> I would say that one piece out of ten or, from some manufacturers, one piece out of five, is badly manufactured.

I'd agree with that. Pre-drilled holes are the most common problem...

On a tangent, I was watching a re-run of Fifth Gear last night and they did a crash test of a car with the back seats down and a bunch of flat-pack furniture in the boot. A single vehicle crash at 30mph turned the flat-pack stuff into guillotines :-o

So, my tried and tested method of bashing it all together with a hammer probably isn't too wide off the mark then?

Ahh, to be rich and to be able to afford proper furniture...

L

Furniture? Bloody luxury.

Where you live, it's all made of origami, isn't it? Handy when moving house, I imagine.


> A single vehicle crash at 30mph turned the flat-pack stuff into guillotines

In our case, the guillotines would be too late: we'd already have been killed by a startled dog to the back of the head.

Startled dog deaths. They never put that in the statistics.

Is it just me or is fifth gear really boring?

> They never put that in the statistics.

Ah, well, it's all a cover-up, i'n'it? The international canine lobby are a very powerful force. "Dog-lovers" indeed. Ha! Sinister cabal, more like.

Ever wonder why the eat them in Korea, eh? Eh?

> Is it just me or is fifth gear really boring?

I don't think you're boring, David.

*comedy drum roll and cymbal crash*

You know you're getting desperate when you resort to a joke that I considered but decided against.

The sad thing is that I knew the what the next comment would be and I knew who would leave it. ;-)

D

That's handy: there's a million-dollar prize for anyone who can prove psychic ability!

You'll have to move fast, though, before someone claims the prize for seeing one of Graham Norton's jokes coming.

On a more serious note, I think the reason flat-pack furniture has a lower quality control level than, say, electronics, is that it degrades a lot more gracefully. You simply can't fudge a PCB or a piston assembly like you can a couple of bits of MDF. 'Drifting' a via in a high-density circuit just won't work.

There's also another possible reason, though I hesitate to mention it: most people working in electronic productions lines are women, most making flat-packs are men. Women are just more conscientious than men (I used to be a test engieer in an electronics factory).

There's also a matter of which countries have set the standards. There's a story about a British firm hiring a Japanese firm to manufacture some engine parts for them, back in the days when business with Japan was still quite a new thing. The British asked for 3 errors in 100000, which was thought at the time to be a very very high level of quality control. They received a consignment of 99997 parts and a separate box containing 3 dodgy parts, with a note to the effect of "We do not understand what you need these for, but here are the three errors you requested."

That sort of quality has become the norm in electronics and machinery. Furniture manufacture is still, I think, infested with European attitudes.