Carpentry

“ The time for carpentry is over. The hour has come for upholstering; and he upholsters obstinately, padding a house which no longer exists. He will perish miserably, cut up by the Ants, as the result of his too-rigid instinct. ”

“ A carpenter's caste is a guild for carpentry, a carpenter's home is a technical school for carpentry where the natural talent and love for the art are partly imbibed by the instincts of heredity and partly by observation which is the best system of training. ”

“ Were we not to make great allowance for the peculiar circumstances in which this country has developed its moral and material faculties, we would solve the question against the generally accepted theory, and proclaim carpentry still the greatest agent of progress. Carpentry in America has not yielded to masonry; even in the erection of brick or stone houses, the former has a greater share of work, the latter doing scarcely anything beyond building the outside walls. In American brick or stone houses, about twenty-five times more wood than in European is used. ”

“ As the arts of joinery and carpentry are often followed by the same individual, it appears natural to conclude that the same principles are common to both, but a closer examination leads to a different conclusion. The art of carpentry is directed almost wholly to the support of weight or pressure, and therefore its principles must be sought in the mechanical sciences. In a building it includes all the rough timber work necessary for support, division or connexion, and its proper object is to give firmness and stability. ”

“ Whatever there may be, however, of want of precision in some of the domestic carpentry—always remembering one thing, that we must make due allowance for shrinking, for the summer sun, and the winter cold, and also remembering that the masonry, at any rate, which was free from such exigencies, is perfect, and evidently put up by men to whom we now could teach very little indeed, in the plenitude of our knowledge—nothing in this supposed shortcoming{246} in carpentry can prevent our taking lessons in its general form and style. ”

“ Among the applied arts and crafts, carpentry yields to none in importance.
One of man’s first instincts was that of shelter, and all through the ages the development of construction has been undergoing its evolution until our present methods bear little resemblance to the ancient. ”

“ The carpenters of your towns cannot even turn out a decent pair of doors. Whether they are made for a hut or a mansion is hard to make out! They are only good at buying foreign tools, as if that is all of carpentry! ”

“ It is a clear treatise on the every-day problems of the carpenter and house builder. As a textbook on carpentry, it meets every requirement of the student. No other publication has ever undertaken to cover the essentials of house building in a manner adapted for school use as this book on ‘Carpentry.’”
“Author is an experienced carpenter and is chairman of the Manual arts department, University of Missouri. He has written several excellent elementary books on woodworking, which are recommended.” ”

“ House building is the carpenter's craft; cabinet-making the joiner's trade, yet both are so intimately associated, that it is difficult to draw a line. The same tools, the same methods and the same materials are employed.
There is no trade more ennobling than home building. It is a vocation which touches every man and woman, and to make it really an art is, or should be, the true aspiration of every craftsman. ”

“ We have explained this form by one of the transpositions so frequent in the history of architecture, namely, a conveyance of motives from carpentry to brickwork and masonry. [314] In the former the openings left in the skeleton are gradually filled in, and these additions, by the very nature of their materials, most frequently take the form of panels. The grooves that define the panels in brick or stone buildings represent the intervals left by the carpenter between his planks and beams. ”

“ The resources of carpentry offer an infinite field for the invention of new and characteristic forms, and these may be made all the more attractive if they show, to some extent, the influence of an associated craft, but never fail to become wearisome if essential character has been sacrificed for the sake of an ingenious imitation. The structural parts of some of these screens are composed of elaborate imitations of stone vaulting and tracery, so closely copied as to be almost deceiving, therefore they can not be taken as good examples of suggestive opportunity for the wood-carver. ”

“ Carpentry and joinery, as well as all other trades connected with building, are subservient to the architect, when an individual of this particular profession [112] has been employed; but it most commonly happens, that the master-carpenter acts in this capacity. ”

“ A thorough knowledge of carpentry is not needed in order to build presentable hutches. The main point to keep in mind is to make them substantial and practical in every respect. If they are made of good material and neatly done, they will not be a discredit to your yard, even though you are not enough of a carpenter to put the little finishing touches to them that a skilful carpenter could. ”

“ Outdoor construction or carpentry, as distinguished from the indoor work of the cabinet maker, calls for a general acquaintance with tools, some mathematics, an elementary knowledge of the strength of materials, and a good supply of common sense. ”

“ In the same way our thoroughly trained carpenters also acquire a certain amount of skill in bricklaying, plastering, painting, and tinsmithing; and the girls, in addition to complete instruction in house-work, laundry-work, dressmaking and cooking, also learn something of simple carpentry, paper-hanging, painting, and the repairing of tinware, shoes, etc. In small villages and country districts it is very important to know something of everything as well as everything of something. ”

“ IT is characteristic of architecture that the further back we look toward the primitive state of man, the more the use of wood prevails over that of stone, brick, and all other building materials, and the more does the importance of carpentry exceed that of masonry. The condition of this art might well be taken as the basis of division between the various stages of the civilization of a country. During the first stage, wood is everywhere the only material used in construction ”

“ They have an apt genius for all mechanical arts, and excel in carpentry, cabinet-making, turnery, and the like, and are very expert in the construction of wooden-houses, as indeed all the habitations and even the churches are of timber. ”

“ The carpentry of the Italians, as observable in ordinary houses, displays little skill and indifferent workmanship, but in the roofs and floors of important buildings, they satisfactorily prove their knowledge of scientific principles, and several of their designs are well known to British architects. ”

