Handmade or machine-made...market research.

**Basschair** · #1 10-26-2007, 01:20 PM

Hello all,

I know, "machine-made" could mean a lot of things...let's assume that it means power tools and/or a mechanized process were used to fabricate the bows.

At any rate, if you had the choice and the price was the same...which would you buy, and why?

Bob Branstetter · #2 10-26-2007, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Basschair

He

At any rate, if you had the choice and the price was the same...which would you buy, and why?

It would all depend on who was doing the hand making. I've seen some pretty crude "hand made" bows on eBay by people who should never been allowed to get near to a bow. I'll take a good machine made bow over those every day of the week. However, if the person who made the bow is a master bow maker...

**Basschair** · #3 10-26-2007, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Branstetter

I've seen some pretty crude "hand made" bows on eBay by people who should never been allowed to get near to a bow. I'll take a good machine made bow over those every day of the week.

No doubt: those guys do a disservice to the industry as a whole.

I didn't want to specify in my OP as to quality, though I should probably say that the bows are of equal "craftsmanship."

dchan · #4 10-26-2007, 02:34 PM

It wouldn't matter to me.

The key point is that the bow should be easy to play, draw a nice sound, and be balanced. So I would pick the bow that I like better. Whether it was machine made or hand made shouldn't matter as long as I prefer that bow for its playing characteristics

Maybe your question was really this: if both bows looked exactly the same, cost exactly the same, played and felt exactly the same, drew the same sound, and cost the same, which one would you buy? Bear in mind one was made by robots and the other made by completely by human tools and effort, but both are exactly the same in every way.

I couldn't really answer that question. I really can't prefer a human-made bow to a machine-made bow because I really don't what the advantage of one is to the other if both were exactly the same. I guess any preference would purely be psychological.

**Basschair** · #5 10-26-2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dchan

Maybe your question was really this: if both bows looked exactly the same, cost exactly the same, played and felt exactly the same, drew the same sound, and cost the same, which one would you buy? Bear in mind one was made by robots and the other made by completely by human tools and effort, but both are exactly the same in every way.

Yes and no. For the most part, I'm curious to hear about the presence/absence of desire for one versus the other.

Silversorcerer · #6 10-29-2007, 06:54 AM

It seems like a question full of hypotheticals and qualifications. I wouldn't think a machine could make very informed decisions during the making process. Whether a human is using hand tools or power tools, the head of the maker might be more important than whether or not power tools are in the hand. If a human is using machines, power tools, then it is still made by human hands primarily, it just goes faster and is more efficient as long as there is a way to conveniently power the tools.

I suppose in a completely robotic process, if one exists, there would be a higher number of "reject" sticks that go all the way to finish and a greater material waste, whereas having humans do the work might consume more labor hours, but produce a higher number of usable bows. For the player, not knowing how it was made, it seems like performance would be the only really valuable measure.

If a player wants something that is entirely hand made, meaning no power tool use at all and only hand saws, spoke shaves, hand planes, knives, etc., then they might be paying for something that doesn't necessarily translate to performance, but might mean the maker must have more skill with those tools.

The question is one of those that is relevant perhaps now, but certainly that could change. What I mean is that it is likely that hand making processes will be around longer than machine making processes.

Heifetzbass · #7 10-31-2007, 04:23 AM

There have been numerous discussions about hand tools vs power tools over on mimf.com... you should check out that site if you haven't already.

Are you talking CNC vs hand tools? Many of the top bow makers rough out a stick using band saws, etc... do you mean only power tools?

I think a lot of bowmaking is feel. No machine can ever duplicate that. However, I have felt many bows that I wish the maker had better feel...

I would prefer a handmade bow. As long as the final fit, balancing, finish and curve are set by the maker. Up until that point, power tool away!

BG

**Bob Gollihur** · #8 10-31-2007, 02:28 PM

It's kind of tough to respond, as hand-made has so many variations in actual practice.

Frankly, while it could be romanticized, I think anyone not taking full advantage of the proper power tools to do routine work is wasting his time. As mentioned above, I've also recently seen a handbuilt instrument that was made by a skilled carpenter, so that otherwise impressive descriptor can be meaningless. Damn pretty, but nothing you'd want to play

As long as the guy at the controls or influencing and examining the interim steps throughout the process is a craftsman rather than just a machine operator, I don't think it matters. Given its overuse in the marketplace, I don't think "handmade" would influence me much if at all. Quality is quality regardless of how it got to that point.

**Basschair** · #9 10-31-2007, 03:41 PM

Thanks for the comments so far guys. I learned the process of stick carving by 100% hand (post cutting of the blank 1x2x32). It's a great process, and I have full respect for all the old school makers who go that route. I think that if I ever did try to do this for money, I'd probably have it as an option for those who were purists in that respect.

As it is now, every time I spend hours roughing out sticks, I can't help but think that I could do it in 15 minutes with the proper tool and jig. I probably get that from my EB-making side

. I'm jonesing for a few spare days to experiment with my router table. That way I could get a good roughout process in place, and do the rest by hand.

shostkontrabass · #10 10-31-2007, 10:02 PM

At face value, I prefer hand-made bows just because I know that a human being actually sat down and worked on the bow for hours and probably put a lot of emotion and feeling into it. I have a lot of respect for bow makers. However, I judge bows on how well they work for what I do and how I play. So if I were to find a machine-made bow that I could do everything I needed to with, I would probably consider it.