What is the meaning of "Hand Carved" ?

[Capt. E]

I suppose "Hand Carved" can mean anything from hand chisels, planes and scrapers with tap-tuning to simple final finishing out of the CRC machine. You would have to tour a shop and see the process. I remember being interested when visiting one very high-end maker's shop to see the CRC machine carving the body of a new F style, but it was only a preliminary "rough" carving before the real hand-work on the luthier's bench.
What is the process at Kentucky and Eastman, for example. What does their "hand carved" mean?

[Marc Berman]

Here are some shots that Trevor of Acoustic Music Co. (UK) took of his tour of the Eastman factory.

Looks like hand carved means hand carved

[MikeEdgerton]

The problem with a term like hand carved is that there is nothing that governs the use of the term. Does hand carved mean a person stood with chisels and knives, took a block of wood and ended up with a finished product or does it mean someone took a piece that had been roughed out on a duplicator and finished the work with chisels and knives? If both of those are acceptable then if someone spends five minutes cleaning up a piece of wood that was carved by machine with chisels and knives is it not also hand carved? It's tough. Years ago I worked at a grocery store chain where they sold "vine ripened" tomatoes. We had these big boxes out in the warehouse that we put the tomatoes in when they arrived to ripen them up. We called those boxes the "Vine Ripeners". I don't care too much how an instrument is carved, what I care about is the finished product.

[High Lonesome Valley]

My buddy John Mauser, an all around artisan, used to get mad at people who would say "I built my house myself" when all they did was commission the building. He used to say, "If they didn't cut the trees down themselves and mill them by hand, they didn't build their house".

I saw a video of a guy in the southern hills going out to his woodpile, yes, the one he used for heating his woodstove, grabbed a piece of maple and then spruce after he tap tested them, split the logs, handsawed rough the sides and neck, carved the rest out by hand, built a violin that rang like a bell.

That's the ultimate in handcarved. Not to diminish anything less. Practicality would demand the use of power tools to rough-out, the ability to go to a wood provider and seek through his precut stock for just the right piece of wood for the job.

Ethically regarding a mandolin, hand carved would mean to me to be the final thinning of the top and bottom plates from a roughed out-by-power-tools (or CNC) version, as well as any scroll work. Also bracing. Regarding the cutting of the adjusting rod slot, maybe arguable.

Now, to a manufacturer, handcarved might represent the hand turning on the CNC...

[JEStanek]

I agree with Mike's post. There are more stringent labeling requirements for food than Mandolins. I need an Organic labeled mandolin!

Jamie

[DPrager]

Jamie may be on the correct path here. I can't wait for the day when tonewood is labeled as having no GMOs.

[sunburst]

In all cases, hand carved means someone did some amount of hand work to wood that was prepared to one degree or another with a machine. Unless someone walks to a tree with carving knives and chisels and walks away with a mandolin, some machining was done.
Now I suppose it could be argued that one could walk to the tree with a crosscut saw, cut it down, cut it into lengths, split out billets, hand plane the pieces and continue all the way through with all hand tools, but what would the difference be in the final product if the tree was cut with a chainsaw instead? What if we use a jointer to establish flat surfaces instead of hand planes? Where do we draw the line between hand carved and not hand carved? ...and that is the point I've been trying to make with this exercise. It all comes down to where we draw the line, and there will probably never be a consensus on that. There are those who will say any piece of wood that was ever in a building with a CNC machine has no place in a "hand carved" mandolin, and there are those who will say that CNC carved plates that were subsequently scraped and sanded to final shape are hand carved. Somewhere between those extremes, most of us will find our own idea of what constitutes hand carved.
To me, there are steps along the way to a mandolin: -Logging, or harvesting wood - milling or processing -drying and seasoning -roughing out stock -wasting wood or preliminary carving -final carving -finishing.
People will choose to draw the line between hand carved or not hand carved in different places between those steps, and nearly all use power tools at least through roughing out stock, but in my opinion, a line between rough carving and final carving leaves us with a hand carved mandolin, or between any steps before that. In other words, if I bandsaw a back blank to shape and hack away excess wood using a gouge and a mallet, or if I borrow a side grinder with a Lancelot tool to waste excess wood, or if I use a Saf-T-Planer in a drill press, or if I send back blanks to be rough milled on a CNC machine I've accomplished the same step; -wasting wood or preliminary carving. So that's where I draw my own line. Once I've started final carving, you can't walk into the shop, look at the wood and tell which method I used to rough carve it anymore than you can tell whether the tree was cut with a crosscut saw or a chainsaw.
So what is the real difference "at the end of the day"? If we have a mandolin in our hands that is well designed, well carved, well constructed, well finished, sounds great, plays great and looks great, how can we tell if it was machine or hand carved? If we can't tell, does it matter?

