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Episode 11 - Is CNC Woodworking?
1.2k Plays6 months ago
CNC technology is currently one of the most divisive topics in our craft. Many argue, CNC use should NOT be considered woodworking, while others insist that it's just another tool, and these "growing pains" occur whenever a new technology comes into the craft. This speaks to a larger issue of innovation & technology adoption in the arts and the challenges it poses to fields steeped in tradition.
Join us for a spirited discussion analyzing BOTH SIDES of this fascinating topic. To watch the YOUTUBE VIDEO of this episode and the irreverent & somewhat unpredictable AFTERSHOW, subscribe to our Patreon: http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467
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Transcript
Introduction and Topic Overview
00:00:17
Speaker
What is up, maker community? Welcome back to your favorite non-woodworking podcast called Woodworking is Bullshit. I'm your host, Paul Jasper, woodworker at night, scientist by day, and I'm joined with my two fabulous, amazing, astounding, illuminating co-hosts, Eric Curtis, full-time furniture maker and content creator, and Mary Tassai, AI designer by day, contemporary furniture maker by night when she has power in her shop.
00:00:27
Speaker
Thank you.
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone. We're happy to record another episode. This is two episodes in the same week, so you're getting fresh off our last episode. Oh, yeah.
Is CNC Considered Woodworking?
00:00:59
Speaker
Today's episode is about a hot button topic. We thought we would poke the bear. This is a question I've always featured on my Instagram, and boy, does it elicit a lot of hot opinions, and that's why I suggested it. The question of today is, is CNC woodworking?
00:01:13
Speaker
Thanks, Todd.
00:01:21
Speaker
Ouch. Yes.
Arguments Against CNC as Woodworking
00:01:23
Speaker
And there's going to be, now, it's not going to be as simple as, well, it is or it isn't. I think I would like to start by coming up with some arguments why it should be considered work working. And I'd love to consider arguments where it's not and sort of deconstruct why people feel the way they do. So why don't we start
00:01:44
Speaker
with the people who say no CNC should not be considered woodworking. So
00:01:53
Speaker
For example, can the three of us think of ways or reasons why it should not be considered woodworking? So I'll start one. I'll say, you know, no often stems from this pattern that many people who own CNCs, you know, this pattern that they do, where they basically have a CNC, they get it set up, they download some pattern files, and they just start cutting shit on it. And they say, oh, look at this thing I made.
00:02:21
Speaker
And it's like, well, you didn't design it. You didn't think about the wood. You literally downloaded like a pattern from a template file or some chat group on Facebook and you hit go. That's a tough one. You know, that's not really. Woodworking, per se. Are we going to play devil's
The Role of Design in Woodworking
00:02:40
Speaker
advocate right off the jump and argue yes and no, because I could I could.
00:02:46
Speaker
Say like everybody starts off making cutting boards and what you do is you buy a table saw and you buy S4S lumber from the lumber yard and you just cut straight lines and glue it back together. That's no different than putting a piece of wood on a CNC and cutting out a shape. It's the exact same process. It's a mechanical process where you're not considering design material, final object. So what's the difference? Oh, I like that. Well, some people would say that you do,
00:03:13
Speaker
quote unquote, design the cutting board, even if it's in the simplest form. Wait, wait, wait. Time out. Mary, you said the word that I think we're going to come back to, which I think is a differentiator is the word design. All right. I thought you were going to say something. Yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker
No, I don't know. So I would just want to put that word design in the back of your head because I think that's where this may go to ultimately. Okay, so back to it.
CNC and Traditional Skills Debate
00:03:46
Speaker
So, Eric, I asked you a few days ago about, can you come up with an argument for why CNC is should not be considered woodworking? And you said the following and I quote, because I know you did you write it down? Did you write? No, I don't remember what I said at this point.
00:04:06
Speaker
It was surprisingly eloquent and I don't know why you're surprised by my ability to articulate my thoughts and emotions, sir. So you said, and I quote.
00:04:21
Speaker
It undermines the development of traditional skills. It's the antithesis of self-reliance and forces the contemporary woodworker to become reliant on gizmos and gadgets sold to us by big tech companies whose highest purpose is to get us to become slaves to a subscription service." End quote. I'm the most pompous of assholes.
00:04:44
Speaker
Now I will say this, I will say this. I wrote that you asked us to come up with an argument why CNC is not woodworking. And that was written from the point of view of somebody who believes that. That is not my, I want to put that into the universe right
CNC in the Evolution of Woodworking
00:04:58
Speaker
now. That is not my personal viewpoint. However,
00:05:01
Speaker
I do think it is a fair argument to make that I would agree the death of quote unquote skill or let's call it craftsmanship because we're talking specifically about woodworking because CAD work is a skill right in a valuable skill at that. But when we're talking about like the artisanal aspect of cutting dovetails or whatever the fuck you want to talk about.
00:05:23
Speaker
There is an argument to be made that taking that out of the hands, taking the saw out of the hands of the craftsperson and having repeatability replace it is a detriment to the continued development of skill and craft.
00:05:40
Speaker
Now, Mary, I asked you the same question. I said, can you think of an argument why it should not be considered? We're working. And by the way, for the audience, we started with no, because I think to come up with no arguments is actually harder. Because the truth is the three of us think it is pretty much woodworking. And that comes easy. We can think of a million reasons why it is considered. We're working. But I wanted to challenge us and lead off with the
00:06:05
Speaker
Devil's advocate view like why when is it not or when should it not be considered rule working so Mary I don't know I guess maybe it kind of You're gonna make fun me again, but it kind of depends on your definition of woodworking
00:06:20
Speaker
Oh, this girl in definitions, man. I love definitions. No, but like, you know, if you what you consider woodworking is going to be totally different from someone else. So yeah, I think the three of us have a pretty similar viewpoint of utilizing woodworking in your craft is obviously like, I mean, CNC in your woodworking craft, like, I think that makes sense. But the argument that I can think of is I know, like, some people maybe on like Etsy who just do it for back for batch production, and they don't
00:06:49
Speaker
you know, know much about how wood works or think about, you know, creative direction or like the design and they just downloaded like a specific template or something off of, I don't know, some, some website, like maybe that would be the case. I don't know, I personally still think there's a bit of a, I don't know, some sort of skill there. But
When is CNC Considered Woodworking?
