When is hand made not hand made?

[Handworkfan]

I'm picking up a conversation started on the new veritas plane thread. For those who haven't been following it, the issue is about whether the use of jgs and power tools means that something is not 'hand made'.

I use a few machines and a number of jigs - mostly home-made. I reckon, for example, the mitred corners on my boxes - shot with a shooting board and a bird-house jig - are genuinely hand made since I made the jigs, planing the slopes on teh bird-house freehand to precise angles in both planes. The result is that the joint is child's play to make, but wouldn't have been without the skill to make the jigs in the first place.

Some power tools take the hard work out of things without necessarily reducing the skill level involved - and it must be right that the maker should receive credit for the hand skills involved.

A distinction is made in the original conversation between 'the workmanship of risk' (hand work) and 'the workmanship of certainty' which is interpreted at the extreme to include using a plane as opposed to an unsupported blade. However, there's a big gap here between 'risk' and 'certainty' as anyone who's ever planed a workpiece badly with a good plane will testify! With the best plane in the world there's no 'certainty' about getting timber true and smooth - and many a maker will testify to the 'risk' of taking up a hand-plane to clean up a lovingly-made piece.
I wonder what others think about it?

 

[Lord Nibbo]

In my mind if I made it it's hand made Which tools I used to make it is my decision. The fact that I sized up a piece of timber starting with a 1" x 6" sawn board and ended up with a 20mm x 120mm using a table saw a planer and a thicknesser rather than slog my butt off using a hand plane is irrelevant.

Most every person here on this forum owns either owns a band saw or table saw and uses them for nearly every project, so by using them does that rule out a claim that everything they make is not hand made? No way hosé ](*,)

 

[woodbloke]

In my mind if I made it it's hand made Which tools I used to make it is my decision. The fact that I sized up a piece of timber starting with a 1" x 6" sawn board and ended up with a 20mm x 120mm using a table saw a planer and a thicknesser rather than slog my butt off using a hand plane is irrelevant.

Most every person here on this forum owns either owns a band saw or table saw and uses them for nearly every project, so by using them does that rule out a claim that everything they make is not hand made? No way hosé ](*,)

...which then begs the question, Your Lordship, of where you differentiate between something that's 'machine made' or 'hand made'? - Rob

 

[Chems]

Fairly simple if you ask me. Machine made is when one of those big CAD machines makes something. Hand made is a an operator using tools to get the job done. Be they powered or not.

 

[woodbloke]

Fairly simple if you ask me. Machine made is when one of those big CAD machines makes something. Hand made is a an operator using tools to get the job done. Be they powered or not.

A CNC machine is also a tool that has had to be set up at some point by hand, both mechanically and with a suitable piece of software...so are things made by this sort of machine also 'hand made'?..and how do you classify 'tools'?...you see how difficult the area is :wink: - Rob

 

[Jake]

If you haven't clawed it out of the wood with your fingernails, it isn't hand-made.

 

[Mr Ed]

What if you nibbled the finer details onto it with your teeth? :shock:

Cheers, Ed

 

[Jake]

Hand-and-mouth made, I'm afraid.

 

[wizer]

If you designed it, implemented the tooling, and physically saw it right through from start to finish, it's hand made. It might be hand made with the assistance of machinery, but you'd have to go a long way to find something that a machine hadn't touched these days.

 

[13eightyfour]

Where i used to work The timber was ordered in ready glued into various thicknesses and ready planed, This was then sawn to length using a cnc 'upcut' saw (basically an automated mitresaw.) These panels were then passed to me where everything was cut to exact size and all dadoes/holes created using SCM cnc machine, and were then passed through to assembly, Where if im honest an untrained monkey could have achieved an acceptable finish!
It was incredibly rare that there was a problem with alignment, In fact in the whole factory we only had 1 plane! We produced massive amounts of furniture every week all of which was marketed as handmade.

While i wouldnt consider any of it handmade its amazing what can be passed off as being so.

 

[karl5005]

Sometimes I am obliged to make bold statements regarding my status in plane making as it can be irrating when I hear or see comments 'oh he makes his planes with machines'. To sum it up this plane making is really just about attitude and effort.

Are there people who believe I have the proverbial Heath Robinson machine that needs to be fed raw material at one end and then to watch all those mechanical gloved hands whirl into action and remembering to place the soft mattress to catch the finished project at the other end. This machine requires a great deal of concentration as I am always setting the dial for the wrong plane :lol:

 

[Mr Ed]

Are there people who believe I have the proverbial Heath Robinson machine that needs to be fed raw material at one end and then to watch all those mechanical gloved hands whirl into action and remembering to place the soft mattress to catch the finished project at the other end.

Well thanks for shattering that illusion for me Karl... I had this image of a Wallace and Gromit like operation that will never be the same for me now :lol:

Cheers, Ed

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

Wallace and Grommet? Next it will be Shawn the Sheep! We love the Brit cartoons as much as the Cliftons!

As a hobbyist, I have the time to try things more since my livelihood doesn't depend on deadlines. I subscribe to the theory that all joints, preparations, etc. must be experienced completely by hand before one can understand machines. I have done a few pieces totally without electricity and a few with virtually no handtools, save some minor handplane touch-ups. The only way the difference can be told would be by a dis-assembly of the piece (at least to my untrained eye).

T.Z.

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Fairly simple if you ask me. Machine made is when one of those big CAD machines makes something. Hand made is a an operator using tools to get the job done. Be they powered or not.

