Quote:
Originally Posted by mirwa
That was what I was trying to get at, nothing to do with petes build, at what point do people feel pre made parts used in a build, make it more a guitar assembly rather than a guitar build, I genuinley do not know what others think, hence my enquiry, here in australia we have laws for descriptions.
It is like the cnc debate, if you are making an electric guitar and you use cnc to make the body, make the neck make the fretboard and all a person does is assemble with some glue and finish sand, is it a hand built guitar? Or machine built guitar.
We had a person local, building electric guitars from chinese diy kits and was calling them custom hand made guitars with his logo. Are they custom hand made guitars or simply assembled guitars by xyz.
Steve
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Those are all excellent questions. I think the answer depends a lot on the opinion of those buying them.
Clearly, there is a continuum. At one end of the spectrum, you have someone who cuts their own tree, processes it, dries it, and makes an instrument from it using basic machinery and hand tools, performing each and every step in the finished instrument.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have someone who buys fully completed components that require only glue, assembly and finish application.
What about someone in the middle who does most of the work but outsources something like fingerboard slotting? What about someone who does everything else but outsources finish application?
What about a guitar that is made by an entire assembly line, where each person on the assembly line does one and only one step towards the finished instrument. Even if each and every step is done "by hand", is that a "custom-made" or "handmade" instrument? Does it matter if both the assembly line instrument and the one-guy (or gal) made instrument are "quality" products?
Then there is the issue, as you raised, about automated machinery and processes (e.g. CNC).
Manufacturing in the 21st century: lots of questions. Not many answers but probably lots of opinions that are, effectively, answers.