00:07:12
Speaker
that would be my argument that I could think of.
00:07:16
Speaker
Hmm. Well, Mary, in fact, in our private group chat, you asked chat GPT was always, and you did, you don't seem to remember what chat GPT told you. Uh, I don't remember. Okay. Well, unless you have it. Of course I have it.
00:07:38
Speaker
So ChatGPT argued, one argument is automation versus manual skill. Woodworking is part of a tradition where manual skills are highly regarded and respected like carving and sawing and joining, whereas automation further reduces the hands-on skill that built this craft. So it gets us away from the hand skills that perpetuate it. Second,
00:08:00
Speaker
artistry and individuality. So each piece created by a traditional woodworker can be unique, reflecting that artisan's personal touch, decision making, and spontaneous adjustments during the crafting process, whereas CNC machines, on the other hand, produce items based on a preset design of parameters, which leads to uniformity throughout thousands of pieces of production. So an artistry piece. The third
00:08:24
Speaker
is that knowledge and intuition that woodworkers often develop a deep understanding of the intuition about their materials. For example, different types of woods, how they work, how to grain direction, how to accentuate certain grain patterns when you make things. And Eric, I know you and
00:08:42
Speaker
Uh, we do that all the time, you know, whether it's sad wood and not, uh, CNC operators may not knew that, may not feel that so deeply. They may just chuck
CNC and Creativity
00:08:51
Speaker
a piece of wood on and saw it up. Right. Now I'm generalizing we're coming to why CNC is, uh, is we're working. So don't, don't lose, don't lose your shit on me. Okay. I find myself weirdly like having to hold back against our doing against these points right now, but we're making the point as to why it's not woodworking right.
00:09:10
Speaker
And finally, cultural and historical aspects. This is a craft that we love. The three of us deeply love this craft. It has a rich history and a huge cultural significance over centuries, if not millennia.
00:09:25
Speaker
where hand tools and techniques were passed down through generations. CNC technology does not connect us to this heritage in such a deep and instant way. It has a little bit of a wall with it at the moment. So, Mary, those were your chat GPT answers. I thought they were quite good. I obviously agreed with all of them or I wouldn't have read them.
00:09:50
Speaker
Of course. That's what chat GVD is good at. Analyzing all the thoughts that people have on the internet and summarizing. I'm a big fan. I just want to do one more small conversation about the no part. For those people in the community who are like, no, it's not. Is there something that they feel or beyond these reasons, is there a feeling they're saying no?
00:10:20
Speaker
Why are they gatekeeping what woodworking is for the rest of us? Why can't they be more fluid? Go ahead, Mary. My question is, these people who say that it's not woodworking, have they ever used a CNC? The vast majority have not. Exactly. So that would be my question to them.
00:10:42
Speaker
maybe try it and see how you could enhance your current skill set with it. Yeah, I feel like a lot of people just do not use it because they have this mindset of like, oh, I absolutely don't want to utilize technology or anything. I don't know. I don't look, I'm going to label it as a loss of version. That's the improper way to label it, but I think it's not dissimilar.
00:11:12
Speaker
What do you think, loss what? Loss aversion? Oh, definitely, definitely likes a virgin for some reason. Loss versions. Lesson, lost versions is going to be the name of my autobiography, but that's neither here nor there.
00:11:31
Speaker
So the idea we've gone down that road. Eric, you will Eric, you will not be naming your autobiography. You listen, you don't want to put money on that, buddy. No, here's here's I'm going to make this argument in defense of these people in a way I think actually does matter or ring true. So
00:11:57
Speaker
You're talking about a group of people. We're going to generally assume that they're older folks because most often the oldest folks are the ones who are most against, you know, upcoming technologies. And in our particular instance, I mean, it might be, but like, I don't think I'm wrong by the numbers. I think that this is a group of people who have spent a lifetime developing a skill.
00:12:23
Speaker
And many of them, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say many of them have become very good hobbyists. And then you have a thing come along and a bunch of fucking 20 something year olds who know better than they do because every 20 year old knows how to make the world a perfect place. And the generations before them have failed to make a utopia and they have this technology.
00:12:47
Speaker
That was amazing by the way. It's ageism again but in the reverse. They have this technology that allows them to master the skill that this person has spent 50 years fucking figuring out and getting good at and they can do it in a matter of days.
00:13:03
Speaker
And part of it is anger. Part of it is frustration that they didn't have that same opportunity. But part of it is like a self defense of saying like, you don't understand the value of what you're doing until you spend the time developing the skill to be able to do it. I don't remember
Machine-made vs. Handcrafted: The Soul Debate
00:13:21
Speaker
who it was. And this is a poor parallel, but I don't think it's inappropriate. There was a
00:13:27
Speaker
a philosopher who basically equated taking mushrooms to in like having kind of that spiritual experience that comes along with hallucinogens to skipping the process of developing the skill set needed to get deep into meditation and experience the spiritual world in that regard. It's that same kind of shortcut.
00:13:47
Speaker
And I feel like that's where so much of that that vitriol is coming from of this thing of I had to spend decades getting good at a thing. And you don't even understand the value of what you're doing at this moment. And you can just do it. Do you think there's truth in that? I think there is truth in that. I don't know that it's
00:14:07
Speaker
self-awareness like I don't I don't think a lot of those folks are aware that that's why they're frustrated but it is that loss aversion of like so what you're telling me is I didn't I just wasted the last 50 years of my life I could just wait until 2024 and tell a machine to do it and I didn't have to
00:14:24
Speaker
Well, specifically what I'm asking Eric is did those people putting in the years and the time did that give them a skill set or a perspective that makes their work more meaningful or
00:14:44
Speaker
or let's say has more significance in a way than simply a computer carved thing. I don't know that it does. But I think that it can it has the the their
00:14:57
Speaker
The availability of appreciation is greater because of the amount of time that you've spent with the skill, with the craft, with the object, what have you. Versus when you spend five minutes with a thing because you just put it on the CNC bed, you hit a button and then you were surfing the web and looking at
00:15:16
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not going to make a dick joke there. Whatever you're looking at. I would certainly argue. There's a disassociation there.