[sblock]

Folks are correct to point out that the term "hand carved" is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. It COULD mean that the final result is mainly a result of hand work and not machine work, but that is by no means guaranteed. And the same thing holds for similar terms, like "hand finished," "hand made," "hand tuned," and so on.

Besides, a number of great luthiers (in companies large and small) who make superb instruments use digital CNC or older, pantograph-type devices ("analog CNC") to rough out the carved shapes of their instruments, before finishing these by hand. IN NO WAY does this diminish the quality of their instruments. Gibson and Dudenbostel, for example, have long done this.

Finally, almost everyone roughs out the carvings using some kind of power tool these days, even if it's just a drill press with manually set stops. And almost everyone uses power sanders, power saws, power drills, power sprayers, etc., in the making of mandolins. Few people build any instruments today using pre-Industrial Revolution methods, and virtually none of the top mandolin luthiers do.

Don't be concerned about what parts are done by hand and what are done by machine. DO BE concerned with the quality of the final build, with the fit and finish, -- and above all else, with the tone and playability of the instrument. Compared with these, the rest is salesmanship or window dressing.

[ombudsman]

I would say that in practical terms, when this term is applied to instrument tops or backs that have any kind of arch, "hand carved" serves to tell you that the top and/or back came from a piece of wood that started out with greater thickness than the resulting top/back thickness... in other words, it was not steamed and pressed into shape from a piece of wood that was already of the same depth as the resulting piece. (And yes it should mean that some sort of hand work was done, but that doesn't really tell you anything else useful.)

This is a distinction that has a relationship with strength and sound. You can usually verify it by feeling the inside surface, even if it's just the area right around an F or oval/round hole.

[Jeff Mando]

I've mentioned this before, but I remember being a kid and finding out they used electric saws and drills at Martin and being disappointed that Martins were not indeed "totally" hand-made, at least by my youthful definition, that is, using only hand tools.

In a larger sense, ALL guitars are hand-made, at least to a degree, even $49 guitars, they have to be glued together, tuners have to be screwed on, etc...

Of course, the term "hand-carved" implies it is carved by an expert or a master craftsman......I think that is the point. That it is better, much better, than NOT hand-carved.

[lflngpicker]

