Good Products, Bad Products: Essential Elements to Achieving Superior Quality

CHAPTER 5CraftsmanshipJoy to the Maker, Joy to the User

Craftsmanship is the process of making things extraordinarily well. It involves fits and finishes, obsession with details, tender loving care, and pride. The topic was easier to talk about in the age when objects were made by individuals and by hand, though it is still possible to look at sculpture, custom jewelry, fine woodwork, and exquisite “craft” pieces and comment on the craftsmanship. These comments, however, may be off the mark. We amateurs might be terribly impressed by a polyurethane coating, but a professional woodworker would realize that a rubbed mixture of alkyd varnish and oil, or simply the bare wood enhanced by the patina of use over the years, would have been a better fit. ...