Quality, durability and reparability

[Roger Hicks]

Which is higher quality, more durable and more reparable: something hand-built, or something robot-built? A lot depends on your definitions, expectations and standards.

If you are buying something new, to use for a little while and then either throw away or pass on to someone who cannot afford new, machine-made almost always wins. If you want the cheapest available, it's usually machine-made by a mile.

But something hand-built is often designed and built for the long term -- and it is easier to make reparable, because what has been put together by hand, from relatively low-tech pieces, can pretty much by definition be repaired by the same process. It's going to be durable whether you buy it new (the ideal, because you can look after it) or second-hand.

Thus, although my 1972 Land Rover will require more servicing and maintenance than a new Toyota, it has already outlasted most Toyotas ever built. Which is more reliable and durable? It depends on your definitions...

This is why I live in a house that is, in parts, centuries old; why I have the Land Rover and a '78 BMW R100RS (and a 1960s Blue Mobylette); why I use Leicas (and Linhofs, and Alpa); why I wear an Omega Seamaster I've had since I was 16...

Who else has stuff designed to last? And what?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Fred Burton]

I have an obsession with beautiful, old woodworking hand tools, where you can see the impressions in the wood from the users hands over many, many years. They are still functional after so many years of use. My power tools produce much better quality pieces, but you can't argue over the quality of the old tools.

 

[Tuolumne]

The durability of your old Land Rover has nothing to do with how it was built. It has to do with what it was made of. New cars are built with alot of light-weight non-durable materials such as plastics. This is almost a necessity to meet modern gas mileage standards. If you built a modern car with modern techniques of manufacture but built it out of more durable components, it, too, would last forever, only it would be alot better built from the get-go.

Six-sigma manufacturing techniques are no pipe dream, and they cannot be achieved by hand manufacture. If we're talking about electronic devices, which I think we are here, we would not have the iPods, TVs, digital cameras, dvd/cd players we have today, if we depended on hand manufacture. Ever wonder how your computer with many millions of components can work so reliably. Ditto your TV, cell phone, Tivo, etc.? Well, it isn't because they were hand manufactured.

/T

 

[Roger Hicks]

I have an obsession with beautiful, old woodworking hand tools, where you can see the impressions in the wood from the users hands over many, many years. They are still functional after so many years of use. My power tools produce much better quality pieces, but you can't argue over the quality of the old tools.

Dear Fred,

Do they really produce better quality, or are they merely either (a) quicker for a skilled man or (b) easier for an unskilled man?

I ask because a friend of mine, who is a very skilled craftsman in wood, prefers hand tools for the maximum in quality.

I am not qualified to judge either way, except insofar as I find wood-butchery quicker and more successful with power tools.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Fred Burton]

Achieving the level of precision with a hand tool that you can do with a good power tool seldom happens. That's not to say that the best of furniture or cabinets made with hand tools are not very good. A skilled craftsman is a skilled craftsman.

Some people do prefer to work with the old tools, though, just like some folks like to work with old photographic processes.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The durability of your old Land Rover has nothing to do with how it was built. It has to do with what it was made of. New cars are built with alot of light-weight non-durable materials such as plastics. This is almost a necessity to meet modern gas mileage standards. If you built a modern car with modern techniques of manufacture but built it out of more durable components, it, too, would last forever, only it would be alot better built from the get-go.

Six-sigma manufacturing techniques are no pipe dream, and they cannot be achieved by hand manufacture. If we're talking about electronic devices, which I think we are here, we would not have the iPods, TVs, digital cameras, dvd/cd players we have today, if we depended on hand manufacture. Ever wonder how your computer with many millions of components can work so reliably. Ditto your TV, cell phone, Tivo, etc.? Well, it isn't because they were hand manufactured.

/T

See my comment on things that are designed and built for the long term. To be sure there are things that are better made by machine, but they are seldom designed to be durable. I do not deny that they can be; I merely deny that they are. I also suspect that the price advantage of something machine-built, but designed and built to be reparable in the long term, would be very much less than the price advantage of something machine-built and disposable.

Incidentally, for a critique of the certainty delivered by 'six sigma' (or any other statistical tool), read Naseem Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan.

Cheers,

R.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

I think the point of being machine built or hand-built has little to do with quality, durability or reparability . Instead design, specification and quality standards directly influence these three factors.

