opinion.

Karl

 

[AndyT]

Three points - I expect Karl is right about the pricing. A firm like this will only survive where there are enough wealthy customers.

I see Lie-Nielsen planes but current production (far eastern) Irwin chisels - perhaps they are better than some people think.

But most of all I think it's a real benefit to be able to sit and watch what furniture making looks like when it's done properly. So few of us would ever get the opportunity to see work done to that standard without YouTube. Very educational!

 

[Drudgeon]

nice to see "old world craftsmanship" but I wonder if they get the right money for their efforts. In my world, it would take me about 6 weeks to make such a fall front bureau bookcase, [ not allowing time for the wood to "settle"] and at €40 per houor that would cost me +/- € 9600,00 plus the materials +/- € 6-750,00 the the dreaded VAT giving a break even price of € 10,500.00 so to make a decent profit , say 30% the selling price would be € 14,000.00 :shock:

Anyone have clients that will pay that for a BB ? when there are other "repro" versions on the market for much less

just my opinion.

Karl

Very true, and if they do make that sort of money, you'd think they could afford a few power tools to speed the job up wouldn't you.....
(hammer) (hammer)

 

[MIGNAL]

nice to see "old world craftsmanship" but I wonder if they get the right money for their efforts. In my world, it would take me about 6 weeks to make such a fall front bureau bookcase, [ not allowing time for the wood to "settle"] and at €40 per houor that would cost me +/- € 9600,00 plus the materials +/- € 6-750,00 the the dreaded VAT giving a break even price of € 10,500.00 so to make a decent profit , say 30% the selling price would be € 14,000.00 :shock:

Anyone have clients that will pay that for a BB ? when there are other "repro" versions on the market for much less

just my opinion.

Karl

But that's not even 1 days pay for a Bankster or a Premiership footballer. Whereas I have to work nearly 3 days to buy a LN Plane.

 

[bugbear]

High Quality work like this has always been labour intensive, and for the rich only. Check out Grinling Gibbons' customers, or William Morris' !

BugBear

 

[Gerard Scanlan]

Inspirational craftsmanship.

Tailormade shirts, suits and shoes are still made and sold though most people buy mass manufactured there still is a market for both. The same is true for furniture. I hope that these pieces are selling for at least double the figure that has been suggested here. Why? Because of the cost of a fitted kitchen (which is foil covered mdf banged out of a factory) and will be ripped out of the house after 20 years if it lives that long. Look at the prices for yacht furniture never mind the cost of fitted interiors for boats. It is a pity that we generally think that only wealthy people can afford these things. Not many people consider selling their car so that they can have a nice cabinet but they could.

Notice they don't show how they cut the sliding dovetails, pity. I would have liked to have seen those channels done by hand :wink:

 

[MIGNAL]

Some of us are in the gutter, even though we are star watching.
It's for the rich, the wealthy. It's just one cabinet. If you used the same criteria for all the furniture needed in a house it would probably all end up costing more than the house itself. There aren't that many people who can afford such furniture.
Leave it for the wealthy. The humble craftsman was meant to serve his master. It's the way God intended it. :shock:

 

[Graham Orm]

Where do they get a continual supply of clients who will pay for this? they must be out there.

At the end of the day when it's stood in some posh house what makes it any different to the owner than a well made mass produced item? His visitors will give it a sideways glance and hopefully not put a cup down on it, but think little more of it. I have often thought that the only person/people who can appreciate fine furniture are the person who made it and other makers. The end user can't possibly understand the work and care that has gone in.

 

[AndyT]

Where do they get a continual supply of clients who will pay for this? they must be out there.

At the end of the day when it's stood in some posh house what makes it any different to the owner than a well made mass produced item? His visitors will give it a sideways glance and hopefully not put a cup down on it, but think little more of it. I have often thought that the only person/people who can appreciate fine furniture are the person who made it and other makers. The end user can't possibly understand the work and care that has gone in.

A few years ago, I would have agreed with you - but I think that what D&W are doing is rather clever - they use all these professionally shot videos to show customers what they are paying for, and educate them about how good the furniture is. This is a quote from their website:

"If you are not in the immediate area we post photos of the building process of the furniture we build on our current projects page and our facebook page. We have found that most clients enjoy following the building process of their furniture. Either way you prefer, we stay in contact, keeping you informed on the progress and how your piece is coming along."

And of course, once your new piece is on FB, it's so easy to share it with your rich friends...

 

[custard]

nice to see "old world craftsmanship" but I wonder if they get the right money for their efforts. In my world, it would take me about 6 weeks to make such a fall front bureau bookcase, [ not allowing time for the wood to "settle"] and at €40 per houor that would cost me +/- € 9600,00 plus the materials +/- € 6-750,00 the the dreaded VAT giving a break even price of € 10,500.00 so to make a decent profit , say 30% the selling price would be € 14,000.00 :shock:

Anyone have clients that will pay that for a BB ? when there are other "repro" versions on the market for much less

just my opinion.

