Handmade...

[wombat]

I brought this up in another thread but I reckon it justify's it's own. Basically, I'm a little confused by the concept of "handmade" products.
Firstly, what is handmade? I'd like to see anybody produce a frame using their bare hands, so where do you draw the line? Personally, I would define handmade as something made using manual techniques ie. hand turning/milling, and manual welding. Now I'm sure Gutty can preach to us the benefits of the accuracy of CNC procedures, but welding is probably more debatable.

Secondly, I'd like to know what value people place on handmade products. Guitar's are something else I know a little bit about, and this is an area where handmade products are valued very highly, but I also believe it's a completely different ball game, instruments have a personality, which I'm not sure that bikes do. It's hard to explain, but if you play you'll know what I mean. So, will you choose a handmade component over an equivalent amchine made part? Will you pay extra for something which has been handmade, if it has no real performance or longevity benefit?

Speak up, satisfy my curiosity.

 

[Ty]

meh, i don't really care where it's made and who it's made by, if it works then it works and if the company has good aftersale service then even better. good products get a good reputation reguardless of price.

 

[Rik]

Depends what for... like you said, something like a guitar where tiny little nuances are what makes the object what it is, handmade is good, but for something that's meant to be an accurate piece of work, I'd probably stick with machine made.

 

[Squidly Didly]

It's a tough call with accurate jobs. Machines still only do a quility job, if they are made and designed properly! oh here we go...

 

[bazza]

i will take what works, if it breaks buy something better. im tired cant be bothered to write a paragraph tonight.

 

[Rik]

what about machine made stuff, will you only buy it if the machine that made it was handmade, or machine made?
:lol:

 

[LTR]

whats the defination of 'custom'??

is that where someone makes it by themselves, with a machine??

 

[jays_5000]

cus·tom ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kstm)


adj.
Made to order.
Specializing in the making or selling of made-to-order goods: a custom tailor.

 

[Rik]

It can be custom handmade, custom machine made etc, but it's generally specific for yourself and your purposes.

 

[wombat]

what about machine made stuff, will you only buy it if the machine that made it was handmade, or machine made?
:lol:

It's irrelevant, you continue that line of reasoning to it's logical conclusion and everything came from the same lump anyway. :wink:

 

[125PHIL]

hand made vs machine made..uh oh here we go. well in my opinion.
people preach handmade is so much better than machine made, well as i said IMO, bollucks to them, taiwan manufacturing is so much better, they xray the first few frames of a batch on checking the welds etc, and there ussually perfect from there they make a batch, and they all come out exactly the same 100%, sure there is a fark up every now and again but its taken care off...the frames/ components are all welded correctly
..100% acturacy
while hand made frames hey may be good. but if the strenght - lastability is questionable...it ma be the same qaulity manufacturing or less
for example..canondale is my scape goat btw...say uts monday morning at the conondale factory and joe the welder is at his jig welding. the welds may not be accuarate..the machines wont miss a process. but joe may hve had a few beers the nite before, and the is not fully stoked on the job hes doing as hes been there for 15 years.. can you honestly say that his jobs will always be 100 perfect.? :?:

dont get me wrong some handmade frames are absolutely lovely and nice, eg the way the carbon is molded through the CNC machining of STS's and the old olmo road frame my mate has, but when you see a canondale like a eg. a super V u cant help but shudder, the way the two booms just stick out like dogs balls form the set/top tube to the down tube, and the fillet back pass welds that hold it on look more like blutack holding it on.
im just rambling now... my point is instead of forking over big bucks to get a hand made frame from USA etc, id be more happier with the same frame but made in taiwan...
am i overreacting here now.. if so im sorry

 

[Rik]

everything came from the same lump anyway. :wink:

Yeh a dirty old ore :lol:

 

[Guest]

meh as long as it works

 

[Grip]

Jesus, Shayne... what a worm can you've knocked over!

Might be oversimplifying here, but to me the terms "custom", "handmade" and "one-off" are (or should be) interchangable regardless of whether a part is truly made by hand and non-powered tools, on a machine but with manual control/processing, on an automated machine OR ANY COMBINATION OF ABOVE.

The term "handmade" though DOES imply something done entirely by manual process and we could argue/discuss for years whether or not that includes the "manual" controlling of machinery and power tools etc.

As for which is better... there's no such thing as better... only suitability, cost effectivness, market demands etc. I might charge $70 to "custom" make a part that a fully automated machine could pump out for $0.70, but to get the price down to that they have to be able to make (and sell) a million of them... my customer only wants one... so in MANY instances of "custom/one-off/handmade/" it's not so much "which is better" it's simply a matter of "what's the option".

 

[Gutty]

I was under the impression almost all high end frames were hand welded. I was once told by a very knowlegable guy that Pacific has a team of 10 or so welders that do Banshee, Craftworks, Schwinn etc.

This is very second hand info though so i could be very very wrong.

 

[belly_up]

I don't see any issues with machine made products.
As said above, basically anything that can be made by machine, can be made by hand as well, but as a general rule, the machine will have better repeatability and consistency.

For example. i fabricate lots of parts for my car. I can make 1 part that does what i want, quite easily. If i had 2 make 2 that were 100% identical, then thats harder. If i had to make 10, the chances of making a mistake or variation are greater. If i had to make 1 million, you could 100% guarantee that they would not all be identical.
Whereas a machine, if it can successfully make 1, then it can make 1 million the same.

Automated welding was a revolution for the car industry, it brought unheard of accuracy to the welding, and consistency of panel gaps and so on that was impossible previously. The exact same applies for bikes. If BMW and Porsche trust machines to weld their cars together, than i trust them to put my bike together.

I think what people should really be concerned about, is the *design* of the thing they're buying, rather than how it was constructed.
I'd rather buy a properly designed component made by a machine in taiwan, than a poorly designed component made by the best fabricator in the world.