00:15:30
Speaker
I would certainly argue that my 15 years of woodworking prior to getting my CNC very, very much changed how I see the CNC fitting into my creative process, how I think about wood interacting with it, the grain orientation, what I want to do with it. I can't say what the opposite would be because I didn't live it. I only have one vantage point, which is 15 years of
00:15:59
Speaker
machine and hand tool more very traditional woodworking prior to the CNC. So I kind of get that there is some value in earning your stripes kind of in the, in the tradition and then using the new technology to accelerate, like learn the rules before you break the rules kind of thing. Yeah, right. Well, that, I think that's exactly the argument. And so like as an example, and this is not the example of the extent to which one can use a CNC, but I think it's a pertinent example.
00:16:28
Speaker
The desk I'm sitting at right now, the top is made from curly eucalyptus, and it sucked. It was a real pain in the dick. But when I flattened it, I used the CNC to flatten it. I just programmed it
The Vital Role of Design
00:16:43
Speaker
to take off as many passes as I need and got it flat.
00:16:47
Speaker
I have flattened slabs by hand. I have flattened slabs with a router jig. When I put this thing on the CNC and hit the button and literally sat down and read a book, the amount of gratitude I felt for the CNC that I didn't have to do that fucking grind work was immense. And that's a thing that you don't experience unless you've done it the other way. Great point. Great example. So some people think that
00:17:18
Speaker
Whether something qualifies as woodworking is that it simply needs to be made out of wood. Is that too permissive of a definition?
00:17:28
Speaker
I don't think so. I think that's how I define it. Yeah, that's my guiding principle creatively. I call myself a woodworker because my core medium is wood. Okay, so yeah, would someone marry then with someone who walks into a CNC shop off the street never touching wood before and they load a block of wood onto the CNC and hits the button to execute the program. Are they a woodworker?
00:17:56
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question. And I think I have an answer, but I'm gonna let Mary answer first. Hmm, it's a good question. Oh, man, because I want to say yes, but it doesn't feel right to say that for some reason in my mind. I don't know. Okay, so this is somewhat tangential, but
00:18:26
Speaker
related. When I was in grad school, I took furniture design class and a lot of these students who were undergrads, they did not know, you know, traditional principles of woodworking. They hadn't really built furniture before.
00:18:42
Speaker
They did see the advantage of a CNC because they came up with the most incredible designs that I never would have been able to think of. And a
CNC's Broad Applications
00:18:53
Speaker
lot of that is because they're so new to this field. They're not limited by rules and limitations. One, two, they have ability to access software like 3D modeling, things that we would not normally incorporate into our woodworking
00:19:11
Speaker
process, but they have access to all these things. And they come up with the most incredible designs and put that on the CNC because they know, oh yeah, I know that this machine can't produce this.
00:19:22
Speaker
And in that case, I would have argued maybe they were a woodworker, maybe it's more of like they consider themselves designers. I would actually say that they would consider themselves designers and not woodworkers. And this is also something that is talked about in the industrial design field too, for people who design furniture and they know how it's made, but they don't do it themselves. So they consider themselves industrial designers, just furniture designers, but not actually woodworkers. So it has to do more with the medium.
00:19:52
Speaker
There's that word again, design. Yeah, for sure. So I know I didn't really answer your question. I don't, I don't really have a good answer. Yeah. What, what, no, no. Why don't you answer the damn question and Eric, I know you're chomping at the bit to answer it, but let's, let's hold, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Let's hold Mary.
00:20:12
Speaker
For those who haven't noticed, Mary fucking asks me to define every goddamn thing at the front of every episode. We're like, hustle culture. How do you define hustle culture? Burnout. How do you define burnout? Mary, you fucking know how to define burnout. Why are you playing the fool with me? But not everyone does.
00:20:31
Speaker
Okay, Mary. So you take someone off the street. His name's like Roberto. You take Roberto off the street and you put him on a CNC machine. You're like, Roberto, take this slab of pine, stick it on the machine and hit the green button. Is Roberto a woodworker? Hmm. I guess in my perspective, no.
00:20:53
Speaker
Wow. Wow, really taking a hard stand against Roberto, huh? God, Mary. I'm sorry, Roberto. That's fine. OK, Eric.
CNC as an Expansive Creative Tool
00:21:02
Speaker
Fucking elitist, but that's good. Eric, you're chomping, bitch. OK, OK, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on.
00:21:09
Speaker
So the way you set that scenario up, he doesn't have any part of the setting up of the CNC. He doesn't do anything. This is my point. This is my point. All right. All right. Go ahead. So here's what I want to say. I want to throw in a new word, because we're talking a lot about design. I'm going to throw in the word independence.
00:21:29
Speaker
because Roberto in this particular scenario, I don't think is a woodworker. If Roberto can walk in, if you give him a couple of weeks, if you give him a month, three months, whatever the training period is, and he can walk in and he knows how to set up the CNC and he understands and knows how to read the CAD files and he can manipulate those CAD files as needed or plant them on the CNC properly in order to then cut the parts.
00:21:54
Speaker
Then I'm going to make the argument that he is a woodworker, the same as Mary trying to differentiate designer from woodworker. They don't have the independence in a woodshop sans CNC to make objects. So they're not woodworkers, but they do have the independence to come up with creative and interesting designs. And so they are designers.
