October 22nd, 2009 
TBDKeith Lately, I have been reading posts and woodworking blogs and there seems to be a lot of comments like, I am new to woodworking and the quality of my work is not very good, or it’s okay, but I am just learning; the quality is so-so but it’s a little better that my last project.
I started wondering, what are they comparing their work to? Is there some magical standard out there that everyone compares their work to? What is the definition of quality and who sets the guidelines? Is it connected to the cost of the wood or hardware? Is the quality based on the difficulty of the project?
This past spring I had the honor of judging at the finals in the Michigan Industrial & Technology Education Society (MITES) competition in Battle Creek, MI. http://mites.cc/ I judged in the “woods” division. As we worked our way through the awesome woodworking projects, the comment, “This is quality work” was heard over and over again. Considering that these projects were built by junior and senior high school students, the work was nothing less than spectacular, not to mention encouraging. All of this made the task of judging a challenge and I loved every minute of it.
Last night at our monthly woodworkers meeting (www.mmwg.org) it came up again. One of our members, Dick Woodham brought in an owl for show and tell, that he had carved. It was beautiful, the 200 plus hours that Dick spent on the carving showed in every detail. During a break, while we standing around admiring all of the projects displayed, someone said, that owl sure is a quality piece.
What’s your definition of quality woodworking?
I have added a poem about Quality on page two, written by my brother, which really sums this all up.
What are your thoughts???
Keith
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Quality is a thought. When I look at a project that I have made I always see the flaws, so I always think that I could of done it better therefor better quality too. I think you really need to have some one else look at it to tell you how good it is or where it could be improved on. The wife works great on the later one.
Dennis,
We can be our own worst critic. I also have my wife look at the finished project. Sometimes her comments can sting a little but they are always honest.
Keith
Quality in my training was considered ‘conformance to specifications’. That is the quantitative perspective.
Subjectively, which is how most of us perceive things, is much harder to define, because we all have different standards and our definitions of those change as we go through life, live, and learn.