Carpentry

• 1. First In, Last Out

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  Carpenters are usually the first tradesmen on a job and the last to leave. That single habit says a lot about a craft that touches a building from its hidden skeleton to its final trim. Carpentry is the cutting, shaping, and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, and concrete formwork. Wood is among the oldest building materials we have, sitting alongside stone. So why does a trade this old still demand four years of apprenticeship to learn? Why did one kind of carpenter spend the 19th century slowly putting another kind out of work? And how did a Latin word for a carriage maker end up describing the person who frames your roof? The answers run through ancient wells, through China and Norway, and through a list of specialists so varied that one of them spends his days walking a ship's hull looking for leaks.

• 2. From Carriage Maker

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  The word "carpenter" is the English rendering of the Old French carpentier, later charpentier. It traces back to the Latin carpentarius, meaning the maker of a carriage. Before that word took hold, Middle English and Scots used a different one entirely. A builder was a wright, from the Old English wryhta, which is cognate with the word work. That root survives in compounds we still recognize, like wheelwright and boatwright. The shift from wright to carpenter is a quiet reminder that the names of trades drift far from where they began. The same pattern shows up in the trade's geography, where the very same task can carry a different name on each side of the Atlantic.

• 3. A Tale Of Two Countries

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  In the United Kingdom, carpentry describes first fixing of timber, the work normally hidden in a finished building. An easy way to picture it: first fix is everything done before plastering, and second fix is everything after. Items like skirting boards, architraves, doors, and windows fall under second fix carpentry. Yet the off-site manufacture and pre-finishing of those same items is regarded as joinery instead. The UK also has its own word for making timber formwork for poured concrete. That skill is called shuttering. In the United States the trade is split along a similar line, between the heavier and stronger work of a carpenter and the lighter, more ornamental work of a joiner. The term joiner is less common in America than finish carpenter or cabinetmaker. Older titles like housewright and barnwright survive too, used now by carpenters who work with traditional methods and materials.

• 4. Wells And Wooden Temples

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  An oak and hazel structure dating from 5256 BC, found in Ostrov in the Czech Republic, is among the oldest archaeological evidence of carpentry. Some of the oldest carpentry that survives turns out to be water well casings. Another sits in eastern Germany, built from split oak timbers with mortise and tenon joints and notched corners, dating to about 7,000 years ago in the early Neolithic period. Little of carpentry's early history was preserved before written language existed. Knowledge and skill were simply passed down over the generations, and even cave painting and writing recorded little of it. The oldest surviving complete architectural text is Vitruvius' ten books titled De architectura, which discuss some carpentry. Builders only began to regularly publish guides and pattern books in the 18th and 19th centuries, long after the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Some of the oldest wooden buildings still standing include the Nanchan Temple in China, built in 782, Greensted Church in England with parts from the 11th century, and the stave churches of Norway from the 12th and 13th centuries.

• 5. The Machines That Changed It

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  By the 16th century, sawmills were coming into use in Europe. The founding of America was partly driven by a desire to extract resources from the new continent, including wood for ships and buildings back in Europe. Then came a cascade of inventions that reshaped how the trade worked. In the 18th century, part of the Industrial Revolution brought the steam engine and cut nails. Combined with the circular saw, these led to balloon framing, which began the decline of traditional timber framing. The 19th century added electrical engineering and distribution, which made hand-held power tools possible, along with wire nails and machines to mass-produce screws. The 20th century kept going. Portland cement and concrete foundations let carpenters do away with heavy timber sills. Drywall replaced lime plaster on wooden lath, and plywood, engineered lumber, and chemically treated lumber all came into use. Carpenters had once framed post-and-beam buildings until the end of the 19th century, the method now called timber framing.

• 6. Apprentice To Master

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  Four years is the length of the apprenticeship a carpenter normally serves before qualifying through a country's competence test, in places like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, and South Africa. Formal training follows a clear ladder. A carpenter begins as an apprentice, becomes a journeyperson, and with enough experience can eventually reach the status of master carpenter. Pre-apprenticeship itself is demanding. Trainees spend 30 hours a week for 12 weeks in classrooms and workshops, learning mathematics, trade terminology, and the use of hand and power tools. Construction-carpentry trainees even do calisthenics to prepare for the physical work. After that, apprentices join a local union and progress through First, Second, Third, and Fourth Year status, returning to the training facility every three months for a week of detailed instruction. The journeyperson title once meant something literal. Up through the 19th and early 20th century, a journeyperson traveled to another region to learn that area's building styles before returning home. Today the term simply refers to a level of proficiency and skill. Becoming a master carpenter varies sharply by country. In Germany, Iceland, and Japan it is an arduous and expensive process requiring economic and legal knowledge, and master status is generally required to employ and teach apprentices. In the United States, by contrast, master carpenter can be a loosely used term for any skilled carpenter.

• 7. A Trade Of Specialists

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  A shipwright assigned to a ship's crew is known as a Ship's Carpenter, and patrols the vessel's carpenter's walk to examine the hull for leaks. That is just one branch of a craft that splits into many. A framer builds the skeletal structure of buildings, most often by platform framing, while a framer who specializes in timbers and traditional joints is a timber framer. A formwork carpenter creates the shuttering and falsework used in concrete construction. A finish carpenter, also called a trim carpenter, picks up where framing ends, hanging doors, installing cabinets, and fitting molding and trim. The joiner, a name now rare in North America, handles cabinetry, furniture making, fine woodworking, instrument making, and parquetry. Within that world sit the cabinetmaker, the furniture maker, and the luthier, who makes or repairs stringed instruments and whose name comes from the French word for lute, luth. Japanese carpentry has its own vocabulary. Daiku is the simple term for carpenter, a Miya-daiku is a temple carpenter who acts as both architect and builder of shrines, and a sukiya-daiku works on teahouses. Sashimono-shi build furniture, and tateguya do interior finishing. Newer branches reflect newer concerns. Green carpentry uses environmentally friendly and sustainable materials, while recycled carpentry builds new products from scrap wood and broken furniture.

• 8. The Fatal Four

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  Falls are the leading cause of fatalities in construction, the first of what the U.S. calls the "fatal four," followed by struck by object, electrocution, and caught-in or between. Carpentry is often hazardous work, exposing workers to machine hazards, flying materials, fire, noise, vibration, dust, and chemicals. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration tries to prevent illness, injury, and fire through regulations, though self-employed workers are not covered by the OSHA act. Employers must provide working conditions free of known dangers, keep floors clean and dry, supply personal protective equipment at no cost, and train workers in a language they can understand. Preventing falls can mean railings and toe-boards at floor openings, safety harnesses and lines, safety nets, and handrails. OSHA claims that since 1970, workplace fatalities have been reduced by more than 65 percent and occupational injury and illness rates have declined by 67 percent, even as U.S. employment has almost doubled. Safety reaches past the job site too. Carpenters' work must meet the Life Safety Code and building codes, including in stair building, to protect the people who will one day occupy the finished structure.