00:22:13
Speaker
there's this word again design that's the one but I don't I I think I don't know that there's a way to talk about woodworking and design separately but I think the the point I'm trying to make is I think maybe that the the skill set developed far far enough deeply enough that you can be independent in your work whether it's good or not is not the point but you can
00:22:37
Speaker
go from A to Z in your work without somebody holding your hand, that takes you from apprentice to journeyman. And that's when I think that you can say that you're a
Final Reflections on CNC in Woodworking
00:22:46
Speaker
woodworker or whatever skill set you're developing. I like it. That's good. It kind of depends on like, I mean, there's different kinds of woodworkers. There's people who are hand tooled workers, power tool woodworkers, like this is just what, like a CNC woodworker, a digital woodworker of some sort. It's just another category.
00:23:02
Speaker
Okay, just a very quick one minute aside. Mary, you said there's hand tool woodworkers, machine woodworkers. What percent are you machine versus hand tool? I'd say a more machine probably like 70-30. Eric? I mean, realistically, I'm probably around that same thing 70-30. I try to incorporate hand tools as much as I can. But you know, I also have a mortgage to pay.
00:23:31
Speaker
I'd say I'm 60-40, 60% hand tool, 40% machine.
00:23:37
Speaker
Something about that, yeah. I'm a little more high in tooling. So I'm curious, are we just saying overall use of tools? Yeah. Or are we weighing the import of the process that is being accomplished with those tools, right? Because ripping wood by hand doesn't matter if you knew that with a table saw or not. Yeah, it's stupid. Yeah, it's stupid. But if you're routing profiles versus hand planing profiles, and that affects the way you approach the piece,
00:24:06
Speaker
I was just overall time in the shop. Anyway, I don't want to get off the CNC argument. I was just curious. That was an interesting point. I wanted to chase that. So now, we've given due course to when CNC cannot be considered woodworking, or we don't consider it wood. There's no absolutes here. But now, let's talk about when it is considered woodworking, because I think that's our basic set point for the three of us, right?
00:24:36
Speaker
You know, the basic argument, and I think everyone feels this,
00:24:43
Speaker
And you guys tell me if you feel this too, is that it's just another fucking tool in the shop. Just the way the table saw was, right? Just the way a router was just the way a shaper, you know, it's just another tool and you need a good woodworker to figure out when to use it to, you know, distinguish the use cases for it to, you know, tastefully use it in the right way. Okay.
00:25:12
Speaker
Is that is that where you guys are at? Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I mean, so that's that's the summation 100%. Yeah. All right. So if that's the case, it's it's just another tool in the tool belt. And you know, for the listener, sorry, it's 25 minutes in. And we're just getting to how you feel. I know most of you probably feel this way.
00:25:32
Speaker
We thought it would be interesting to play devil's advocate with ourselves because that's what we do. You know, this podcast isn't about like consensus thinking and bandwagon. Like I do enjoy and Eric and Mary, we do enjoy kind of challenging our own views to see why we think that way. Is there another way to look at it? So that's why we do things like this. So given that I think the most of us feel like it's just another tool in the tool belt, why is there
00:26:02
Speaker
growing pains about this tool. Look, we've done this before. You know, it used to be pit saw, right? Sawing lumber pit saw back in the 1800s or whatever the fuck. And then the table saw or the band saw came online. And it's like, and you know, there's been case after case after case of a tool replacing a manual labor approach.
00:26:27
Speaker
We've seen this 15 times in a row. How do we not recognize this is just another step in the same evolution?
00:26:39
Speaker
Because tribalism. We want to belong to a group. And when you belong to the group that says that this upcoming generation isn't as good as the generation that I'm a part of, then you immediately, you're validating yourself. This is what we do. People shat on millennials for the last 20 years. Now everybody's like, fucking Gen Z don't even want to work 40 hours a week.
00:27:05
Speaker
You know? And Gen X's are like, we didn't even have a part of the conversation. I don't know what's going on. Hey, bitch. I'm Gen X. Watch yourself. It's how it goes. It's how it goes. Watch yourself, bitch. Listen, boomer. I don't know what to tell you, bud. I'm not a fucking boomer. I'm Gen X.
00:27:25
Speaker
No, I think I think a big part of it is just belonging to a cohort of people and that echo chamber that's created by the internet of saying like, Hey, we're right. Yeah. And then everybody chimes in and like, absolutely. We're fucking right. This is not a tool. It's fucking dumb. And everybody sucks now.
00:27:46
Speaker
Eric, you gave me another quote in our private chat that is more or less the same answer, but God, your eloquence in this group chat is so good. I'm going to quote it again, and it's more or less what you just said, but I think it's worth quoting because it was quite good. Ready? I see you turning red.
00:28:08
Speaker
That's good. That's cuz well, first of all, it's hot in here second because I think I brought up some political points Which you know, I don't want to shit on people for but fine. Well, okay. No, I will skip the political points for your for your To save you we have an innate desire to belong to a group and by definition a group means that some people aren't in it throwing a healthy fear of technology and loss of individual agency and It becomes I robot
00:28:37
Speaker
It's not sponsored by iRobot. And by the way, I have two Roombas in my house and I fucking love them just for the record. Me too, me too. I love them. We're the capital. I don't know. I don't know that I'll ever have a Roomba. This is like weirdly where I draw the line.
00:28:58
Speaker
I know, I know it's a weird line to draw. So Eric, one of the phrases that I thought was really interesting is you said a fear of technology. And I do not have that fear. I'm a child of computers. I built computers when I was a teenager. I use computers in my job. I code. I do modeling. So
00:29:19
Speaker
With regards to that phrase, fear of technology is the fear component that we risk losing certain traditional art forms as more people embrace technology that can
00:29:32
Speaker
kind of make it more easy and approachable. Is that the fear? Where's the fear component? Well, the fear is the unknown, right? And I'm gonna push back against you saying that you don't have a fear of technology. I know you're very open to technology and we all grew up with computers, but let's just take AI, for example. The world is flipping out about fucking AI for the last 12 months. Not because it's any different from what we know, but because we don't know.
