hand made or home made? or other?

[tlcneeded]

being new to wood working. i run in to this question when someone was checking my heart box out. they asked me if it was hand made. ummmmmmmm i made it at home so i told him it was home made. hand made i figured to be. making something with hand tool not power tools.

[Beamer]

this is a good question, Gerald. There seems to be about as many answers as there can be. Everyone has a slightly different definition.

To me, hand made is something a single person made by taking materials and forming them into the object using skill and talent unique to the task.

My perception of marketing that uses hand-made is dozens of people in a factory had their hands on it.

Sadly ... marketeers don't seem to share that definition but like to rely on people who DO have that definition to see their products in a better light because they use the term. Too bad, too. It's cheapening the real hand made stuff.

[sachbvn]

Agreed - good question...what defines "hand made" certainly at SOME point in the making, packaging, shipping - of ANYTHING.....something is "hands on" - but is it enough to be "hand made"??


My idea in regards to anything we here make - yes - hand made it is. Power toolers or knuckle draggers, I think all of our projects are hand made. Now - you can say "ah, I made this chest of drawers with hand cut dovetails" and obviously - that is a little more specific than the guy who made same above set of drawers, but used his PC omnijig. BOTH are hand made...... IMO.


Zac

[tlcneeded]

you can say "ah, I made this chest of drawers with hand cut dovetails" and obviously - that is a little more specific than the guy who made same above set of drawers, but used his PC omnijig. BOTH are hand made...... IMO. could be considered hand crafted?

[Doug B]

"Hand crafted" is what I use. Just sounds more sophisticated or something

[TDHofstetter]

I personally think of "hand made" being something that's not assembly-lined, any sort of one-off, even if it was made with power tools & jigs & fixtures & such for precision. Hand-guided machines or workpieces all qualify as "hand made" in my mind.

[anisotropy]

Like doug, I would use handmade to describe anything I made that was unique or made in my shop. If I only used hand tools on it, I would call it hand crafted.

[Joe Lyddon]

Hand-Made, to me, is NOT made with automated equipment, in a factory method / environment, or assembly line process.

Hand-Made, to me, is using Hand guided tools that directly come in contact with the project or finishes being applied to it.

Your Heart Box, to me, is Hand Made.

[Joe Lyddon]

Nov 8, 2009 11:50:01 GMT -6 Doug B said:

"Hand crafted" is what I use. Just sounds more sophisticated or something

That sounds good too!

[Holzwurm]

I believe hand-made is anything that you make with your own two hands. It doesn't matter if it was made with or without cords.

[Ruffnek]

My personalized brand says "Hand Crafted by Cody colston." That's the term I like the best...hand crafted.

Lots of times, especially with turnings, someone will see it, pick it up and say increduously, "did you make this?"

I always reply, "No, God made it, I just shaped it the way I wanted it to look."

[TDHofstetter]

A lathe is an excellent example... It's impossible to turn a wooden object without a machine. Certainly there are "handmade" and "handcrafted" turned objects. Ergo... machines don't undermine the label, provided the production wasn't automated.

[lexrex]

It is a tough one to nail down. Look at a nice Maloof chair. I consider it handmade/hand crafted but it certainly passes through many sets of hands on the shop floor before becoming a finished product.

[fredbelknap]

Maybe I should put something on my stuff, don't want anyone else have to take the blame for it.

[woodmannie]

I'd say hand made. Home made is for baking. You eat a home made pie, but serve it on a hand made maple plate.

Tom

[rhull]

Home made?? Certainly not! My wife would beat me with a wet noodle if I did my woodworking in the home. It's all confined to the shop! ;D

[admin]

It means a little different things to different folks. To me, hand made means a craftsman making a piece from the floor up. Factory made means untrained labor doing a simple part of a complex item. Assembly Line Style.

[brburns]

I would call what I make with power tool "hand Made", sure. Now, would I still think that if I used a CNC to make it?? I don't know.

[Leo Voisine]

So if I grab a chunck of Cherry.

I rough cut it on the SCMS & table saw

I mill it on the electron burnin jointer, and planer.

I glue it up on my workbench with clamps

I sand it with a ROS or with a Performax drum sander

I spray Shellac on it - with a spray can - by hand

I apply paint mask to it by hand

I mount it on my CNC router

I create some artistic design on the computer - using my hands

I set up tools in the CNC Router

I run the program

Then I unmount the Cherry

I spray paint the CNC routed design by hand with a spray can of paint

I then peal off the paint mask

I scrape with a single edged razor blade

I rout the edges on a router table - by hand

I sand with a ROS - by hand

I spray a real nice Poly finish - hand sanded between coats

I apply nice picture hander wire to the back

I brand it with a custom branding iron, of my personal signature, I made on my CNC router.

OK -- OK -- OK

Thats a lot of work - BUT - I used a CNC Router

I call this hand made? - no

I do call it custom made!!

I can say home made - but I think that really has little meaning.

Some people think that CNC routing takes all the hand made out of the equation - but that is not so.

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[glow=red,2,300]Custom Crafted - sounds good to me.[/glow]---------------------------------------------------------

[TDHofstetter]

I think maybe even the CNC routing, in this example, qualifies as handmade (if you want that term)... but only if the routing job is a one-off. If, on the other hand, you were to cut a series of similar-length blanks & busy yourself popping 'em onto the CNC router & tugging 'em back off & they all got planed & shaped with the router to look identical except for the inherent grain... then that wouldn't qualify as handmade any more. Even two identicals would be enough to disqualify it.

Made entirely with unpowered tools might qualify as ... "organic".