Thread: The definition of hand made

I've been selling a few side tables lately in a timber gallery. I was in there when a couple were looking at one, the missus said something like; 'It isn't a real smooth finish on the top', and the bloke says 'This isn't Harvey Norman and it wasn't made in a factory". Does that constitute 'hand made'?

Furniture factories in Indonesia is probably far more "Hand" made than many US amateur builders. The difference is that they're simply trying to maximize the amount of furniture they get out of a batch of lumber given the absolute cheapest labor and facilities. There's often no aesthetic consideration to what pieces of wood go where other than to work around defects. While these are "Hand made," they're generally low quality. It's no surprise to see loose mortises, poorly fitted glue joints and ill fitted hardware. SIL had to return a whole set of 6-chairs one at a time as they fell apart. So... Is this what you mean?

No. Of course not.

Krenov talked about this at length in his book. He drew the line more along the lines of the worker having individual control of the outcome vs the machine or process. So for example, him resawing timbers on his big band saw gave him control over the finished product to achieve some grain flow and pattern which caught his eye as beautiful, where the commercial sawmill simply works to maximize some particular yield of lumber.

By this same standard, most Amateur builders aren't doing it either. They're following a recipe by rote the same way as the Indonesian factory worker does. They don't choose the wood to achieve some sort of artistic appearance, but rather they want a triangle shaped end table between the couch and the recliner, and they want legs that sort resemble the coffee table, and they want it brown.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge anyone their hobby, enjoyment, or the one man shop his chance to make money when the market is good (say like with slab tables.).

I fall more along the lines of being honest about what you're getting and why you're getting it, and that's fine. Often the up market builders put more effort into comfort, appearance, and things not falling apart, and in my experience, that has given me extremely good value compared to the cheap stuff.

Originally Posted by Fergiz01

Whenever I see the term 'hand made' or 'artisinal'or whatever used in conjunction with furniture it's usually an amateur trying to flog a resin coffee table with gappy joints. ...

But you also see it on chipboard crap in discount dumps. "Artisanal craft from a sweatshop in Western China???"

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

But you also see it on chipboard crap in discount dumps. "Artisanal craft from a sweatshop in Western China???"

Yeah it's really lost all meaning at that point.

For me the term handmade is meaningless, any Tom, Dick or Harry can make something by hand, it does not need any skill or knowledge to turn out crap, I would rather someone say they have made a bespoke piece based on their design (albeit a collection of ideas taken from what they have seen and leant over the years) and they have selected and used the best materials to produce their concept. So then any prospective buyer can view the piece and see if it is truly different from the mass produced factory pieces, for them to part with the extra money such a piece would cost, if the piece is lacking quality of finish then the buyer should see this and walk away, if they don't then more foul them. So I judge a piece on its appearance and I don't care if it's made from parts produced by a machine, for me the skill is in the ability to turn those machined parts into a well designed and balanced piece of furniture.

I personally don't think there is any real skill in making slab and resin furniture, once you get the mixing and curing learnt, all that your doing is putting a large heavy lump of timber in a mould and poring resin either clear or with a pigment all around and over it and then doing lots of sanding.

Originally Posted by Camelot

I personally don't think there is any real skill in making slab and resin furniture, once you get the mixing and curing learnt, all that your doing is putting a large heavy lump of timber in a mould and poring resin either clear or with a pigment all around and over it and then doing lots of sanding.

It's sort of like who can make the most neatly folded basic paper airplane.

But, it's popular, at least on YT.

there's a well - heeled couple over the hill from me in the gated development that abuts my development. I never heard of resin tables until a couple of years ago when the husband mentioned to me (same age as I am) that he'd felled a tree and he did a little bit of woodworking, but more like adding shelves to closet stuff. He said he was saving the slabs from the tree (I think he even got an alaskan mill) to a make a river table.

I must've looked like the most clueless dummy to him calling myself a woodworker and having no idea what it was.

Actually, I don't know if he's any more well heeled than I am, but he lives in a gated community and I don't!

From the perspective of a buyer, if I were told something is hand made, I'd expect a bit of inaccuracies and irregularities of something made by hand and hand tools. There's effort in the making. The near perfect regularity of certain power tools and CNC devices screams "machine made". Programming one of these CNC devices takes some skill, but is not the same as knowing how to carve. It devalues the work. From a consumer perspective it is good thing, from an artistic point of view not so much.

Backin the 1970’s a friend made the cynical comment about a home made pie: “Made by somebody who lives in a pie factory”.

I think all of these value adding marketing terms have become meaningless over the years. When I worked with handtools only it wasn’t from a holier-than-thou position, it was because I didn’t have space for power tools.

Ihave the luxury of having only my family for a customer hence no marketing required.

Originally Posted by Greg Q

Backin the 1970’s a friend made the cynical comment about a home made pie: “Made by somebody who lives in a pie factory”. ...

Same era, I had an acquaintance, a chartered accountant no less, who ran a very successful practice specialising in taxation strategy. He had an obsessive and pathological approach to taxation. Every cent paid to the ATO by himself or a client was a personal failure.

He and many clients were subject to an ATO audit on "home office expenses" and some minor adjustments were made. But this was a personal affront; they questioned his integrity and that of his clients. If they were going to go over his home office expenses with a fine tooth comb, then why have a home?

He and his family then moved into his office. His practice covered two floors of the building; his home about half the top floor. But he needed a mailing address and he owned a block of flats; Unit 13 served that purpose, it had a mailbox but otherwise did not exist.

"No law says I cannot stay overnight in my office."