The Long Way Round To A Rounded Edge
An edge a child runs a thumb along has to be finished by someone who has run a thumb along it.
Every edge on a toy is a decision. Leave it square and it reads as unfinished and catches skin. Round it too far and the shape goes soft and loses whatever made it recognisable in the first place. The distance between those two is small, and it is not the same distance on every piece.
We start the curve by machine because consistency matters, and then finish it by hand because judgement does. The hand pass is quick — a few seconds per edge — but it is the pass where somebody actually touches the thing and decides whether it is right.
Grain direction changes the answer. The same radius that feels generous running with the grain can feel sharp running across it, and no measurement catches that. You find it with a thumb, which is why every piece gets one before it goes anywhere.
It is the slowest step in a build and the easiest one to argue away. We have not managed to argue it away yet. The edge is the part of a toy a child is in contact with almost constantly, and it seems strange to hand that part to a machine and hope.
