Does the beauty of CNC milling, etc. lie in only precision and accuracy? This is intended as somewhat of a contemplative consideration for the sake of what may be more precise or accurate personal self realization regarding the subject. If the answer seems obvious for most, it may not be for all. Does the subjective beauty or appreciation for a piece, which has been milled or otherwise, necessarily dissipate with a supposed reduction of precision or accuracy? More so, would these subjective differences necessarily isolate a person to one camp or another?
I suppose it all depends on your viewpoint... For me, CNC enables me to do things which I otherwise do not have the craftsman's skills to complete. This little Turner's Cube is a classic example - extremely easy to do with CNC but requires skills (that I don't have) to make this with a lathe. My view is that CNC has replaced craftsman's skills, perhaps with computer skills. I can certainly, easily, obtain a level of accuracy that prior to CNC was extremely time consuming to achieve. Tweakie.
The beauty also lies within the ease of which objects are created. Even for utility pieces where appearance is not relevant, CNC offers the ability to turn out something in a couple hours that would have taken days to create by hand.
There is an Absolute Beauty in Precision and Accuracy. Whether by my drawing a straight edge of paint between one colour and another. Or even the satisfaction of banging a nail into wood, straight and true. These things we take for granted when they go right, but cuss no end when they don't! Therefore there is emotion involved in those actions. With a CNC the beauty starts, perhaps, with the idea. Then it is planed and designed. Next we do test runs and iron out the faults, this is the true beauty of the CNC. Repetition. Finally we watch our final cut! BUT! The satisfaction is not just in the piece, it is in all the actions towards the finished piece that generate the sense of Beauty in the Precision and Accuracy of that piece! There is the Beauty in Precision and Accuracy. It is everywhere, but it is definitely in the CNC ability to repeat that piece. Will that sense of beauty still be there with the twentieth copy, I don't know, perhaps? Yes, I think it will be. After all it is the same as the first one! Gray
It's subjective. I may appreciate a beautifully milled part by several criteria because of a personal/working understanding of what is involved to create such a piece. Another with similar understanding may judge it on slightly different criteria, but enough to agree that the piece and work are good. At the extreme we can place a furniture specialist looking at this same piece and he may immediately devalue it because it isn't hand carved. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. On your precision and accuracy depreciation question. Yes. It does. The reason is that the human eye is keen to subtle discrepencies in parallelism, perpendicularity, and things that are nonsymetrical. Making a sign that has very minute discrepancies between the profile and say a parallel inner line will stand out to the naked eye. To the furniture specialist the use of a "robot" may be deemed cheating. To us, we value the aforementioned qualities in a cnc made piece as part of a successful execution of a job that took a much longer road than many are unaware of. You're not alone!
Thanks guys. I think that is what this was about, of stating your own position, approach, or belief(s) etc. regarding cnc milling, 3D printing, carving, etc. Thanks for sharing.