00:29:59
Speaker
And so there will come a point, I think, in all of our lives where we hesitate with a piece of technology, and it might get us to pause and question things. And I think that's the unknown that I'm pointing at. Some people will respond negatively to that. But that's the unknown. And to that unknown, I think the fear then
00:30:23
Speaker
drives to, well, this is the death of craft. It's the same when listen when the camera came out, people are like fucking painters are dead. Like what's the goddamn point, there's not going to be any reason to paint anything anymore. And what happened was painting went from a craft to an art.
00:30:40
Speaker
And I think the same thing is going to happen in furniture of now that you have the ability to produce things at speed faster than any human can possibly make, you can make a chair on a CNC in literally minutes.
00:30:54
Speaker
So the idea of making a chair by hand is going to be relegated to the hobbyists and to the people who take the chair and push it forward in form. And some people would call those folks artists. So I think it's just going to shift from being seen as a craft to being seen as an art form.
00:31:13
Speaker
or a form of self-expression. I think fear of technology is not a bad thing. I think everything should always be questioned, obviously. It's just whether or not your fear is being pushed upon others. And you're letting it then cloud your judgment of how other people use it. So if you choose not to use technology yourself, sure, all for it.
00:31:42
Speaker
I don't think, like where it becomes unhealthy and probably negative is when you decide to degrade other people for not embracing your viewpoint on that. Well, that's the tricky part of it though, right? Because I am a big believer in we need both sides of the coin. We need the people who are going to push things forward and try new technologies and take risks.
00:32:08
Speaker
But you also need the people who are going like, Hey, Doug, you might want to think about that for a half second before you do it. Yeah, those are valuable people. I'm in the former camp for sure. But I also value when people are like, Hey, have you thought about that? That's like my job every day.
00:32:27
Speaker
where my team's like, we're in charge of AI. But also, well, and the cure is this right? This is from from my ignorant standpoint about AI. I think it's hilarious the amount of fear that's happening about AI right now. But I also value that that conversation is happening because without that, the unchecked progressing of AI would probably lead to some terrible things.
00:32:55
Speaker
But I think it's very funny that people are like, hey, I was going to destroy the world. I'm like, listen, they're going to eat up all the books in the next two years. And then AI is going to stall until we provide them with more books. Like, that's what's going to happen. Well, for those that don't know, our previous episode, which will be released tomorrow, May 1st is on AI. So if you want to hear more about Go Back One episode, if you haven't already. Mary, I wanted to ask your point on this.
00:33:24
Speaker
Do you think we risk losing certain traditional art forms due to innovation and technology? For example, does the laser technology, cutting out marketry or cutting out shapes, does that lead to a loss of traditional market? Does it threaten traditional marketry, for example?
00:33:42
Speaker
Hmm, possibly. I mean, I feel like the younger generations are probably going to rely on what is easier and faster. However, those who are truly interested are probably going to want to know the history behind it as well. So if you become interested in a subject, hopefully, if you have a creative and curious mind, you'll also want to understand what the other possibilities are to create that thing and
00:34:09
Speaker
you know, understand the history behind it. That may not always be the case. I might be giving generations too much credit, but I guess to answer your question, yeah, possibly, but also does it matter?
00:34:27
Speaker
I, you know, I would argue it does. I'm a bit of both. I tend to learn the traditional method first, and I do it for a couple years. And then I sell a treat myself to the technology version. And because I, I was the opposite. I because I grew up in a world of computers, 3d graphics and, you know, modeling. So I learned that first and then went to and then I became interested in it. And then
00:34:54
Speaker
What in the opposite direction well, that's really interesting because I think it proves the point that there's no one way or right way to do this but yeah, I absolutely have an interest in the traditional hand tool methods because I enjoy them and
00:35:09
Speaker
I definitely enjoy them more than programming a CNC or a programming computer. I'll tell you that much. Sitting there, doing it by hand, at least most of the time, it just gives me a peace and a quiet and a meditation that I enjoy a little more than being in front of a computer, probably because my job is in front of a computer. So I want to get away from the computer. I think that's a big piece of it.
00:35:33
Speaker
So I want to switch gears now and it comes back to this word tech design that I kept saying, remember this word design. And the reason I feel like design is so important, I was talking to my friend, John Welch.
00:35:49
Speaker
John Francis Designs on Instagram. John is a CNC expert. He has run a CNC shop, helped run, that made pasta extrusion dies for 20 years. And he's in his early 40s. He's not old. Like he's done this since high school, right? Kind of thing.
00:36:11
Speaker
And so John now runs a full-time woodworking business and he makes ravioli molds using the CNC machine. And I asked John like,
00:36:21
Speaker
You know, when does CNC to you feel like woodworking and when does it not? And I asked John because he also does a lot of classic woodworking, a lot of textures and a lot of carving. And I asked John his opinion and he came up with the definition that it really hinges on this idea of design. Like if you're going to a CNC and you're designing a beautiful piece, like
00:36:46
Speaker
whether it's on a computer or you're drawing it and then you put it in the computer, the element of doing the design is
00:36:58
Speaker
a part of what makes it woodworking. And I think both of you said that earlier that designing the piece is part of like, yes, that that's woodworking. Whereas if you just download a program and push a button, no, no, no, that doesn't really feel like woodworking to us. That design is part of this
00:37:17
Speaker
I don't know, part of the process. I mean, think of this group. Think of this group. That's not surprising at all. We all equate design and woodworking together as opposed to people who consider woodworking just a craft and a way to make something. So we all have similar viewpoints on that, I think.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah. So that's why I kept, I kept harping on that word design because I feel like the intuition about using the CNC. So one of the points he brought up was that CNC is a great tool for rapidly iterating design ideas because he couldn't rapidly iterate them nearly as fast without a CNC. He could, he could go from idea to pilot to pilot project is just see if the idea holds water in a matter of 30 minutes. And if he had to do it by hand, it would be days.
00:38:05
Speaker
So it's an iterative technology, it allows us to explore our ideas. So I would ask the two of you, are there certain designs or design ideas that the shaper or the CNC has allowed you to do that you couldn't otherwise do? Oh, several joinery components that if I had to build four to five separate jigs to knock this thing out, it would have been a nightmare.
