Young carpenter of the year

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AndyT

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Don't know if this will be more interesting than the normal run of 'talent' shows, but there's a chance...

BBC3 is showing "Young Carpenter of the Year" tomorrow (Sunday 19th) at 8.00 pm.

More details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cdb4l

It says they will have to fit a kitchen in three hours and also build a duck house, so I won't expect too much. (Hey, I thought carpentry was about structural stuff - flooring, roofing and such, not kitchens - but I don't make the programmes!)
 
Kitchen fitting is actually a highly complex job, requiring a considerable degree of expertise to get it right.
As an ex kitchen installation technician :mrgreen: I shall be watching with interest
 
Saw the last 1/2 hr and found it quite entertaining. They were well under the kosh trying to fit the kitchen in 3 hrs though
 
Personally the lad who worked at the palace, but was knocked out before the final, came across as the best. He answered more questions correctly, got a roof on his duck house and seemed to finish more of the skirting with decent joints, but I'm no expert.
 
tsb":3go5mu7j said:
Personally the lad who worked at the palace, but was knocked out before the final, came across as the best. He answered more questions correctly, got a roof on his duck house and seemed to finish more of the skirting with decent joints, but I'm no expert.
I agree, it was his supposed 'attitude' that lost it for him apparently. I thought the winner had just as much of an attitude albeit of a different kind. All very well being a perfectionist but if he charged by the hour he might work out to be rather expensive.
I also thought one of the judges was a bit of a knob, not saying which one though. :)
 
studders":rmkf7sy9 said:
I also thought one of the judges was a bit of a knob
Me too.
The presenter looks like the only tool he's ever picked up is a hairdryer! I thought it was okay, but the time limits were too tight for them to complete anything exceptional, considering the pressure they were under.
 
Speaking as an ex-broadcast pro, I thought the prog was HORRIBLE.

Everything from the presenter's patronizing attitude, the camerawork (even that word is being generous!) and the format were all terrible.

It was evident that the production team (who are giving farming the same treatment next week, incidentally) know pretty much NOTHING about joinery, not even what it's properly called, as someone else pointed out! And if they were looking for 'Carpenter of the year', you'd expect that guy to know everything about framing, green Oak, etc., but not necessarily anything about 2nd fix, nor kitchen fitting!

That's the joinery trade dispensed with in an hour, now we can forget about putting "skills" onto TV for another year. When you compare that with the wasteful drivel that is "The Apprentice" (around 20 HOURS of drivel every year, plus talk show appearances, spin-offs etc.), what hope is there for a revival of craft skills and standards that are so desperately needed? We certainly don't have enough IT or even call-centre jobs for everyone leaving school, we have to get back to making stuff, and that means a new respect for crafts, trades, and manual, practical skills.

So I think one could love it or loathe it as a game show, but not as a serious competition.

The whole thing left me fuming about how TV standards have plummeted. The fact that it was BBC (my old employer) made it worse.

Sorry, but I'm getting wound up just writing about it.

I too, thought the lad from Windsor was quite badly treated. Amongst the myriad of things they didn't explain, nor seemed interested in were the tools: did they use their own or have to use some provided? What about things they'd normally have used but didn't have available, for example pin punches? I could bang on for ages, but it wasn't very revealing of the contestants' overall skills.

Sorry. I'll dismount and walk off...

E.
 
I thought the programme was pretty atrocious, but that doesn't mean the right guy didn't win.

The skirting and duck house tasks weren't too bad, but I thought the kitchen task was ridiculous for what I considered to be a test of carpentry skills. I thought at one stage it was a test of bodge-it-and-scarper techniques with jig saw and hand saw cuts being performed on material held in the hand - there wasn't even a B&W Workmate in sight!

I remember a colleague of mine being involved in a programme called The Great Egg Race and I believe he came away with the impression that the outcome was pretty much a lottery instead of a true test of ability and skill.

I wish I could say the programme lacked something in the way it tested the contestants, but made up for it in entertainment value, but I think it was poor on both counts. My guess is the BBC farmed the programme out to a cheap production company and the quality of the delivered item reflected that. But I understand BBC3 is targeted at younger viewers though, so I wonder if the target audience thought the programme was as poor as most of us probably do.

