Many women are attracted to jadeite because of its natural delicate texture and bright colour. However, the main reason jadeite attracts male consumers is the exquisite carving patterns. This adds a lot of colour to jadeite jewellery and adds to its value.
Modern society is a society where technology is taking off and industrialisation is happening faster and faster. Factories are beginning to use machines to mass produce products. For example, machines are used for carving jade products. Manual carving is very inefficient and requires huge time and labour costs. Machine carving makes up for these disadvantages. The cost of machine-carved jade is very low, which can effectively lower the threshold of purchasing jade, it will enable people who like jade but are deterred by its price to buy their favourite products at a low price. This is the change that technological development has brought to people’s lives. However, there are some people who do not like industrially produced jade, and they think that hand-carved jade has a soul.
Personally, I think the carving process better reflects the price of jade. The methods of carving jade are usually hand-carved and machine-carved, which are very different from each other. Let me take you to understand it now.
Hand Carving
Hand-carving jade is a very ancient craft, mainly divided into relief, translucent carving, round carving and so on. People in ancient times loved to use jade as the material for engraving, but in modern society, the concept of hand carving has been updated and has no more traditional meaning.
Modern hand carving refers to the operation of engraving tool such as diamond grinders driven by high-speed motors. Jade jewellery produced with these tools is also very different from that produced with traditional hand carving tools. Because this method uses a pattern drawn by the craftsman himself as a template, it is a unique display of individuality. Moreover, the carver will personally make modifications to give the jade a more spiritual appearance.
Machine Carved Jade
Nowadays, the field of jade carving is mainly produced by machine carving, which is mainly classified into ultrasonic carving and computerised carving.
1. Ultrasonic engraving: this engraving process is driven by a machine with the help of a mould made of high-carbon steel and powered by ultrasonic frequency vibration friction on the surface of jade. In this way, you can get the finished jade carving products quickly and conveniently. You only need to use one mould to complete the whole jade carving, which saves time and labour cost.
2. Computer carving: Before carving by computer, we first need to design a model of the sample, the model is scanned with the help of a machine to become a template. So that we can use the machine to repeatedly carve jade, the whole process is like copy and paste on the computer, can be unlimited number of operations.
The core of today’s machine carving jade is no longer the carving technique, but the carving template. Jade carving is just like designing a chip, first of all, there must be an excellent design, and then with the most cutting-edge technology, in order to produce a high-end chip. Jade carving by machine requires precise carving techniques, it is cheaper and more efficient. If the soul of hand-carved jade is the skill of the carver, the soul of machine-carved jade is its design and conception.
Many DIY enthusiasts scoff at machine carving, and they all feel that machine-carved products have no personality and lack soul. However, their power alone cannot stop the industrialised development caused by today’s increasingly fast-paced society, and machine carving has been accepted by more and more jade practitioners. Most of the jade jewellery sold in the market today is machine-carved, which has become a trend of the times.
Objectively speaking, machine carving is still more cost-effective than hand carving. Machines can achieve batch production and produce multiple batches of products in one go. Therefore, machine engraving is cost-effective, the processing cost will be lower.
The possibility of errors in hand carving is several times higher than that of machine carving. Jade raw materials are very valuable, and if mistakes are made, it will result in a huge waste. This kind of mistake is still hard to make up. So, once we choose hand carving it means we have to be doubly careful, especially when carving complex patterns. Machine engraving is relatively easy to control, it avoids these troubles, and can also greatly improve productivity.
Identifying hand engraving and machine engraving
If you are a careful or experienced person, you will find that even if you carve the same pattern, there is a big difference between hand carving and machine carving. Let’s talk specifically about how to differentiate between these two carving processes.
Hand-carved pieces are full of aura, and each piece of jade is unique. No matter how long it has been, you can always find details in them that you have not noticed before. But if you don’t find anything special, then there is no doubt that the jade object was produced by a machine in an assembly line.
When you put your hand on the jade, you will find that the edges of machine-carved pieces are very consistent, with no inner or outer curves, and very flat, whereas the edges of hand-carved pieces often have some concave curves, which look more natural.
Summaries
I would like to conclude this article by saying that machine carving and hand carving are never distinct, but rather complementary. There is no need to favour one carving method over the other.