Inside The Factory

[Woodbloke]

I can''t under almost any circumstances abide that eejit Greg Wallace; I can cope with Cherry Healy though but just by chance I flicked over to watch an episode of 'Inside The Factory' where they visited the Ercol plant to see how a Windsor chair is made. Very interesting and informative so worth a view on iPlayer if you missed it - Rob

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Why does Wallace behave like that in this particular programme ? He acts like an imbecile. He's not nearly so tiresome on the cookery programmes.

The chair making was kind of the same principles as a hand made one, but without a hand tool in sight. The CNC seat making certainly took less time than would take me !

 

[Trevanion]

The one over New Years where they were in the JCB factory was quite interesting, “WOW” as Mr. Wallace would exclaim :lol:

 

[RogerS]

I can''t under ....... any circumstances abide that eejit Greg Wallace; ....

:text-+1:

Shame otherwise the Ercol programme would be interesting.

 

[Mike G]

He is cringeworthy and embarrassing with his childish over-enthusiasm. She, whoever she was, is almost as bad. She was clearly dealing with serious professionals at the testing centre, and just clowned around like she was in the school playground. They made it the hardest hour's TV I've watched in years. I have no idea how they managed to get the impression that an almost untouched-by-human-hand chair production line was somehow high skill. The most skillful thing shown in the programme was the initial logging and planking, and the application of glue into the seat mortises.

 

[Mike Jordan]

I agree it’s high time Greg Wallace was replaced, the same format is used on every programme and seems to me that much of interest is missed. Having said that I enjoyed seeing the mix of high tech and trad methods being used to produce high quality British furniture.

 

[AndyT]

Well, I saw this thread title and thought 'surely nobody is going to be recommending that dreck' - but it's alright, I don't have to revise my opinions at all!

 

[AJB Temple]

I spent a week in the company of Greg Wallace some years ago. Masterchef. I found him to be a most unlikable man of little brain and easy manipulation by the producers. Very sexist and at times downright offensive and patronising towards the female participants. Very sarcastic in real life, which is often a sign of insecurity. John Torode on the other hand was a good bloke.

This experience means that although I can just about tolerate GW on Masterchef The Professionals (where he has a limited role) I can't bear him in anything else.

 

[RogerS]

I spent a week in the company of Greg Wallace some years ago. ....

My heart goes out to you, Adrian. What was your secret to maintain your sanity ?

 

[Woodbloke]

I spent a week in the company of Greg Wallace some years ago. Masterchef. I found him to be a most unlikable man of little brain and easy manipulation by the producers. Very sexist and at times downright offensive and patronising towards the female participants. Very sarcastic in real life, which is often a sign of insecurity. John Torode on the other hand was a good bloke.

This experience means that although I can just about tolerate GW on Masterchef The Professionals (where he has a limited role) I can't bear him in anything else.

Agreed, he is an objectionable, odious character, but leaving that aside, the industrial process of making a Windsor chair I found to be quite interesting, interspersed with the historian's piece about 'Utility Furniture' produced during WW2, much of which was designed by Gordon Russell and her bit on Chippendale (the jewellery box thingie was hideous) - Rob

 

[Raymedullary]

WHAT!!! WOW!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! REALLY!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! COR BLIMEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[AJB Temple]

I spent a week in the company of Greg Wallace some years ago. ....

My heart goes out to you, Adrian. What was your secret to maintain your sanity ?

The upside which made it all very much worthwhile was that I got to spend nearly three full days working with Phil Howard (Marco trained) who was at that time running his two star restaurant The Square. So three lunch and three dinner services and a hell of a lot of prep. Marvellous and mad experience. GW was not there for more than about an hour

 

[pitch pine]

I don't think we are the target audience for this type of programme. The subject has to be made "entertaining" as there is a limit to the amount of actual education people can cope with (I don't believe this, but intuit it from watching this stuff). In contrast I caught the last 15 minutes of Fred Dibnah and remembered how good these programmes are.

