Jedi powers for the win! I agree it's a not-so-simple phrase.
I design and build a lot of stuff using my 3D printer, electric components, programming skill, and a soldering iron. I've then created a new thing and used a lot of creative energy to do so. Certainly I soldered all the components together after designing the circuit, and I programmed the Ardiono or Raspberry Pi from scratch using decades of acquired knowledge and skill. I taught myself 3D design and designed the thing that holds it all - and then had to assemble all the finished pieces. But I don't know that I'd call it hand made. But maybe I should (read on).
Another example:
I certainly didn't design the Strat, but I took the design and modified it, then modified other people's designs for all the plastic parts and 3D printed them, glued the body together, then assembled a bunch of industry standard parts into a guitar. But is that a hand-made guitar? It's certainly not on the same level as
@AcornHouse and I could argue that any Strat is only assembled, but Merriam-Webster says
handmade means
made by hand or by a hand process so I guess that's my handmade guitar.
BTW after almost three years the geometry of that guitar has not shifted a mm (aside from humidity-based truss-rod adjustments) so far as I can tell, so handmade quality for the win.
I think the term
handmade invokes an image of an old-world craftsman doing an old-world craft which is why I resist using the the teerm for things I build, though I think as an antonym for
mass-produced perhaps it works.
