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Shop foreman told me my doors were 'too perfect' and that stuck with me for weeks
I was building shaker doors for a kitchen job in Tulsa and I was really proud of them. Every rail and stile was dead square, every joint lined up like glass. Then the foreman walked by, ran his hand across a stile, and told me they looked factory made. At first I took it as a compliment. He shook his head and said customers pay for handmade work because they want to see the hand in it. That got under my skin for a good two weeks. I started looking at old furniture at an antique mall in Broken Arrow and noticed how the small tool marks and slight bevels gave each piece its own face. Now I ease my edges by hand with a block plane instead of hitting everything with the router, and I leave the faintest plane tracks on purpose. Sales went up on my custom stuff because people can tell it came from a person. Any of you ever get told your work was too clean and had to change your whole approach?
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