[gitarro]

There doesn't seem to me to be any difference between the meaning of hand made and hand crafted - both seem to literally mean the same thing.

In any event it us a pointless distinction because even in the lagest factories guitsrs are still being made by human beings operating mostly hand tools and sometimes heavier machinery and sometimes directing computer assisted machinery. Even in the smallest luthiers workshops hand tools at the very least are still needed as there never was a luthier rough enough to cut and plane and shape wood with his or her bare hands alone!

To me a more useful distinction is between the approach and purpose of a factory and that of a luthier. A factory is one that makes and treats all its guitars as interchangeable products - they strive to make aln their processes produce as closely as possible the same product over and over again. Hence the individual differences between each set of wood are ignored and all pieces of wood are shaped and thicknessed according to the same standard specifications that are determined according to safety margins designed to limit warranty claims to as low as possible while using the guitars to still sound on average within tolerable levels of lack of responsiveness. Whereas the luthier is solely focused optimising the tonal potential and capabilities of the individual guitar that he makes so that every piece of wood used is chosen and thicknesses and formed to achieve a synthesis in the final build that produces the highest possible tonal benefits while still maintaining structural stability over the long term. Because of this individual focus, the luthier also sees each guitar as a unique work of craftsmanship that melds art and engineering and therefore he may cause the aesthetically pleasing elements of each guitsr to differ markedly one from another depending on the wishes of the customer

Hence the solo luthier may even used computer aided machinery to help her complete the huitar parts but as long as the objectives and methodology are that if a luthier and not factory, she is a luthier. On the other hand if he has the approach of a factory even though he us a one man show, then he is basically running an incredibly efficent factory.