I have seen machines that are capable of producing parts and products of higher quality and tighter tolerances than you could ever achieve by hand. But at the same time, if time and skill is applied, then hand-built products can be of the highest quality.

How well built, durable and repairable a product is usually equal the amount of money your are willing to spend.

 

[gb hill]

I have a 73 Ford pickup with a 302 motor thats still going. The engine was recently rebuilt before my uncle passed away. It' an xlt & I can out haul any new truck built today. I remember years ago while putting a set of points in a car answering this question, Why don't you get an electronic ignition put in? (GM had the HEI electronic ignition system back then) I told him no way! If I break down on side of the road "and I have several times" a match book & sandpaoer will get me on the road again. With the HEI I ain't going nowhere until I replace the module. Last time I checked the points were $4 & the module was $20.

 

[mfogiel]

I think this hand built against machine built is a bit simplistic - the Chinese Little Big Furnaces from Mao Tse Tung's era come to my mind. A Leica, designed by finest engineers, made (mainly by machines) and assembled by highly skilled technicians is one thing, the primitive hand made product is another. In the world of cars, I drove Volvo and Saab cars for 20 years - those made today will not last as well as the ones made in the fifties, BUT they are making my life behind the wheel a lot more easier and safer... I think this concept has a lot to do with man's toys: cars, bikes, arms, cameras, watches, even these little metal flat flasks some use as companions on a winter trail... We tend to treat them as trusted friends, but often a modern product serves the purpose better, and costs less than the maintenance of our archaic tools...

 

[Tuolumne]

I have a Nikon FM3a.
I have a Leica MP.

Which is better built?
Which is more repairable?
Which is more durable?
Which has a soul?
How many FM3as can dance on the head of a pin?
How many MPs can dance on the head of a pin?

/T

 

[photogdave]

I drive a Volkswagen Vanagon (Transporter) Westfalia. I think it's an anachronism here because some aspects of the design are very much for the long term, and some should have never made it off the drawing board. Kind of like the M8? 😀
When this version of the Transporter first hit the market in 1980 it still had the aircooled motor from the previous incarnation. A sturdy motor and fairly easy to maintain, but underpowered for the heavier Vanagon and more likely to wear out. In 1982 VW put a watercooled boxer-type motor in the Vanagon for more power and better reliability but it had a serious design flaw which cased coolant to leak into the motor. Finally, in 1985 (I believe) they were able to put a half-decent motor in the thing but by now the Vanagon only had another five years in its life.
My own van is a 1982 diesel which the previous owner converted to a 1992 inline 4 from a GTI. The original diesel was seriously underpowered (48hp I believe) but the GTI motor with 95hp is a dream. The van runs smooth, has enough power to drive uphill in third gear, and is very reliable.
The overall design of the van is fantastic. I have two double beds, 2-burner propane stove and a fridge that runs off AC/DC or propane. The van is not much bigger than a typical SUV, gets equal or better gas milage (definitely slower but I don't care) and handles great. The other design flaw, however is all the camper versions rust from the inside out. Water gets trapped from the city water hookup by the cheap fiberglass insulation in between the sheet metal. It stays there forever and starts to eat away at the body on the lower drivers side. Happens to almost every one of the camper vans with the water connection. I'm looking at a sizeable bill at the body shop but it will be worth it.
So what does this have to do with the OP? I guess what I'm getting at is that I drive a 26-year-old vehicle with a solid, efficient, unique design that as originally spec'd, had some serious design flaws. It wasn't hand-build, but there is nothing else currently on the market like it. So I will gladly keep this beast going for as long as I can instead of buying some plasticky high-tech new car. How many other cars can you have a slumber party in and cook breakfast the next morning?
The VW Westfalia is kind of like my Leicas in a sense. Everyone wants one, but many people are afraid to buy one, so they just keep fantasizing about it!

 

[Roger Hicks]

People seem to think "pre-fab" housing is low quality. I once heard this argument in its defense: Wouldn't you rather have components cut by a $150,000 saw with precision down to a thousandth of an inch than by a carpenter with a $100 saw making $35 an hour out working in the cold?