00:38:33
Speaker
But I can do the files on the shaper origin, and then implement them in a matter of minutes. I don't even have to go to my computer, I can do it right on tool. And then all of a sudden, I'm playing with, you know, different exposed through tenants that that add an element to a piece that I never would have done in a traditional sense, because I'm way too lazy to build a four stage jig. Are you kidding me? There's no way I'm doing that.
00:38:59
Speaker
And if I do it, I'm never building another piece. I'm never building another iteration of that. I'm certainly not seeing if it works, you know?
00:39:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, to speak on your friend's point of iterating, for me, that is 100%. I can 3D model faster than I can sketch, because that is just how I was trained. It's all I knew my entire life. So the ability to just throw something into a 3D, I use Rhino, but into a 3D modeling program and see the form come to life is so much faster. And the fact that I can copy it and make small changes
00:39:36
Speaker
as opposed to starting over like a new sketch or having to use trace paper etc and then throwing that into a laser and just like very quickly modeling up a prototype that is so much faster for me so i can definitely relate to that well i would say for me you know the the ability uh the cnc has enabled designs that i would never even think to try by hand like for example some of the japanese patterns
00:40:01
Speaker
How the fuck are you gonna do those by hand? Thousands of lines in like a very precise geometry. How are you gonna do that by hand?
00:40:11
Speaker
I mean, I know you can, I know you pencil it out and you carve it one by one, you know, and you can, but I wouldn't do it. I don't want to give two months of my time to just trying a pattern. But so patterns and intricate designs and computer generated designs have been entirely enabled that CNC. I got to tell you guys, I never thought I would
00:40:35
Speaker
really need a CNC or enjoy it in terms of design, that thing gets used on every single project I do now. It is the most underrated tool in my shop. I'm so surprised, Eric. Yeah, what do you think?
00:40:52
Speaker
Well, I'm curious, you were bringing up patterns. And the first thing, like I'm seeing that kind of Japanese kind of Kumiko style pattern that you've done a lot of inlays in. And I'm wondering, is that why people, like, is that why Kumiko has had kind of a rebirth? Like, is it the taking the hard path to gain what they assume is value in there rather than
00:41:20
Speaker
Um, a pattern like the Kumiko pattern could be done on a CNC, like you can do it out all of that waistline. I do it all the time and I've seen it. Yeah. I've seen it done on CNC. Yeah. And yet, yeah. Like everybody's doing fucking Kumiko these days.
00:41:36
Speaker
And like, I don't, you know, I don't listen, I don't mean to be a dick. Kumiko is not interesting. Like, it's not unique. It's not like something new. It's kind of a boring pattern. I totally disagree. I couldn't disagree more, you prick. And that's fine. That's fine. That's right. You're allowed to disagree. No, no, no.
00:42:01
Speaker
I'm just curious if that's why it has this resurgence right now, or at least it feels like this resurgence of when it becomes able to do digitally, repetitively, then this desire to do it the hard way, quote unquote, has a rise. Well, I don't think so because I've only seen one person use a CNC to do a Camico, actually do a proper Camico.
00:42:30
Speaker
The other people are all doing it by hand. And I don't think those people have CNCs. So I think they just like Kumiko because it looks nice. So you're wrong, Prick. I think it looks great. I want to fight. I want to fight to happen. Yeah, me too. Because I think Japanese patterns are amazing. And I force myself, Eric, you little prick, I force myself.
00:42:54
Speaker
I'm just kidding. I love you. I force myself to draw them de novo. I don't download them. I draw them de novo to learn about the geometry. Is it 60, you know, 30, 60, 90 kind of isosceles triangles or the equilateral triangles. And that's part of my
00:43:10
Speaker
my enjoyment of learning about other cultures and I've done many Japanese patterns and the only way I would have used them is the CNC. I would have never even tried this shit if I didn't own a CNC. So the CNC has opened up huge
00:43:26
Speaker
huge areas of design to me. And it's not just the I'm going to make an MDF form kind of CNC use, or I'm going to batch out a stupid sign CNC use. That's fine for science. I don't mean any of our listeners use it. Oh, who's the prick now?
00:43:46
Speaker
Any of our listeners who use CNC for signs, I apologize in advance. I'm actually going to do a sign in the next few months, so I apologize. You know what I'm saying? The use case is far more broad than maybe we realize for CNC.
00:44:03
Speaker
So this is, I want to push back again on the use of design because what it sounds to me like you're doing, you are designing, but you're taking the, the, the Kumiko pattern and you're iterating it. You're trying to come up with something different and you're doing it independently. Like you're not reliant on somebody else to figure out what choices you should make. And I think that that's a key differentiation because we keep talking about is CNC woodworking woodworking.
00:44:31
Speaker
And it's not if you come in and you hit a button, but for, for at the risk of alienating some of our audience, perhaps, uh, I'll play the devil's advocate then and say under that definition, the people who buy plans on the internet and go to their shop that doesn't have a CNC in it and just make a fucking table or a chair or what have you aren't woodworkers because they're not designing anything. They're just making a thing. No, I see your point. There's no, there's no.
00:45:00
Speaker
It's hard to differentiate those two things. I accept your point reluctantly, but that's a good point. It's hard. It is. I have one last, I think, really hot button question, which is a lot of people feel as though handmade items have a soul to them.
00:45:24
Speaker
They feel precious. You can see the hands of the maker in the piece. You see the idiosyncrasies. You can see some of the mistakes. I don't want to call them mistakes, but I would say imperfections, right? And that's beautiful to many people. Human imperfection is a beautiful thing and it reminds them when they look at that piece, they think, they look at the imperfection, something that's not
00:45:49
Speaker
quite 90 degrees or not quite perfect in some regard. And they look at that thing and they think, ah, I'm picturing the person making that at their bench with a chisel. And it connects them through time, longitudinally, to that maker in their mind. And it brings a sense of connection. It brings a sense of value. It brings a sense of humanness to it versus
00:46:17
Speaker
Literally perfectly machined everything. Now, is there a value proposition here? When I asked this to my Instagram audience, the vast majority said that they would prefer the handmade human item. Mary, you were one of the few people who pushed back on that. Please, why don't you offer why you pushed back on that?