A CNC machine is also a tool that has had to be set up at some point by hand, both mechanically and with a suitable piece of software...so are things made by this sort of machine also 'hand made'?..and how do you classify 'tools'?...you see how difficult the area is :wink: - Rob

Yes but I only make one at a time, if I made two they wouldn't be exactly the same. A machine can make millions exactly the same. :lol:

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Fairly simple if you ask me. Machine made is when one of those big CAD machines makes something. Hand made is a an operator using tools to get the job done. Be they powered or not.

Spot on and add what I said in the post above :lol:

 

[tnimble]

Fairly simple if you ask me. Machine made is when one of those big CAD machines makes something. Hand made is a an operator using tools to get the job done. Be they powered or not.

A CNC machine is also a tool that has had to be set up at some point by hand, both mechanically and with a suitable piece of software...so are things made by this sort of machine also 'hand made'?..and how do you classify 'tools'?...you see how difficult the area is :wink: - Rob

Yes but I only make one at a time, if I made two they wouldn't be exactly the same. A machine can make millions exactly the same. :lol:

Some interesting points. All of which are both correct and wrong.

CNC Computer numerical control has little to nothing to do with having a million exactly the same products at the push of a button.

Probably most people understand there needs to be a certain kind of program fed into the machine. But in the case of a machine that is fed with a program still no pats will come out at the push of a button.

CNC is often associated with a large factory with one supervisor over looking the machinery. This is true for a fully automated production plant. Sush a lpace utelizes not CNC operated machines. They utelize special enineered machinery for their products consisting of conveyor belts, sensors, automated measuring and robotics.

However a tipical CNC machine is either fed angles, lengths and circumference by hand (often aided by CAD/CAM). The most used 'language' in which thoses operations are entered is G- or M-Code.

An operator has not only to know this code and how to use it to not break cutters or damage the part, he also needs to make or buy jigs and apply them to mount a piece of metal (r wood) in the machine. He then has to align the piece of material, and must let the machine know where the piece is. And then instruct the machine go to x,y with speed n. lower bit by z, speed n, lower bit by z speed n, raise bit etc. (this can be stored and recalled (but will be useless without the hand work of setting up and aligning a piece), or suggestions can be generated from CAD/CAM (just as your cutting list can be)).

This is very close to turning the handles and dails on a drill, mill or lathe to advance the cutter. Only instead of using calipers and the indicators on the handles and dails, one uses numbers.


If a bookcase sawn on a table saw, and joints cut by a router or hollow chisel morticr are hand made, a piece made with a table saw with a CNC fence and blade height is still hand made.

This bookcase would certainly not be hand made if there where five table saws, two morticers and three shapers, each one setup once for a perticular cut, with the parts either moved through conveyor belts or a monkey.



What about hand crafted versus hand made?

 

[Benchwayze]

If you need to cut something you need a cutting tool. (Bruce Lee and Superman excepted) That tool can be a hand-tool or a machine-tool.
So, to be pedantic, when we say 'hand-made' we mean hand-tooled.

Since I use a combination of machine tools and hand tools on most of my work, to satisfy the 'watchdogs', I always describe anything I make as 'individually' made.

If a joint is well cut, and fit for purpose, then how it is cut is irrelevant. (Except maybe for appearance.)

There is a signature on the forum: Quote: "What I make is for others; how I make it is for me." Unquote. (I think that was right!)

So I reckon the boundaries are somewhat blurred.

 

[Handworkfan]

Nice to have started a lively debate!
I guess another question is, 'What is the buyer entitled to expect if a piece is described as hand made?'
If I bought a piece of work thinking it had been lovingly crafted by an amazingly skilled artisan, and later found out that the only 'hand' involved had been setting up the machine and pushing the button, I think I'd be entitled to feel a little dsiappointed.
On the other hand, it's true that surely no one converts material from the log by hand these days - so the term is always going to be a bit vague and open to interpretation.
When I do piece of work for someone else I usually include with it a small A5 tri-fold leaflet, nicely produced on quality paper, outlining the salient points of how it was made. So they will know, for example, that the basic preparation was done on machines, grooves cut at a small router table, and the corner joints hand-cut using traditional jigs made by hand in the workshop. If the piece is dovetailed, they'll know that the joints are hand-cut sawcut-to-sawcut with tradtional tools and no trial assembly.
It sounds a bit fussy put down like this, but I find that people read the leaflets avidly and often engage in quite animated conversations - well, it's probably less tedious than watching HM's speech on Christmas day!

While I recognise that no absolutely 'pure' definition of hand-made is possible, I do think that from a buyer's or recipient's point of view, it does need to have some kind of genuine meaning.

 

[Benchwayze]

Nice to have started a lively debate!

Well, it is quite an 'old-saw', but it usually gets a lot of people hot under the collar. \/ :lol:

 

[dunbarhamlin]

Had a very similar discussion on the meaning of 'hand crafted' on the Ubeaut forum a little while ago.
Few random musings:
I would still consider it dishonest to describe a piece with jigged joinery (be it from fenced table saw, router jig, miter saw or even donkey's ear) as entirely hand crafted.
This has no bearing on craftsmanship nor on quality - purely on production method.
The problem may largely be one of semantics, but a customer swayed by the 'hand made' or 'hand crafted' label is, I would suggest, subscribing to a romantic image of the pre industrial age, and I do think this must be considered.
To cite the hand made nature of jigs and fixtures does seem something of a sophistication - the tool is hand made, not the product.
In my fanciful, hamateur's eye, to be described as hand made or hand crafted, all joinery and surfaces should be cut and finished by eye with hand powered tools. Obviously this gets silly - a shooting board certainly doesn't fit in here, though hand powered, nor an electric drill, though guided by eye.