[twoartistic]

with that much pre machining, it would be very difficult to justify the hand made title. hand finished, hand detailed, sure, but not hand made. it would be misleading.

Many terms are industry driven. In the door, cabinet and furniture industry hand-crafted/hand-made, means that part of/or most of the the process was done by hand. ie carving, planing, shaping, finishing, etc.

Some of these companies tell you about the technology, most don't. Here are a few examples.

Exterior Hand Carved Doors

Here is how they explain the use of CNC in their "handcrafted" doors.

"This beautifully handcrafted door is the result of our ability to combine new world technology of door constructions with exceptional hand carving craftsmanship on the panels."

On of the factories that supplies there doors used to be my biggest customer, before they moved manufacturing to Mexico. They use CNC combined with hand-carving for almost all of their carving.

Home

Lone Peak does some amazing work. But they never talk about the technology behind there carvings. I know about the process, because I have been in their shop. They have an artist that sculpts the origonal in clay, then they laser scan the clay model. The wood carvings are then roughed out with a CNC and finished with rotary tools and hand tools.

Hand Carved Wood Entry Doors | Custom Wood Doors

He is probably closest to what people think about when they hear "hand-crafted", "hand-made" and "hand-carved". He does many of the processes by hand. But if your a purist, you may take exception to his use of router jigs and using a router to hog out some of his carvings. He does not use a CNC.

All of these companies are producing handcrafted pieces in my opinion. They all aproach it in a different way. They all use some form of technology to remove the bulk of the material. I am certain there are also guys out there making doors, cabinets and furniture with only hand tools, no power tools at all. I didn't include any, because I don't personally know anyone who still does, so I could not say for sure that they do not use some automation. I am talking about my peers in commercial endeavors here, not the guys who are hobbyists. I do know of hobbyists that do it all by hand, start to finish.

So unless you can convince an intire industry that the terms handmade/handcrafted should not be used if the piece has not been intirely handcrafted I am certain the use will continue. I don't recall if it was on this forum, but someone suggested that there may actually be a legal requirement, so I checked with the Utah State Dept. of Commerce. There was no guidelines in using the term, except in jewelery I think, and even then, if a portion of the jewelery was handcrafted, the term was still usable.

In my opinion the term is valid when hand crafting is used on a piece. Especially if the application of that skill creates a texture, look, or feature that cannot be produced by a machine. No machine I know of can gouge out wood, keeping the grain variations aligned with the tool, as to not create tearout. Hand carving will always have a place, until robots have a soul, passion and love for the wood and a dexterity, vision and feel fine enough to express that with the tool. In the mean time my craft is safe.