On cutting by hand

A mortise and tenon cut by machine is faster, straighter, and in almost every measurable way better. We still cut ours by hand, and the reason is not romantic.

A hand-cut joint tells the maker what the wood is doing. Grain that runs out, a knot two millimetres deeper than it looked, a board that moved overnight — none of this appears in a CNC file, but all of it appears under a chisel.

So the joint is a test. If the wood fails it, the board goes back to the rack and the chair waits. That is the whole method.