What is "Hand Made"

[Graham Long]

I would like to start a discussion about the term "Hand Made" and when it can be applied, and more importantly when should it not be applied.
Can an instrument that has been made using CNC machines still be called "Hand Made".

[kiwigeo]

This is a discussion that keeps popping up again and again. I believe there really is no clear definition of what constitutes a true hand made instrument. We all use machinery at some stage of a build.....a band saw to cut out a top, a router to cut a soundhole rosette channel. If you want to be a purist then as soon as any tool with a motor is used on a build it's no longer hand built.

I prefer to focus on the human input that goes into a build:

1. At one end of the spectrum you have a factory in China churning out guitars...the people making the guitars are factory workers....most of them probably don't understand much about the workings of an acoustic guitar but as long as they follow the plans they can turn out a marketable product in the shortest possible time and each guitar is a carbon copy of the previous one.

2. At the other end of the spectrum are the people who have intimate knowledge about the workings of the guitar. They spend more time on a build but they also pay attention to details that can't be addressed economically in a factory environment. They can also customize each build to the individual requirements of the client. How they achieve this is not the important thing.....ie the luthier may use hand tools or be tooled up for CNC. That said, IMO a luthier who relies heavily on CNC is going to instill a certain level of uniformity in his builds while a luthier purely using hand tools is going to produce instruments that are never going to be the same as previous builds...even if theyre the same model of guitar.

My opinions only.....a fascinating area of debate.

[Graham Long]

I agree with your opinion entirely.
I have no alliance or vested interest in either direction, but I do feel that things produced via a CNC should be declared to customers who assume they are getting a handmade instrument.

The use of CNC is really heading towards a shop made instrument and I feel it's unintentional anomalies found in hand made things that differentiate them from those made by robots.

Maton or Cole Clarke, both great brands, but they are both considered shop made by the public, mainly because they are larger scale builders using CNC made components to cut costs. Apart from scale of production what's the difference between a high end Maton and that made by small scale custom builder using CNC parts. Both are put together by people having an intimate knowledge of workings of acoustic guitars. The larger scale builder has merely cut a few more, of what they consider to be, superfluous corners in order to turn a higher profit.

[simso]

I dis-agree with a persons view that cnc is n longer hand made, cnc is merely a tool nothing more nothing less



I use to go down to music stores and teach guitar building courses on there behalf.

I would always start with this exact topic.

Hand made can mean so much,

the true purist - hand made is with a rock used to carve the bark of a tree and the guts from an animal to string it up with, no tools used, but really what type of an instrument would that be

The average person, would assume hand made to be along the lines of someone making an instrument through the use of hand tools that require no power to operate, just the physical power derived from ones hands.

These days most people go it's hand made, but yes I used a router I used a bandsaw, I used chisels and hammers and so forth, so starting to be a far cry from really hand made, in the true sense of the word

Then we have the next level of tools, cnc router, which merely forms a repeatable foundation to build from, but IMO it's just a tool, no more important or less important than a bandsaw or thicknesser.

To me hand made is anything that a singular person makes from the raw product with whatever tools they have at hand be that powered by electricity or powered by the hand.

Once, more than one set of hands have touched the build I believe it steps away from the nostalgia of being hand made and steps more into production made.

Again, just my point of view, but it's always a good opening topic when talking with newbies about building guitars at the start of a guitar building course ( and I supply bodies to these guitar building courses that have been cnc machined and hand sanded and hand shaped)

Steve

[Graham Long]

IMO handmade can still be applied to items made using a chisel or router, so long as they are being directly controlled by the makers physical effort. but I draw a line at outsourcing/copying that work. Eg. Using a robot to produce items and then labelling them as "hand made", regardless of the scale of production.
Not saying that the these parts or processes shouldn't be used, but rather that they should be declared to the buyers as copies not originals.
In the same manner that a print is declared when copied from an original painting.

