Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/26/maker-replicates-expensive-mirrored-table-with-30-of-materials.html
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They’re… uh… both ugly.
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Yes, but one looks like it was made out of cardboard and reflective tape. (I’m not sure if this is a point in its favor or not…)
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But one is $870 less so.
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I was mostly impressed by how she did all of that soo effortlessly with such long nails.
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sorta reminds me of this, without the anode
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Uh, yeah… BYOA
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Nah, the vacuum tube you posted is beautiful in it’s own way, and I can’t say the same about that table.
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In a way. But cost of materials isn’t the bulk of the price usually.
I like maker videos but think the $ to $ comparison always oversimplifies things. They should include how many hours they spent on it for a truer comparison.
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Materials: $30.00
Labour (6 hours @ $12.00): $72.00 (wild guess)
Satisfaction at beating capitalism: Priceless
I do admire the young woman’s creativity, though.
(But don’t hold the drill in one hand and the unsupported workpiece in the other.)
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I agree that the joy of making something yourself is a big plus, I know it’s not a 1:1 comparison for pricing. I think work stuff has me feeling very particular about framing and wording and such right now.
And I, too, I found myself fretting during the drilling scenes. Wanna get that maker a bench vise!
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You’re right, but for the wrong reason. 
The time is intentionally not important, because projects are for two kinds of people:
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Those with more time to spare than money
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Those for whom the process is enjoyable, and the journey is more important than the destination.
I make part of my living as a YouTube maker, and I field this complaint all the time. The fact is I can’t even buy materials for what China will ship you a completed version of that object. It is never a money saving exercise (except perhaps when replicating silly “designer” objects like this person did). I build things because it’s fun, not because it saves money.
You’re right though that videos like this are a little dishonest. The reason is that it’s pretty easy to make things look good on YouTube that would not be acceptable to people in person. All the furniture that you see people crank out in a day on YouTube is what we call “camera ready”. It looks fine when shot from certain angles, in certain lighting, on MP4 compressed video. In person? You would be mildly disappointed at the fit and finish of everything. This is the real lie of maker YouTube, but it’s a necessary evil of the demands of the algorithm. You have to make weekly videos, and multi-parters don’t do as well, so people cram a big project into a week (which really means 1-2 days for the project and 5 days to edit and produce the video). When building real furniture to a quality standard, you spend days and days sanding, finishing, etc. There’s no time for that on the YouTube content clock.
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Cool! What’s your channel? Or is that too much like worlds colliding to post it here?
Totally. I used to work in a wood shop. We made mainly walnut and cherry furniture, all custom. I’d done some hobby woodworking before but it was the first time I realized that with big stuff like that, once you get all the “building” part done, you’re really only about 1/2 done in terms of time.
Thanks for the insights about the maker YouTube grind. Watching those videos sometimes makes me feel really slow about my own projects, but that peek behind the curtain makes me feel better. 
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Heh, yah, I prefer to keep work and play separate 
Indeed, there’s a reason everyone makes bookshelves, cutting boards, etc. You need something decent that you can knock out in a day. The thing to remember is that the product is the video, not the object being made in it. People do all manner of creative editing to manufacture a narrative and an interesting flow which may have little to do with how the object was actually made. The resulting object is often not worth keeping in the end, either. A lot is also driven by negative comment avoidance. Most makers hide their mistakes in videos because they don’t want to deal with the river of hate and criticism from commenters. I show all my mistakes and discuss them for learning experiences, but I get why most people don’t. I spend a lot of mental energy moderating comments and it takes a toll.
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The traditional advice for cutting boards is to oil once a day for a week, once a week for a month, and once a month for a year. I can see why you would cut some of that out of the video, though.
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Yes. Anode that already. 
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No matter how one chooses to gild turds, ultimately they all still look like shit.
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