“ The boy who is interested in carpentry can have many hours of pleasure with his tools and materials, and the average boy, we believe, is interested in the craft, at least to some extent.
The object of this article is to persuade the young craftsman to work systematically and accurately, and to understand the possibilities and limitations of tools; not to use a chisel for a screw-driver, of to drive nails with the butt-end of a plane, or to use a tack-hammer to drive a tenpenny nail when a larger hammer is within easy reach. ”

“ The labour of building a lumber rack was much heavier than anything the boys had done before, but it brought the larger muscles into play, seemed like real carpenter work, and was an excellent preparation for the finer tool work to follow. A boy who has never carried out a piece of large work [154] successfully cannot realize the satisfaction of looking at a really good piece of construction and being able to say, "I made that all myself!" ”

“ One of the most beautiful sideboards I ever [Pg 151] saw was made of Oregon pine, and the natural wood, well filled and highly polished. That finish gave it an effect which enhanced its value to a price which equaled any cherry or mahogany product.
[Pg 152]
CHAPTER XVI THE CARPENTER AND THE ARCHITECT
A carpenter has a trade; the architect a profession. It is not to be assumed that one vocation is more honorable than the other. A profession is defined as a calling, or occupation, "if not mechanical, agricultural, or the like," to which one devotes himself and his energies. ”

“ The saw, the plane, the hammer, the chisel, each requires its special muscular energy. The carpenter, unlike the blacksmith, does not put all his brawn into his shoulders, nor develop his torso at the expense of his other muscles, like the mason. ”

“ In framing timbers, in making braces, in roof construction and supports, in floor beams, and in numerous other places, where strength is required, the workman should have at his command a knowledge of the most serviceable methods. ”

“ The carpenter frames or combines separate pieces of timber by scarfing, notching, cogging, tenoning, pinning and wedging, &c. The tools he uses are the rule, axe, adze, saws, mallet, hammers, chisels, gouges, augers, pincers, set squares, bevel, compasses, gauges, level, plumb rule, jack, trying and smoothing planes, rebate and moulding planes, and gimlets and wedges. The carpenter has little labour to put on to the stuff; his chief work consists in fixing and cutting the ends of timbers, the labour in preparing the timber being done by machinery. ”

“ Pictorial decoration, elaborate and beautiful as it was, did not constitute the principal item of cost in constructing these mansions. It was rather upon rare woods, uniquely grown timbers, exquisite joinery, and fine plastering that great sums were lavished. Single boards eighteen feet square; pine stems forty feet long without any appreciable difference of diameter throughout; carpenter's work as accurate as though all the parts of a building had grown together naturally instead of being joined artificially,—these involved outlays even greater than the sums lavished on the decorative artist. ”

“ As a consequence the carpenter had the chance to express himself in the woodwork, the village blacksmith the opportunity to display his skill in such small ironwork as the hinges or the latch for the door and every workman felt called upon to do the best that was in him. ”

“ I discovered that there is nothing more plastic than brickwork, nothing more elastic than a girder. A carpenter spends days of his time and dollars of your money fitting and joining a certain section of framework; that is to say, he engages in such craftsmanship when not sharpening his saw. It has been my observation that the average conscientious carpenter allows forty per cent of his eight-hour day to saw sharpening. ”

“ Not only setting up houses or edifices, but, as we have said before, preparing the materials—aye, even to the very question of the planting and the culture of the oak and the pine, on which the future carpenter is to exercise his ingenuity. As to the brick-field, the quarry, the limekiln, the mine, the forest—consider what enters into the composition and completion of a building, what machines and implements are employed in working and preparing the materials, and its erection—what in the furnishing and fittings—what in the garden and other appurtenances. ”

“ It is the province of the carpenter to put together simple woodwork; that which is an actual part of architecture, such as boxes, chests, benches, seats, shelves, and so forth as require only good material and neatness of hand in execution. The joiner and cabinet maker include this amount of skill as a foundation for their accomplishments, as a sculptor can block out a statue and a painter grind his colours, work, however, which in ordinary practice is handed over to assistants or apprentices. ”

“ In poor churches which possess no fine materials for decoration, one has often wondered at and admired the picturesque effects extracted from yards of muslin, gold tinsel, and box wreaths, artistically combined. Our house carpenter is the only representative we have of the vestiarius, and he is but a feeble descendant from the ancestors of his craft, who were expected to study and evolve the adornments of the building for its completion, the materials of decoration for special occasions, and lastly, the mechanical means for hanging and stretching the draperies. ”

“ The carpenter sawing boards, the smith who beats out a horseshoe, the mason busy with trowel and mortar on sun-blistered scaffolds, hoarsely shouting “More bricks!” they in their way of life are honest. ”

“ Passing through a street, we look into the interior of a carpenter-shop, with its simple tools, its little pile of new lumber, its floor littered with chips and shavings, and its air full of the pleasant smell of freshly cut wood. ”

“ It is the business of the carpenter to cut out and frame large pieces of timber, and then to join them together, or fit them to brick or stone walls, to constitute them the outlines or skeleton of buildings or parts of buildings. ”

“ Carving in wood, in all countries where it has been practised, has ever preceded sculpture, or carving in stone. It is, therefore, an art of the highest antiquity; and, although the same with sculpture in some of its applications, yet it differs from it somewhat in the mode of execution, according with the nature of the material.
3. The art of carving is very extensive in its application, [154] being used in the decorative parts of architecture, both civil and naval, and likewise in ornamenting cabinet-ware, as well as in forming patterns for casting in metals, particularly in iron and brass. ”