[Allen]

The difference between a factory using CNC to produce their instruments, is that they have gone down the complete automation pathway as far as possible. Where they can and in many cases have very low skilled workers assembling the parts with no to very little chance for a stuff up. Taking all the skill and art out of the process. Building exactly the same thing again and again.

I've met several people that have worked in these factories and they could have been assembling radio's or making tennis shoes for all the "luthiers skill" that was involved. And yes, one even told me that exact thing.

Also have talked to a couple of "head luthiers" from some well known brands, and I was stunned at how little knowledge they had about building instruments. They knew their product and how it went together, but that's were it stopped. No background on the why or what happens outside of their little domain.

So, CNC is just a tool. It can make parts very accurately and repeatable. All things that those working in a less automated way are striving for. No different to using a spindle moulder with templates, table saw with jigs, routers with guides or a drill press.

And what about finishing. Is spraying no longer hand made? Are we relegated to French Polishing, or brushing on varnish?

What about your builders label? Is using a printer ok, or do we need to use quill and ink? And no I'm not being facetious. I know a couple of luthiers that go that route just because of the "Hand Made" look. Though they don't have a problem with outsourcing other parts of their work.

It's the design, building process, thought and care that goes into the work that differentiates the two.

[routout]

I did cut the sides of my first mandolin by hand saw I read an piece about traditional ways of making things and the guy stated that if there is a less time consuming and labor intensive way then use it.On the other hand (no pun) I hand made all of my cnc from the ground up and hand sharpened my chisels and planes I hand picked each piece of wood for every component to make up the Instrument so I guess it's all hand made .
When you make comment on companies that use production methods they have to compete as efficiently as they can but they also Innovate and that is a win for a lot of people ,they have staff to pay and take care of health wise as well .
The person that buys a so called "Hand Made " Instrument he don't really care if you used some automation to be honest it has become a word people like to throw around to Impress you made it that Impresses me you spent the countless hours putting it together it plays well looks appealing Job done the sum of all things .I also like the word Professional and Expert who gives people that name that they call themselves.

[old_picker]

My definition would be built entirely by one person. As soon as tasks are let out to others you have lost touch with an instrument. As far as using power tools would a potter for arguments sake using an electric wheel still be making hand made pots? To be fair you would have to say yes. A luthier using power saws, electric drills or even basic cnc could still claim the piece is hand made. I would make a fine distinction with CNC that you would need to be designing and preparing your own cutting files.

Even If you are building and shaping everything using cnc you still need to do a good deal of fitting, sanding and prep to get the instrument ready for finish. If you are farming tasks out on an assembly line for less skilled workers it could no longer be categorised as hand made.

I've been a craftsman most of my long working life [albeit 25 years in a different discipline] and the definition always for me was:
"it was made by me" not "my factory" factory being any place more that one worker gather together to produce a product.

Sure I used manufactured materials and supplies including hi tech tools but I wrought the heart and soul this piece from primary materials -
in this case wood. I chose the boards, split them down, shaped them and glued it all up. I used precut binding, or maybe a fingerboard, I bought the tuners and fretwire etc etc etc etc.

there are many hairs to split - who can really claim they built the whole thing including tuners and screws??

[Deems Davis]

Who cares? My personal belief is that it is a very small and diminishing portion of the population that cares about "hand made". Perhaps a better term to use is " Custom Made". It differentiates between the mass producer and the individual craftsman.
When I began this journey of guitar building I started with the building of my own CNC . My thought and intent was to take advantage of the accuracy and repeatability to compensate for my thin level of skills.
What I've learned a couple of years down the road is that.
1 The learning curve to build debug a CNC is Big
2. The learning curve for the CAD CAM software is enormous!
3. The first Run of a CNC part is 90% likely to fail, the 2nd run= 60, 3rd= 30..... And so forth.
Conclusion: for single items it takes More time to produce on C N C . BUT the part is Very Accurate.