00:46:41
Speaker
Uh, I don't actually, I don't quite remember exactly what it was, but for my, I will give my perspective. I do value the handcrafted piece. I think that there, it is unique and original. And I do like that I could connect to the maker in it. However.
00:46:59
Speaker
I also very much appreciate some mass produced objects. I think there is a beauty in them and I really, when I look at them, I think about the original designer of it. I think about the process that they went through to create this piece that can be so pleasing to hundreds and millions of people.
00:47:20
Speaker
And I find a lot of interest and passion in that perspective. So it's not necessarily the production of the piece itself. It's interest in the design process behind it and what the
00:47:32
Speaker
like what the designer went through to get to that and why it stands out to me and how it blends into the way that I utilize it and other people utilize it, if that's the same way. And I, yeah, so I think there's value in both of it. And of course, I think our audience is always going to be more handcrafted because it's woodworkers that is this specific medium. I am probably thinking on more of an industrial design level, something that is, I don't know, I guess mass produced and
00:48:00
Speaker
things like that. But like, I look at an iPhone and I think there's beauty in it because there's so much thought that went into every single curve, every single shadow line, every parting line, just
00:48:10
Speaker
I don't know, maybe it's a different way of viewing objects, but that's my own perspective. So, Mary, that is a fabulous answer because I think all of us were like, well, you see an imperfection, it connects you to the maker from a handcrafted point of view, but you see good design elements and it connects you to the maker because... Yeah, exactly.
00:48:31
Speaker
that I had never really thought about that. That's excellent. I went to school for this. I know how hard it can be to actually think of something that that final product ended up being and how many iterations that it went through. So I understand the process and I understand that
00:48:48
Speaker
not everyone gets what went into it. So that's why I appreciate it. That is an awesome answer. Thank you for sort of opening my mind to like think about. I will definitely think about objects from that perspective from now on. Thank you. So Eric, what do you think? Maybe the greatest value judgment. That's a conflict.
00:49:17
Speaker
The thing that was posed to me in the middle of a critique that challenged me the most was Peter Corn. We were doing a crit when I was a fellow up at CFC and it was a person was making a chair and they had a very rustic style and they wanted all of these hand details.
00:49:36
Speaker
Um, but they were batching out parts on the CNC. The reason that she was there was to learn to use the CNC and improve the workflow of her business. And I was giving my feedback on the object and I articulated something about like.
00:49:51
Speaker
You know, if there was just like a detail here, something about the handwork, it might elevate the piece. And Peter stopped me like mid-sent, now I've known Peter for 15 years. So he'll, he's one of those guys who'd be like, stop being a fucking idiot. Like, let's think about this actually. Um, and he said, I, I would hesitate to use the word elevate because you're putting a value judgment on this object and assuming that handwork is better than
00:50:15
Speaker
uh, production work when in fact, it's actually harder to design a piece for mass production that is successful and beautiful than it is to make one by hand. And I don't think he was wrong. Like it is a harder skill because there are so many more various, I know what tools I have in my shop. I know my workflow. I know how to make a chair. If I were to design a chair and then have somebody else go and make it.
00:50:40
Speaker
That's an entirely different this is why I argue that ikea is actually brilliant sustainable no, but brilliant like it is so well designed because I can put a thing together from ikea and not read any english in the in the uh manual so It's it's a tricky thing because then on the other side of that coin There is some
00:51:06
Speaker
Intangible value that like it's it's a spiritual connection, but you only kind of parallel that. Yeah. And it's made items.
00:51:17
Speaker
And well, the only parallel I can come up with is my buddy, Nick, who he is. He's a flower guy. He loves being outside. He's a gardener. He's not a camper. And one time he was like, why do you fucking camp like this is it's literally masochism. You are you're punishing yourself for not having any modern technologies just so that you can like say you did it.
00:51:44
Speaker
And it's a fair point because you know what? Living in a house is objectively fucking better than living in a tent. And yet, when you go out into the woods for a weekend or a week or whatever, and you just sit there and you coexist with this world, and you like, I've been overwhelmed by the beauty of just a place in the middle of fucking nowhere and like the hills of New Mexico that just exists in this time and in this moment.
00:52:12
Speaker
because there is some spiritual aspect to it that you can't quite put your thumb on. And I think it's similar in handmade objects. There is a value there. I don't want to say that it's better than, but it is different from mass-produced objects. Well, just speaking anecdotally from my audience's response to the vast majority, 80% said that they would pay more for a handmade object. Like I said, here's two objects that are nearly identical.
00:52:42
Speaker
Just one was done by hand and had those sort of maker marks and the other didn't. And I said, would you pay more for the one that was done by hand? And a lot of people said yes. I would say it's like 75, 25. Now, did they actually pay it or did they just offer an opinion? Because when you open your wallet is a little different, right? Sure, sure. The majority did say that they would pay more for a handmade item.
00:53:05
Speaker
There's also an audience bias there, though. Consider your audience versus somebody else. Good point. Yeah, for sure. Also, like when you when you're shopping in a store and you look you pick up an item that was made by a machine, I feel like
00:53:21
Speaker
You're like, oh, there's a blemish on that one. I don't want that. It's somewhat similar narrative in which the machine has created some sort of mistake making it a little bit more original versus the perfect smooth one that like, you know, it looks like every other one. I feel like I mean, the purpose is different because the machine you expect it to be perfect.
00:53:42
Speaker
Okay, well, I think those expectations are important though, because you expect the thing off the machine to be perfect. And when it's not, it feels wrong. And you expect that perfection is unachievable by a human. And so when it is so close to perfect that it's frustrating almost, it has, like, there's something different about it. It's a different angle from what you're viewing the thing.