Not if the wood cut to 1/1000 inch has a 1.5x safety factor (understressing) when the wood cut by the carpenter is five or ten times as thick as it needs to be, and when one is designed to last 20 years while the other (undesigned) will last 500.

It's certainly true that 'machine made' vs 'hand made' is all but meaningless except perhaps as applied to hand-sewn couture clothing: a CNC-machined Alpa is a lot more accurate than you'd get with a hacksaw and file. On the other hand, those CNC-milled bits are put together and measured, 100%, by hand -- no 'statistical quality control'.

There are also a few things that are better, more precise and more durable when made by hand, which is why Leica and Zeiss prefer hand-lapped focusing mounts to entirely machine-made.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[David Goldfarb]

Two years ago I sent my Busch Vademecum set to Tim Sharkey (www.lensn2shutter.com) in Snohomish, Washington for mounting in a Copal shutter, and as it happened, there was major flooding in his area while he had the lens in the shop. Fortunately no lenses were damaged, but his shop did flood, and power was out for a few days, so here's what he did--

Well, mounting your lens has given us some interesting challenges. The last was no power for 4 days. Fortunately now it is back on. Feeling hopelessly lost in trying to get my orders out the door, I realized that we had turned the basic adapters for your lens just before loosing power. So with no other work that I could do, I mounted up your lens in my powerless shop and while everyone else was home enjoying the extra time off, I was hand turning the threads on your adapters. Literally hand turning as un turning the chuck of the lathe by hand. It gave me a real appreciation for the work that was done a century ago.

Surprisingly it produced superior results to the normal power operated lathe. The adapters threads are very smooth and were hand tested with every cell and extension tube to be sure that all fit properly.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I just went to get my shoes from the repair guy.

British hand made shoes by Grenson.

When I took them in yesterday he recognized the quality and gave them extra care even though it was just just a stick on sole and heel job.

I've had them 20 years and expect to wear them for another 20 years.

 

[Uwe_Nds]

I love the ticking of my - well, not so old yet - Nomos Tangente wrist watch and shaving with my Merkur Futur shaver.

Ok Roger, you may not comprehend the shaving part, though... 😀

Cheers,
Uwe

 

[kshapero]

My Leica IIIa just ozzs all these qualities and yet I don't use often. ??

 

[ferider]

Thus, although my 1972 Land Rover will require more servicing and maintenance than a new Toyota, it has already outlasted most Toyotas ever built.

Dear Roger,

Your Land Rover has also out-lasted most other Land Rovers ever built. Conversely, there are still 1972 Toyotas on the street.

Machine-based assembly and manufacturing is used for (1) more efficiency (lower costs, higher fabrication bandwidth) and (2) for smaller tolerances.

I would think a modern Leica MP (relying on CNC machining) is more reliable than an M3. Same for a modern Lexus/Toyota when compared to a 72 Land Rover.

The key to "reliability" with cars, cameras, etc. is a quality manufacturing process, low tolerances and appropriate servicing. Not manual assembly.

Roland.

 

[Plungefrog]

An interesting thread. I must admit I can be a little obsessive about the quality and longevity of products, but somehow owning and using something which exudes quality -whether hand crafted or machine made -is satsifying, comforting and in the case of nice cameras inspirational.

I enjoy the hand-fettled feel of my vintage Leitz gear and use it all the more because of that. I also enjoy my daily transport of choice, a Saab Turbo which thus far has travelled 229,000 miles and while relatively 'modern' is still old enough that I can maintain it myself.

I find the ease of diy maintenence to be a significant factor in my purchasing descisions, and it does seem to me at least that the opportunities for buying almost anything new that is designed to be maintainable over a long term are diminishing.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The key to "reliability" with cars, cameras, etc. is a quality manufacturing process, low tolerances and appropriate servicing.

Dear Roland,

...and design, which was my original point: that disproportionately many hand-built products, because they are designed to be hand-built, are also reparable. By contrast, disproportionately many prodicts designed to be built by machine are designed only for ease of assembly by machine and for cheapness -- and cheapness, as already noted by others, is rarely a marker for durability or reparability.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Uwe_Nds]

... and cheapness, as already noted by others, is rarely a marker for durability or reparability.

Cheers,

Roger

My grandparents used to say: "We are too poor to buy cheap."

Cheers,
Uwe