Page 29 - CMA PROfiles Winter 2018

The mystery

of making stuff

In his follow-up post, “Further Thoughts on the Very Picky
Customer,” Paul Downs also reflected on the perceptions
that those in the business have to combat, and we thought
his comments would resonate with CMA members:

… Many people don’t realize how difficult it is to build
physical objects. Making stuff used to be far more furniture was made entirely of solid wood and used
familiar. Almost everything a Colonial farmer owned was traditional joinery throughout. When we started making
either homemade or made by someone close by. These big tables, we had to change the way we made things
kinds of objects have a simplicity that we enjoy, and the because the market demanded a different product than
processes that produce them are easy to understand, those techniques and materials could provide. Today,
and, with some effort, duplicate ourselves. But there is in a business environment, the tables need to look
another class of objects that are ubiquitous in our lives polished and refined in order to fit in with tech-heavy
that cannot be made at home. These products require interiors. This meant more machine work, less hand
sophisticated systems of machines and highly refined work. Aspects of the project that used to be irrelevant,
materials, and draw on global supply chains that no like fabrication speed and ease of shipment, became
one person could master. Obvious examples are our paramount.
cars, airplanes, and everything electronic: computers, Now, the things we make require a combination of
phones, cameras — even mundane objects like the plas- extremely sophisticated design and manufacturing
tic bottle that holds your soda or water. along with highly skilled hand work. I have had to design

a work flow, from initial phone call to delivery, that
So many of the things we hold and use are designed
and built to standards that are unachievable by human solves a long list of problems aside from how to get
hands. And their existence alters our perception of the the top to sit perfectly flat. Some of these solutions are
things that are still handmade. Commonplace variations mutually exclusive, and the need to deliver our products
now look like defects. If you go to a museum and take at a competitive price means that oversolving one can
a careful look at the furniture there, you will see that shortchange another. A lot of the value we deliver to
what you take for straight lines and flat surfaces are our clients is in the space between the edge of the table
actually not straight or flat at all. The tools, materials, and the wall. Getting that distance right is as important
and techniques that gave birth to those things don’t as making the top perfectly flat.
allow for perfect geometry. Now go to your local store The challenge, of course, is to complete the list before
and look at a stack of plastic deck chairs, the cheap ones you run out of money. Clients have budgets and
that nest on each other. You will see complex curves expectations, and it is the job of the manufacturer to
and near-perfect geometric shapes, with no evidence balance the two. Sometimes that means educating
whatsoever that humans made them. clients as to why their expectations are unrealistic.

My own business, making huge conference tables, spans Quoted from the blog post “Further Thoughts on the Very
this divide. In the last century, I was making things that Picky Customer,” by Paul Downs, published in The New York
a good craftsman could make in a home workshop. Our Times on August 5, 2011

CABINET MAKERS ASSOCIATION 27