In all cases, hand carved means someone did some amount of hand work to wood that was prepared to one degree or another with a machine. Unless someone walks to a tree with carving knives and chisels and walks away with a mandolin, some machining was done.
Now I suppose it could be argued that one could walk to the tree with a crosscut saw, cut it down, cut it into lengths, split out billets, hand plane the pieces and continue all the way through with all hand tools, but what would the difference be in the final product if the tree was cut with a chainsaw instead? What if we use a jointer to establish flat surfaces instead of hand planes? Where do we draw the line between hand carved and not hand carved? ...and that is the point I've been trying to make with this exercise. It all comes down to where we draw the line, and there will probably never be a consensus on that. There are those who will say any piece of wood that was ever in a building with a CNC machine has no place in a "hand carved" mandolin, and there are those who will say that CNC carved plates that were subsequently scraped and sanded to final shape are hand carved. Somewhere between those extremes, most of us will find our own idea of what constitutes hand carved.
To me, there are steps along the way to a mandolin: -Logging, or harvesting wood - milling or processing -drying and seasoning -roughing out stock -wasting wood or preliminary carving -final carving -finishing.
People will choose to draw the line between hand carved or not hand carved in different places between those steps, and nearly all use power tools at least through roughing out stock, but in my opinion, a line between rough carving and final carving leaves us with a hand carved mandolin, or between any steps before that. In other words, if I bandsaw a back blank to shape and hack away excess wood using a gouge and a mallet, or if I borrow a side grinder with a Lancelot tool to waste excess wood, or if I use a Saf-T-Planer in a drill press, or if I send back blanks to be rough milled on a CNC machine I've accomplished the same step; -wasting wood or preliminary carving. So that's where I draw my own line. Once I've started final carving, you can't walk into the shop, look at the wood and tell which method I used to rough carve it anymore than you can tell whether the tree was cut with a crosscut saw or a chainsaw.
So what is the real difference "at the end of the day"? If we have a mandolin in our hands that is well designed, well carved, well constructed, well finished, sounds great, plays great and looks great, how can we tell if it was machine or hand carved? If we can't tell, does it matter?

Thank you, John. Or for that matter, which continent it is created on is also immaterial when all of the other factors you stated above are true.

[AlanN]

The term also imparts a certain level of olden-days quality from a bygone era with a potential resulting pricing effect:

Hand-carved vs. machine-made
Natural vs. artificial
Old school vs. new school
Better vs. worser

[James Rankine]

I bought an all laminate classical guitar from a car boot sale for £10. The label proudly proclaims "Hand Crafted" which is presumably some way down the pecking order from handmade. Strange really because I'm happy for my car to be built on a factory production line by robots and my life depends on it, but my occasional use beater guitar that gets left out in the garden when it rains must emanate from the loins of artisans.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Whenever I read "hand carved", I think of all the possibilities to screw up a piece of wood by hand, and I think of "labour intensive" (= expensive or breadline wages). But I may be evil.
The catchy "hand carved" phrase sure banks on our romantic tendency to imagine a well-seasoned and talented artist with a good feeling for wood and the skills to make a great instrument with a soul - instead of the sinister image of a machine-made mass product.

Other than that, sunburst nailed it - as so often.

[JEStanek]

Frankly, when I see Hand Carved, then I know it wasn't pressed into shape (even Collings and Rigel that use a lot of automation still make a superior product and have some hand time on the plates vs steam pressed). When I see solid top or back I know it isn't laminate.

The lack of SOLID or HAND CARVED in the description tells me more about the instrument than how much hand carving may have gone into it.

I hope that helps with the interpretations.

Jamie

[MikeEdgerton]

Frankly, when I see Hand Carved, then I know it wasn't pressed into shape...

How? I bet I can find you several mandolins that are currently advertised on eBay as hand carved that are most likely pressed. It's an over used term that really has a definition in the mind of the individual that might be far from what they actually think. I'm going to guess that those pressed A-40 backs that Gibson made back in the day were advertised as hand carved and not pressed. This isn't a new problem.

[bohemianbiker]

Deleted. Posted in wrong thread.

[ombudsman]

How? I bet I can find you several mandolins that are currently advertised on eBay as hand carved that are most likely pressed. It's an over used term that really has a definition in the mind of the individual that might be far from what they actually think. I'm going to guess that those pressed A-40 backs that Gibson made back in the day were advertised as hand carved and not pressed. This isn't a new problem.

Ebay descriptions by private sellers are a different problem. A shop or factory that is advertising their products is far less likely to make an objectively false advertising claim for legal reasons, and is going to have more scrutiny of their language over time compared to an auction listing.

