Last week office staff went to an exhibition of new classical Chinese style furniture. There were not only furniture factories, but also those selling almost frightening robot-like CNC machines… It made me wonder how much “hand made” is in threat of becoming less-abundant, even here, even in this land of workmanship and art …
There is no doubt, those CNC (computerized numerical control) machines are pretty impressive. It seems they can produce almost any shape at a preciseness that can not be achieved by the human hand.
But that is my first point of skepticism.
What is woodcarving about? What about the value of the labor, the skill of hand carving? Or is it only about how fine the result is? There is a certain kind of coldness to a perfect picture, or a computer-made drawing.
It is an art form, just like painting? Why don’t we hang computer-made print-outs on our wall instead of gouache paintings?
This point proves that hand carvings can never be completely replaced although in time CNC carvings may hold their own place in the art world.
Now a more practical approach is pointing out that computers do not create original designs. Only artists/craftsmen do. Acknowledging that carvings have a lot of cultural identity in them and every region has its own style (even specific to a particular craftsmen’s family) we then realize each carries a signature and is unique. Those styles have been passed on for generations.
Now who is going to make the CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawings, the blueprints for what the CNC uses? Also making CAD drawings is very labor intensive. (Those who are proficient at making them generally must have a very comprehensive technological background.) In fact, it may take even longer to design a carving on a computer as opposed to having a craftsmen actually sculpt his piece of wood.
Yes, once a computer design is created, it can be reproduced a hundred thousand times … that is indeed true … However, at that point we are now moving towards mass productions and essentially towards “IKEA-carvings”.
Nevertheless we are still interesting in the development of the CNC as it can do amazing things. And in fact it does actually increase the value and appreciation of actual hand carvings made by artisan craftsmen. In the long term, hand made carving will become a luxury, an expensive art. As for the antiques, the same counts, people will realize the amount of work put into certain pieces. It took man more than a thousand years to build a machine that can do almost the same.
On the internet, I have found some articles about this topic which are worth including here :
An inexpensive computerised numerical control (CNC) machine has helped start a new production woodworking business. The company produces complicated architectural ornamentation that was up till then mostly made by skilled craftsmen working with power tools. There is a substantial market niche for producing decorative woodcarvings faster, cheaper and at higher levels of accuracy. Low-cost CNC machines can accurately duplicate a computer aided design program in much less time than someone working by hand. Although clearly a skilled job, making complicated pieces such as carved mouldings and friezes is a very slow process by hand. The first piece is typically assigned to a very experienced and highly paid craftsman, who cuts it out with hand and power tools, then less experienced workers typically duplicate the piece using a tracer. One problem with this approach is that even the most skilled woodworker has difficulty accurately producing three-dimensional contours. The result is a piece that requires extensive finishing by hand, to chisel and sand the piece the way a customer wants it finished. The beauty of a CNC machine is that every detail of the piece can be defined to absolute perfection in the CAD/CAM software and allowing time for the operator to do something else while the machine produces the part.
While the CNC machine isn't perfect, the accuracy of the machines is far beyond what can be achieved by hand. However, every piece made will be just as good as the first one such that each piece coming off will need little hand finishing. While programming is a labour-intensive process similar to cutting out the first piece by hand, …
Read the full article here : https://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/mie/mie226.html
A few more examples of CNC carvings #
Since we have talked about CNC, lets also briefly look at the differences between a CNC carving and a hand carved one using the example below. Both have been sanded after the carving process.
The one on the left is hand carved. It is lively and has small imperfections. Its a piece of art.
The one on the right is CNC. Its perfect. Flawless. The sanding makes it even more flawless. Its “too perfect.” A product.
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