Dwizum, it seems to me that the automation, whether cnc or more old school, allows us to focus less on the execution of a design and more on the design itself.
I think that's about right.
Since starting to use this machine I've been pondering that same thought. This is about what I've come up with:
1) CNC routers are slow. For simple flatwork, I can cut parts faster by hand. The plastic sheet shown above with 8 pieces to make the 4 bobbins for the guitar pickups took almost an hour and 15 minutes for this little router to cut.
2) CNC is dead accurate. This is obvious but it's a very nice benefit. The fit and finish of the parts is extremely good once you have things dialed in. A swipe over a file and that plastic flatwork is cleaner and nicer than factory produced guitar bobbins. And all the holes are positioned perfectly! When I've made flatwork by hand, it has been easy to get it good enough to make a good pickup, but it can be hard to make it good enough to look really good (the human eye is good at noticing things a tiny bit out of place) and small changes in how you make parts can change the fit with other parts. One batch of bass flatwork I made for my split humbucker design I decided to work harder at cleaning up the saw marks and as a result the pieces were all ever so slightly smaller so they were too loose to fit well in the router jig I made to cut the slots for the blades. No worries about that with CNC.
3)CNC is hands off once you're running. I can start a cut and then do something else for 45 minutes. It's like having a very well trained helper.
4)CNC shifts the mental work. This one is the hardest to describe but people who have done this can probably relate. When you are making flatwork by hand, it can be an iterative process, ie you're taking measurements, building jigs, and adjusting your process as you work it out. The mental work is happening while you have tangible things in front of you, and you're in the shop environment. With CNC, you still have to do all the same troubleshooting, but it's happening on a laptop in virtual space instead of in the real world.
It caught me off guard how impactful that last part is. For two reasons really. One, you can do the work anywhere, anytime. I've drawn pickup parts while watching Hallmark Christmas movies with my wife. Or while eating oatmeal at the kitchen counter at 5 am. Or while on a teams meeting at work.
Secondly, the mental shift means you need to be much better at conceptual thinking. I'm used to working things out in the real world - it doesn't matter what the diameter of this screw is as long as it fits in that hole - and you know the hole is right because you did the old trick of holding the drill bit up in front of the screw to check that it's the right size. In CAD you need to know that a #2 screw will self thread into a 2mm hole (or whatever). You have to do the math instead of just holding two things next to each other and saying "yup."
This machine is a great tool for what I want. Cutting odd parts for odd designs, and very low volume "production" of maybe a half dozen pickups for a certain design at a time. If I wanted to do 20 or 30 pickups at once I would want a very different setup.
