thoughts on quality

[Old N Rusty]

First class quality work is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction , and skillfull execution. It represents the wisest choice of many alternatives. Quality will be considered long after price is forgotten. If it is worth doing, do it right.

[macbruce]

Truer words were never spoke, but, not everything is a masterpiece.................mb

[dbrandow]

What follows is a short quote from one of my favourite series:


The most important man on the farm, aside from Faldor, was Durnik the smith. As Garion grew older and was allowed to move out from under Aunt Pol’s watchful eye, he found his way inevitably to the smithy. The glowing iron that came from Durnik’s forge had an almost hypnotic attraction for him. Durnik was an ordinary-looking man with plain brown hair and a plain face, ruddy from the heat of his forge. He was neither tall nor short, nor was he thin or stout. He was sober and quiet, and like most men who follow his trade, he was enormously strong. He wore a rough leather jerkin and an apron of the same material. Both were spotted with burns from the sparks which flew from his forge. He also wore tight-fitting hose and soft leather boots as was the custom in that part of Sendaria. At first Durnik’s only words to Garion were warnings to keep his fingers away from the forge and the glowing metal which came from it. In time, however, he and the boy became friends, and he spoke more frequently.

“Always finish what you set your hand to,” he would advise. “It’s bad for the iron if you set it aside and then take it back to the fire more than is needful.”

“Why is that?” Garion would ask.

Durnik would shrug. “It just is.”

“Always do the very best job you can,” he said on another occasion as he put a last few finishing touches with a file on the metal parts of a wagon tongue he was repairing.

“But that piece goes underneath,” Garion said. “No one will ever see it.”

“But I know it’s there,” Durnik said, still smoothing the metal. “If it isn’t done as well as I can do it, I’ll be ashamed every time I see this wagon go by—and I’ll see the wagon every day.”

[Larry H]

as I constantly tell my helper.......If you don't practice perfection on every job, when you are called upon to do a perfect job,... you don't have the skills to do a perfect job, then you are just another blacksmith, good is the enemy of great

[bajajoaquin]

And "better" is the enemy of "good."

[Alec.S]

YES SIR!