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Automation in Woodworking
The human hand moves further away from the work with every new piece of automated machinery introduced in the woodworking field. Instead of hands shaping and forming pieces of wood into pieces of furniture at a workbench on the shop floor, they are now clicking mice and tapping on keyboards in an office, instructing the machines what to do through lines of code. Instead of tools being selected, grain direction being read, machining operations being chosen, and parts being sorted by craftsman who can see and feel the wood, a computerized machine is making these selections based on decisions made days ago by someone in front of a computer screen. In many ways, we have sacrificed quality for speed, craftsmanship for technology, and people for machines. This would be true in a custom woodworking setting.
In a factory setting, however, automated machinery is a wonderful advancement and a valuable tool. In settings of mass production, where the desired quality levels are achievable with machinery and the quantities produced are the driving factor, machines outperform people any day. There’s also the safety and ergonomic benefits to having machines do the monotonous, repetitive work, saving people’s bodies and minds from repeating the same movements hundreds of times per day.

An interesting “side effect” to the introduction of automated machinery in the woodworking field is the allowance for a broadened definition of the term “hand-made” or “hand-crafted”. Whereas previously it would have meant hand-sawn, hand-planed, hand-chiseled, etc., now it can mean anything that a human hand touches, as opposed to something made by automated machinery. The irony is, the machinery still needs to be programmed by humans, so there is an element in which things produced by automated machinery are hand-made, too, if you trace it back far enough. The principle of hand-made could be boiled down to a human hand on a tool used to make something. The question then becomes: Does a computer mouse “count” as a woodworking tool?

At Finer Side Woodworking, we choose not to use automated or computerized machinery in our processes, as the level of detail demanded by our clients, projects, and craftsmen is only attainable through careful attention given by human hand and eye to every surface of every piece. We will most often employ a hybrid approach of power tools and hand tools to remove the bulk of the waste when dimensioning lumber (taking boards to their final size) or cutting joinery (dovetails, mortises, tenons, etc.). The final fitment of the joints and surfaces of the parts are cleaned up by hand, with chisels, scrapers, and planes, to achieve the fit and finish that only a human hand and eye with utmost attention to detail can produce.