Anyone experienced in the ways of ebay is going to know that they should do independent research and know what it is they are looking at for any and all features that matter to them so that they aren't taken in by people who are wrong or deliberately misrepresenting their wares. After all, those sellers can be just as wrong about anything else they are saying. The distinction between pressed and carved remains a real and objective one.

[MikeEdgerton]

That said, if this were to describe the work of the Most Interesting Man in the World, it would mean he's using his hand, and only his hand, to do the carving. bb

Stay thirsty my friend.

[MikeEdgerton]

Ebay descriptions by private sellers are a different problem. A shop or factory that is advertising their products is far less likely to make an objectively false advertising claim for legal reasons, and is going to have more scrutiny of their language over time compared to an auction listing.

Except if you actually find a factory page listing for many of the sources for those same mandolins they will say they are hand carved as well. To assume it's different because it's on eBay is actually wrong. Most of the folks selling those things got that description from the factory or distributor they are buying from.

[ombudsman]

Except if you actually find a factory page listing for many of the sources for those same mandolins they will say they are hand carved as well. To assume it's different because it's on eBay is actually wrong. Most of the folks selling those things got that description from the factory or distributor they are buying from.

I'm not assuming anything. I can be quite skeptical of sellers anytime and anywhere. Caveat emptor.

I suppose we are talking about relatively cheap imports ?

I don't see how you can fault the terms themselves as being ambiguous, when people misuse them. Any words can be misused. They still mean what they mean. A steamed and pressed top has not been carved, in reality. The distinction is not ambiguous.

[Willie Poole]

I have a mandolin that has the top and back and neck 100% hand carved after they were cut to a general shape using a saw, this builder didn`t have a CNC machine so he carve every thing and did the final work with small finger planes....I believe the onlt thing "hand carved" at the Martin factory is the neck of the guitar and that is done using a draw plane and is checked every few strokes using a template

I saw a double barrel shotgun advertised as being "Hand Made", now how does a person make the barrels by hand? Just seems like "Hand Made" or "Hand Carved" is just a play on words...

I don`t really pay any attention to the term, I just believe that the tops and back are finished by hand...

Willie

[Spruce]

Now, to a manufacturer, handcarved might represent the hand turning on the CNC...

Ya know, CNC's have kind of gotten a bum rap in discussions like these, but I can't think of an instrument that has benefited more from CNC technology than the F5 mandolin...

Take the neck joint alone...
Ever taken apart an old Gibson? Yikes.
Huge gaposis is the norm, and shims galore...
Compare that to a modern CNC'd joint that you can't find air to save your life...

The scroll area begs for a CNC solution, as a blonde Collings attests to...

And it sure is sweet having each and every fret in the right spot--hard to find on an old Gibson.

All of this adds up to a more accurate and better sounding instrument, IMHO.

I recently received 6 CNC'd plates for 3 Griffith A5 copies I'm doing, and it's a thrill knowing that I won't have to hog that wood into rough shape...
My wrists scream "thanks"...

YMMV...

[Eric C.]

Better grow out them fingernails and toss all your tools in the trash if you want to hand carve an instrument.

Nit picking about "hand carved" is about as ridiculous as my statement above. Does it really matter? "Luthier A" uses CNC because he/she has the equipment and the know-how. "Luthier B" uses CNC because he/she has connections for someone else to CNC for them. "Luthier C" doesn't use one because the number of mandolins/year they build only a handful of instruments per year and they don't mind wrecking their hands with hand carving. "Luthier D" refuses to use CNC due to tradition.

All of these luthiers hand carve the final curves, etc. I'm willing to bet the most expensive (new) mandolins of today are products of CNC during one or more steps of the build process.

[JEStanek]

Thankfully, I'm not in the buying market so much anymore. I've seen websites offer Trinity College Mandolins as made in Dublin! It pays to do your research when making a purchase. Now, I will look askance at a Commodium with a hand carved top!

Jamie