00:54:06
Speaker
Okay, so we're going long, but I don't give a shit. We're at 54 minutes, but whatever, because Mary just opened Pandora's box and she's like, well, when you have a, when you have a machine made item of imperfection and fucking be in your bonnet, right? You don't like it. You want to put it back on the shelf. You want the perfect item. So funny enough, it brings, it begs the question, should we be intentionally engineering, uh,
00:54:34
Speaker
Should we be intentionally engineering human imperfection into CNC pieces to make them look more human? And is that deceitful? Yes.
00:54:48
Speaker
This is the only hard line I'm going to draw, maybe in this entire genre of conversation. Yes, I think it's deceitful. I think that that is bordering on nauseating in some way. You are intentionally trying to deceive people as to whether or not this thing was made by hand. Mary, counterpoint, go. I don't have a counterpoint.
00:55:19
Speaker
Okay, I agree in that. So this was my entire master's thesis. I agree to a point, we shouldn't be deceiving people and replicating human error. My master's thesis focused on utilizing machine error and how you can utilize the mistakes made by the machine as an interesting design
00:55:45
Speaker
affect. So it's not very much, it's hard to describe. Those are two very different things. Yeah, they are very different. So I agree with Eric. I don't think anyone should be designing human whatever into CNC work. I think that a more interesting perspective is understanding where the imperfections the CNC has. And instead of trying to design those out and make sure everything's perfect or whatever, is there a way to utilize those imperfections in an interesting way?
00:56:15
Speaker
I think, look, we've all, or maybe we haven't all, I've experienced the moment of like picking up an object and looking at it and going like, Oh, there's this weird, like, you know, kind of defect birthmark on this piece of wood here. And that's really interesting. This is kind of a cool object. And then you pick up the next one and you realize that it has that exact same defect in it. And it's, it's just a print. And there's something like,
00:56:39
Speaker
your heart just kind of sinks in that moment and you're like, Oh, it's not interesting at all. Like there's nothing about it that like you're trying to take what's good about the human hand or the tree and pretend like it's that thing versus doing the thing that machine is actually good at, which is making the thing fucking perfect.
00:57:00
Speaker
Well, I've done a little bit of both. So what I did is I drew something by hand on my iPad and I had a program vectorize it into like computer lines from my freehand drawing. It vectorized it and I loaded that on the CNC and I said, carve it. And I asked myself, would that look hand carved or would it look CNC carved? Because the drawing comes from my hand.
00:57:27
Speaker
the machine traced my hand and executed what I drew with my hand. Which is it? Is it perfect? Or is it is it handmade? And it was florals ornamental scrollwork. And I gotta be honest, it looked hand done. Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, I could talk about this for hours. But in grad school, I programmed a robotic arm
00:57:50
Speaker
to specifically learn specific graffiti artists idiosyncrasies and the pressure that they apply for graffiti so that it drips a certain amount, the way that they release the valve so that it makes it a little bit more original to them.
00:58:10
Speaker
Is that the same thing? I don't know. Like, I think these are, I love these questions. The idea of like, where is, so the real line in my master's thesis was like, where is the human in machine? And is it possible? So, I don't know. There's not an answer. I just love this topic.
00:58:25
Speaker
I don't have an issue with either of those examples, if I'm honest, because Paul, in that example, you're utilizing the machine for what it does well. And you designed the thing and you told the machine to do it. That's no different from what a designer does. Let's take that word again. Go ahead. Yeah.
00:58:42
Speaker
Sure. In that case, it is that. Let's take Wendell Castle as an example. Wendell Castle, towards the end of his career, just made a miniature model of whatever he was carving out of Styrofoam, put it in the 3D scanner, and then had the 5-axis CNC cut it out, or later on a 6-axis.
00:59:02
Speaker
That's no different from that. That's no different. Mary, in your example, which I'm blanking on now because I got so excited about Wendell Castle, remind me again because I did have a good counterpoint. Graffiti artist. Graffiti artist. Robot artist, yeah. In that case, you might write up a program that
00:59:22
Speaker
mimics that graffiti artist perfectly and there might not be any ability to differentiate between that person's work in that moment in the AI program that you write up but the difference is the person can evolve the AI program can't right and so
00:59:38
Speaker
five years from now, 10 years from now, that person's hand is going to work differently because their style has changed or just because like they got fucking arthritis in their shoulder. And so their arm moves differently now and the AI program looks exactly the same and is still stagnated in that moment that you wrote the program. And I think that's a real differentiation. So I don't have a problem with either one of those examples because they're not trying to deceive an audience to pretend that they're a human.
01:00:09
Speaker
Well, I think we all see that this is anything but a clear answer. You know, we have sort of consensus, consensual, consensus opinions about where the fancy.
01:00:28
Speaker
We have some consensus opinions about where to draw the lines with respect to when it's woodworking, when it's not, and not that we're right. This is just the three of us kind of talking about it. Yeah, there is not a right or wrong answer. Yeah, there is no right or wrong answer. You can obviously form your own opinion. Speak for yourselves. I'm right all the time. Eric's right all the time.
01:00:52
Speaker
But I mean, feel free to offer your opinion in the comments, wherever you're listening to this or write to us and we'll be sure to feature your comments. Yeah, it's a complex landscape. It's definitely a value add. There's no way other than a value, it's not a value subtract, it's a value add. But how we go about using it and how, whether it's woodworking or not and whether it threatens some traditions or not,
01:01:20
Speaker
You know, these are evolving topics. And I love that the three of us, all three of us use CNC technology in our work at this point. So I do feel like we're qualified at least to talk about it. You know, we're not the authority, but at least we can talk about the, you know, our experience with it.
01:01:39
Speaker
We were going to do a second segment called feature fail because we have some pretty nasty fails this week and we like talking about failures because no one ever does. But we're going to save that for the after show because we're some long winded motherfuckers. We're at one hour. Damn right we are.
01:01:56
Speaker
So we're going to save that for the after show. If you're a patron, obviously get the video feed in the after show and we will see you there. Thank you everyone. I hope you have some hot opinions to share with us and we'll see you next time. Thanks Bram. Thank you. Bye everyone.