Karl

That's interesting Karl, I did a similar mental exercise on the corner chair.

I assumed 3 cubic feet of honduran mahogany, even hand selecting the boards there would still be a big reject rate as you're searching for very particular grain patterns, so that's 6 or 7 cubic feet at about £120 a cubic foot say £720-£840. After getting the seat upholstered and allowing for sundry consumables it would definitely be £1000 for materials.

For making one chair (but without any allowance for design time or jig/mock up making) I assumed 180 hours for the pad foot and 220 hours for the ball and claw version (with the ball and claw version you can start to understand the old woodworker's axiom "carvers are starvers"). Given that the workshop overhead needs to be covered out of the labour charge I'd ideally be looking for £50 an hour, anything less than £40 an hour should really start ringing commercial alarm bells.

So that comes to a pre VAT price of £8,200-£10,000 for the pad foot and £9,800-£12,000 for the ball and claw foot.

In my opinion it illustrates how the fantasy of the designer/maker is just that...fantasy.

Back in the real world you might, just might, find a client willing to pay £5,000 for the ball and claw corner chair. You'll still be paying £1000 for materials and you'll still be investing 220 hours in making it. So your labour is then working out at £18 per hour. After taking off even a basic amount for business overheads such as running a van and rented bench space or a rudimentary workshop, you'd basically be working for minimum wage. And guess what. that's exactly where many highly skilled craftsmen and women actually find themselves. After years of training they're faced with the choice of doing what they love...or actually earning more flipping burgers or doing the late shift at the local petrol station.

 

[Graham Orm]

Where do they get a continual supply of clients who will pay for this? they must be out there.

At the end of the day when it's stood in some posh house what makes it any different to the owner than a well made mass produced item? His visitors will give it a sideways glance and hopefully not put a cup down on it, but think little more of it. I have often thought that the only person/people who can appreciate fine furniture are the person who made it and other makers. The end user can't possibly understand the work and care that has gone in.

A few years ago, I would have agreed with you - but I think that what D&W are doing is rather clever - they use all these professionally shot videos to show customers what they are paying for, and educate them about how good the furniture is. This is a quote from their website:

"If you are not in the immediate area we post photos of the building process of the furniture we build on our current projects page and our facebook page. We have found that most clients enjoy following the building process of their furniture. Either way you prefer, we stay in contact, keeping you informed on the progress and how your piece is coming along."

And of course, once your new piece is on FB, it's so easy to share it with your rich friends...

Yes Andy I'm sure it's all about marketing, of course when your rich friends see what you've got they will have to have one too. I wonder if they do use machinery for some of it, but make the video's of hand made stuff? I noticed in the desk video they showed the waste from the sliding dovetail being cut off by a Japanese saw. However if you look at the piece that comes off there are scorch marks on it further back.

Either he's very fast or they used a powered saw for most of the cut.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I suspect there are actually quite a large number of very wealthy people in the UK (although this may include only a few contributors to this forum).

To be in the top 1% of incomes (approx 400,000 people) requires a minimum income of £120k pa. Many earn much much more than this - add together professional footballers, bankers, large company directors, successful small business owners, Russian Chinese and other oligarchs, inherited wealth etc. These are people who have the discretionary income and/or wealth to spend on prestige holiday villas, paintings, antiques, jewellery, boats, cars etc. Some (perhaps only a small %) may value real quality and craftsmanship in wood.

I'm not trying to trivialise the problems in starting and developing such a business, but it certainly exists for those who have the talent to be able to both create fine furniture and develop the right relationships. Price is probably often less of an issue for the purchaser than the woodworker who may often look to more mass produced items to create a price reference. After all, who in their right mind would pay £0000 for a small lump of gittery glass in some yellow metal, or a couple of square foot of canvas and dulux.

Terry

 

[Student]

FWIW, they do quote prices for some of their items on their website

http://www.doucetteandwolfefurniture.co ... esser.html

http://www.doucetteandwolfefurniture.co ... Table.html

http://www.doucetteandwolfefurniture.co ... Chair.html

I don't know the exact exchange rate at the moment but would guess $2=£1 approx.

Martin

 

[Silas Gull]

There will always be people happy to part with extraordinary sums of money for beautiful things. And when I talk about 'extraordinary', that's from my perspective. To me a grand is a shed-load of wedge, but to a billionaire it is an almost notional amount - like a 5 pence piece left on a window sill - too trivial to even bother to pick up. Leave it for the cleaner. To the super-rich, this D&W stuff is probably a bargain compared with a Warhol or a Moore. But no less desirable and every bit as necessary.