It was interesting to see the CNC router do its thing.

It looks like they don't make anything out of elm anymore.

 

[9fingers]

Ercol factory without commentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIM5PLGgas

Enjoy GWF!

Bob

 

[Lurker]

Maybe it’s not entirely Greg’s fault.
I think tv producers, in feeding their own ego, think that the audience has a low attention span as well as being a bit dumb.
Greg’s job is to ask the questions by proxy for all us illiterates who are not clever enough to be a tv producer.

 

[AndyP]

Another example of dumbing down to attract the BBC’s target audience perhaps?

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I was thinking he might be asked to behave that way by production, they (being arty types) probably see the technicians being interviewed as rather dry, and needing some over the top encouragement from the presenter to liven it up. And for probably a large section of their audience, they might be right.

Do you remember the "slow television" fad, which had a series following craftsmen making things ? There was a Windsor chair making episode of that, with Jim Steele. Proper Windsor chairs, no CNC here. Not much focus on the craft, more on the art of the film makers - odd camera angles, cuts away to very marginally related scenes to increase the sense of passage of time and lack of haste. Well, I chatted with Jim at a Bodger's Ball shortly after, and he was quite positive about it, in terms of it making it have a wider appeal, but bemused by why they chose to cut away from the woodwork to show his wife hanging the washing out !

 

[RogerS]

"Slow television"..... :eusa-think:

If I got a slow cooker and locked the camera off on it....reckon it could go viral ?

 

[Lurker]

"Slow television"..... :eusa-think:

If I got a slow cooker and locked the camera off on it....reckon it could go viral ?

Particularly if you could get a cat to sit watching the cooker.

 

[Trevanion]

I got around to watching it last night, if you can sort of blank out Greg Wallace there are some very interesting things going on at Ercol! I appreciate they haven't modernised everything in the factory for the sake of modernising it, the machine they were using to mould the bow was a Wadkin EQ which looked to be a fairly old one from about the '60s, set up with a similarly old power feeding unit with one wheel installed which ran the workpiece against a jig very quickly, was there a need to modernise it? No, as the machine worked very well and did it as quickly as anything else would've.

One thing I noticed was that the youngish guy that did most of the machine demonstrations really knew what he was talking about around the whole factory, I'm not sure if that's just a one-off foreman type who knows everything or whether Ercol is a good employer and switches their employees around workstations so everyone has a bit of experience with everything and break up the monotony.

Back to presenting the show, I suspect that we being practically minded individuals aren't the target audience, as already has been said, Wallace just asks the dumb questions the average person might. If you took someone who has a bit of interest and understanding in mechanical things like Guy Martin or Fred Dibnah it would've been a totally different program.

There are some quite interesting old videos on YouTube of the Ercol Factory, some uploaded by Ercol themselves and some by others.

These three were uploaded by the Kino Library, it's very similar to the "Inside the Factory" episode, but it appears they were moving rather quickly to get stuff done!

[youtubessl]0vaRs5cyfto[/youtubessl]

[youtubessl]gXOYEX-YySU[/youtubessl]

one of the very few videos you'll see a shaping machine in use at 1:47, a largely defunct machine now thanks to CNC but in it's day it was a force multiplier.

[youtubessl]-jESIc889i8[/youtubessl]

These are old ones uploaded by Ercol from various sources like the BBC.

[youtubessl]rz5nNbiEPDI[/youtubessl]

[youtubessl]_ZWpMqjgYT8[/youtubessl]

[youtubessl]cX0k7h-qpns[/youtubessl]

[youtubessl]nYuTZbjxSj0[/youtubessl]

One uploaded by Ercol, but not about Ercol, interesting nonetheless!

[youtubessl]nP5_OJxNccY[/youtubessl]

 

[Lurker]

I would assume that with a relatively small production line that not only can the operatives do several jobs to relieve the boredom, it also helps to cover absences and holidays.