We don't build our pieces ourselves. A hardwood factory in China builds them to our spec. That means the only place our standards actually exist is in what we check before a piece is allowed in the store — so here is the checklist, and here is what happened the last time we ran it.
The four checks
1. Is it solid wood? We look at the cut face and the underside, not the top. On solid black walnut the grain runs through the corner and continues onto the next face. On a veneered piece the grain stops at a seam where a thin wood skin meets the board underneath. A piece that fails this one is out, no matter how good it looks in a photo — veneer over particleboard chips at the corners and the skin lifts.
2. Is the surface clean? No cracks, no visible knots on show faces, no chipped corners, no glue marks under the velvet, no colour blotches in the finish. Small grain variation is the material. A crack is a defect.
3. Does it smell? A sharp chemical smell out of the box means a cheap finish that hasn't cured. That's the thing you'd notice first when you open it, so it's the thing we refuse first.
4. Are the magnets right? Lids on the ring box, stud box and double ring box close on inlaid magnets. They have to hold shut in a bag, and they also have to be weak enough to ship by air — strong magnets can't go on the international line at all. So we test both: closed in a hand, and against the shipping limit.
Then we measure everything with a steel rule and weigh it packed, because the numbers on the dimensions page come from the piece we ship, not from a supplier sheet.
What we rejected in August
We ran the checklist across the range in early August, with samples of the pieces we sell in volume. Three outcomes are worth writing down.
One product was removed from the store permanently. A nine-compartment box with a glass lid that we had already photographed and listed turned out, on the cut face, to be a wood skin over board rather than solid walnut. It failed check one. It's gone, and it isn't coming back in that construction.
Two samples failed on workmanship and went back to the factory for rework before we would ship them — the hexagon double ring box and the small oval necklace stand. We held those listings until corrected samples passed the same four checks.
Everything else passed, and that's what's in the store now.
Why write this down
Because "solid wood" and "quality checked" are the two phrases every listing in this category uses, and neither means anything unless you can see what the check is and what it costs when a piece fails it. We'd rather show you the list.
If a piece you receive fails any of the four, send us a photo within seven days and we replace it free — no return needed. info@monowoodstudio.com