Ralph Cramden wrote:
Now getting a non Amish crew would have merits lol. What a bunch of hacks the Amish. They need to stick to barns and corn cribs.
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I live in the middle of forty thousand plain folk, Amish and Mennonite, in PA. Many are craftsmen, most do extremely high quality work. ALL of the hard furniture in our house was made locally, some is new, some is decades old, and still looks and works new. No reason to think that it won't last for the next hundred years, as it's built better than it was a century ago. Back then they didn't Kreg screw and urethane glue joints together, or have the finishes available that last for decades without yellowing or pealing.
When it comes to the quality issues plaguing the industry, it's all about who is running the show. You pay peanuts, and demand that everybody run around like idiots, the work looks like it was done by monkeys on meth. The fact that your RV was slammed together by a 19 year old drug addict and high school drop out from Elkhart, or a 60 year old Amish church elder from shipshewana, is meaningless. They are both under the gun to smash the thing together as fast as possible. Right or wrong, well done, or pathetic, is of no concern to management.
OTOH, if you own a company, and look at every product as a statement about who you are, you end up with stunningly high quality products. The Amish shed manufacturing business in this area is one example. You have Amish company owners using design softwear, and CAD/CAM optimizing saws to precut all their sheet goods, plywood,T-1-11, etc.... They then construct sheds that are extremely well built, and precise. Not a nail out of place, crisp, straight edges on everything, and delivered for 20-30% more than you would spend clubbing the same thing together as a DIY project. If another group of Amish decide to take a shot at opening a new RV manufacturer, they could build an amazing product, at a competitive price. It's been done before, and who knows, given the current environment in the industry, maybe it's time for another one.