It would have been interesting to see how the guys coped with a project such as a standalone cupboard/wardrobe with drawer(s).
 
Eric The Viking":1g45hkcj said:
Speaking as an ex-broadcast pro, I thought the prog was HORRIBLE.

Everything from the presenter's patronizing attitude, the camerawork (even that word is being generous!) and the format were all terrible.

It was evident that the production team (who are giving farming the same treatment next week, incidentally) know pretty much NOTHING about joinery, not even what it's properly called, as someone else pointed out! And if they were looking for 'Carpenter of the year', you'd expect that guy to know everything about framing, green Oak, etc., but not necessarily anything about 2nd fix, nor kitchen fitting!

That's the joinery trade dispensed with in an hour, now we can forget about putting "skills" onto TV for another year. When you compare that with the wasteful drivel that is "The Apprentice" (around 20 HOURS of drivel every year, plus talk show appearances, spin-offs etc.), what hope is there for a revival of craft skills and standards that are so desperately needed? We certainly don't have enough IT or even call-centre jobs for everyone leaving school, we have to get back to making stuff, and that means a new respect for crafts, trades, and manual, practical skills.

So I think one could love it or loathe it as a game show, but not as a serious competition.

The whole thing left me fuming about how TV standards have plummeted. The fact that it was BBC (my old employer) made it worse.

Sorry, but I'm getting wound up just writing about it.

I too, thought the lad from Windsor was quite badly treated. Amongst the myriad of things they didn't explain, nor seemed interested in were the tools: did they use their own or have to use some provided? What about things they'd normally have used but didn't have available, for example pin punches? I could bang on for ages, but it wasn't very revealing of the contestants' overall skills.

Sorry. I'll dismount and walk off...

E.

Eric, I agree with all of that!

Wouldn't it be better if they could "educate, inform and entertain" all at the same time... but that would never catch on.
 
doctor Bob":9qx6fwq6 said:
If it's like "young butcher of the year" I wouldn't bother ......

There appears to be a whole string of these. A quick google reveals

* Young Baker of the Year

* Young Gardener of the Year

* Young Mechanic of the Year

* Young Farmer of the Year

And more.

They all seem to share the presenter (George Lamb), with specialist judges.

They're not deep.

BugBear
 
On yesterday's evidence the Young Mechanics of the Year will be emptying the ashtray, topping up the washer bottle and checking the tyre pressures of a VW Golf!
 
I think they did use some of there own hand tools. I noticed one was using a jap saw, they all had different brands and what looked like used power tools. I believe the chop saws was provided as I saw a HSS Hire sticker on them.

I can imagine many saying, if they did talk more about tools, "a bad workman blames his tools". However making sure they used the correct tool for the job would have been useful.

I found at the first task I was shouting thats not carpentry its joinery, it was a basic task really other than time/material pressures.

Fitting a kitchen that size in 3 hours, impossible. The only way to do it is bodge it. A carpenter makes is own units, a joiner uses flat packed! What makes kitchen fitting complex? Its getting over the un-squareness of walls, scribbling, mansions mitre, edge banding, making the lines work with the eye etc. All carpentry things but not tested in this program.

Did the right person win? Not in may eyes, it was BBC being PC! Tibby was good yes but as a job he is a site joiner.

The judge thats tool is a hairdryer was judging as an employer.

For me entertaining non the less.

One other thing, I wouldn't expect a true carpenter to necessarily know what MR stands for in man made board, infact I wouldn't expect a true carpenter to have even built anything other then jigs with MDF before.
 
I think we ought to take into account that they are performing in front of a potentially big audience and things they would do on site without thinking can be completely different with a camera on you and judges overseeing. At our woodturning club we have a Christmas competition to turn an item drawn out of a hat in 10 minutes. You see very competent turners just a bundle of nerves making mistakes they'd never do at home. Imagine that with a TV camera on you and available for all your mates to take the mickey out of you for months to come!

I enjoyed the programme in spite of its shortcomings and imagined what I would have done if I had to do the tasks :roll: I think I could have made a fair fist of all the tasks but multiply the times by 10 :lol:

Regards Keith
 
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