What I have found works best for me is to use CNC for necks,and fretboards and jigs and calls. But the rest of the instrument is done with tools common to most custom builders.

A CNC is just a tool. We want to use the best tool/s available to us for the task at hand. To produce the best quality instrument/s we are capable of.

Just as we develop proficiency with chisels, saws, planes with experience. The same is true for a CNC. It's not a shortcut. Unless I am seriously mistaken the majority of folks on this forum are not capitalized as guitar factories. And the instruments that we "custom" build are built on a scale where a widespread employment of CNC just doesn't make practical sense.

My 2 bits

Deems

[routout]

Mr Deems your two bits are exactly on the money It took me just on 2 years to get my CNC to where I would like it scratch build 6'x3' ,I am still in the process of getting my head around the program It was always a thing I wanted to do having all the gear to make it helps .I think what bothers a lot of people is they put so much effort into making a fine Instrument a vast collection of knowledge, tools,skills and then someone goes Oh that looks nice and walks away some get dejected and feel like all that hard work has been a wast of time . Or then I read somewhere "may I pay you a 13 th century wage for that"

[seeaxe]

+1 for who cares! Surely what matters is, is the end product any good?

So if making guitars for yourself, put whatever you like on the label. But there will probably be at least 32 things on it that you didn't build by hand, unless you making your own tuners, frets and bridge pins!

If you are in the business of making guitars for sale to others, then let your products speak for themselves. If a hand made guitar is any good, it won't need a label saying hand made to prove it. We have probably all seen plenty of hand made guitars that wouldn't hold a candle to an entry level Yamaha, in either tone or finish. And they are probably made by CNC machines run by robots

As for CNC, as many wiser and better luthiers than me have already said, it's just a fancy chisel. The results are impressive and push the boundaries of custom made guitars, especially the decorative stuff recently seen on this website. Good on them I say.

My (hand made, with the help of the Internet) 2 cents worth

[Nick]

Hand made is such a broad term used these days. Back before steam and the industrial revolution hand made meant just that, one person making either one particular part or the whole damn shootin' box, using hand tools they probably made themselves.
Now-a-days where do you draw the line/definition? Personally when I think of the term "hand made" I think of it to be one person carrying out each step of the build themselves, using whatever tools they have at their disposal and to fit and assemble the components they've made.
But then a friend of mine has just recently started making basses for 'commercial' sale (he's making more than one at a time on a production line type model but still very low scale numbers when compared with the major companies), his neck core profiles and body wings are cut out using CNC, this is done for speed, accuracy and repeatability (his neck cores are multiple laminates with chambers & wiring pathways that go through the body so once glued up these have to line up pretty closely with each other) but the neck cores are still glued up by hand in a jig I made for him, body wings are still glued on and clamped up using conventional clamps and cauls, sanding before finishing is laboriously done by hand using a combination of palm sanding and sanding blocks, finishing is carried out by hand as is the wiring. Even though he uses CNC in his process, it's still a very hands on process so I would also consider this to be handmade also (in fact I've encouraged him to use the term handmade in his advertising), so even for us "Purists" it's a hard term to pin down.

[aljosha]

for me hand made or crafted nowadays is more of a sales term than anything quality related

a cnc is just a tool, but its about how one uses it

if youd shape braces to a certain height because its in the plan like that you dont vary for different stiffness of the wood brace to brace
but then you can do that with or without cnc...
for good craftmansship youd have to at least fine tune them by hand
(ok, the gore method works around this some but its the same thing mostly)

its also in the abilities of the builder
one might be rally good at sound shaping but cant shape a nice neck at all
so why not use a cnc to get it right...
its basically the same like using a drumsander instead of a plane or a bandsaw instead of a handsaw or any jig
a tool to get a certain thing faster and easier (and maybe not even better)

[slowlearner]

Someone said somewhere the other day, "all guitars are handmade". Ie. CNC can shape certain things, but you still need a pair of hands to put the guitar together and set it up. That made sense to me.

