So what do we understand to be the meaning of the term "Hand made", and perhaps more importantly, what does Joe Public think is hand-made? The reason I ask is because I was having a discussion with a customer the other day, and he was playing devil's advocate on this subject.
So here's my take on it. To be hand-made an item has to satisfy one of two criteria. Either it has to have been made by a process in which the tooling remains static and the maker manipulates the material, by hand, against the tooling. Or, the material is firmly mounted in some way and the maker moves the tools, by hand, so as to carry out the process necessary to make an item. An example of the former method could be scroll-saw work, whilst turning firmly falls into the latter method. Conversely, the antithesis of either process could involve something like a CNC router/laser cutter, or even a copy-lathe. However, my customer felt that to be truly hand-made, no machinery should be used at all. I obviously disagree with this and place the emphasis on the maker being personally responsible for guiding an essential part of the process, freehand.
What do you all think?
Les