Maybe "boutique", "fine" or hand "crafted" are better terms? Like beer or clothing if you will. Factories can throw a million of something together. Whether it's worthy of much attention or accolade is another story I guess.

Might the motivation of the builder be part of it too? Process workers don't necessarily do things for love. Low volume luthiers only do it for the love of it. They'll never get rich.

[johnparchem]

You need to move from powered routers to luthier targeted tool like the one released just today at veritas: http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.a ... 3000,51208

[routout]

That is fantastic Veritas have some great tools but that Vid sums it all up I would have a go to tool for everything,just need a partner.

[routout]

Truth be known I do have some insight into that kind of apparatus made one a long ways back for a wood turning show..

[simso]

Love it....

Steve

[kiwigeo]

You need to move from powered routers to luthier targeted tool like the one released just today at veritas: http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.a ... 3000,51208

Phooey to that.....I'm sticking with a nice sharp cutter turning at 30,000rpm.

[Mark McLean]

That is this year's version of the infamous Veritas April Fool's video. Really well done - so that you can almost believe that they are serious!

[Graham Long]

But aren't items made with CNC machines just copies, not originals.
If you are employing some other form of intelligence to do the work, isn't that the same as buying it from a supplier.

[simso]

You seem to be trying to make a differentiation between items made with cnc and items that are not.

Let's break it down a bit further, when you use a template to cut your guitar with, be that a neck body or whatever', you are creating a copy of the same thing you made yesterday or the day before, cnc is no different, it is merely substituting your hands.

Cnc is a tool, a finished product cannot be generated in the guitar building, merely a shaped and size item, ready be worked by the builder

You let the end product speak for itself, if the fear is a finished guitar done with a template does not come up as nice as a guitar done with a cnc, then there is a problem with the builder not the tools he or she utilises.

Steve

[Deems Davis]

But aren't items made with CNC machines just copies, not originals.
If you are employing some other form of intelligence to do the work, isn't that the same as buying it from a supplier.

It depends where that form of intelligence comes from. If they are files that you picked up on the net and loaded on your machine, possibly.
But, I suspect from the responds on this thread that most folks have no 1st hand experience with CNC. And they share a misconception about the ease and simplicity of producing guitars from CNC.
A CNC can be discussed in 2 categories. Hardware and software. Both are made up of multiple components. Each component must interface perfectly with the others. Each component requires a significant learning curve that typically spans weeks/months to grasp and years to master. If it were easy everybody would use them.
Perhaps a CNC has more utility in a smaller shop producing electrics, where the "crafted" parts are fewer. However for a smaller shop focusing on acoustics their utility diminishes.
We see these machines primarily in use in larger shops where several hundred "copies" of a given model are produced at a time. The capital requirements both financial and human/intellectual are beyond most us us smaller producers.
Therefore I resubmit that broadly speaking it is more a mater of "custom crafted" vs "mass produced".

Deems

[routout]

Yes over the years I have seen many Instrument makers get extremely upset over the lack of recognition they get for for all the time and effort they put into their hand crafted pieces shall we say. I have been involved in some high end wood working exhibitions and met people who have done some very long apprenticeships in their respective field ,but it seems to be people who make stringed Instruments that get the most upset about the craft it confuses me somewhat .
Yes the answers on the CNC are correct they take a while to master stream line some things for sure I want to make accurate templates for routing so others may make the guitars they do more efficient that was some of the reason I built it ,say a fretting jig with all size templates affordable that would be a good use of it's ability. so all in all just keep making fantastic Instruments and enjoy your craft, share and take time too Laugh.cheers John.

[slowlearner]

You need to move from powered routers to luthier targeted tool like the one released just today at veritas: http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.a ... 3000,51208

I build "electric" instrument so I have to use "electric" tools... or they won't sound right.