medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
You're right - I've misspelled something here.
I was thinking this same thing as I wrote the original missive, but glibly chose not to correct myself.
George (joining jointers)
On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:29:40 -0500, Christopher Crockett wrote:
>i don't think i've ever seen the craft in question referred to as "jointery"
>nor those who practice it as "jointers."
>the OED doesn't know that usage either, a "jointer" being, primarily, a tool:
>JOINTER
>1. Name of various tools. a. Carpentry, etc. A long kind of plane used in
>dressing the edges of boards, staves, etc. in preparation for jointing them;
>also, a machine used in jointing staves.
>1678 MOXON Mech. Exerc. iv. §4 (1683) I. 65 The Joynter is made somewhat
>longer than the Fore-plane..Its Office is to follow the Fore-plane, and to
>shoot an edge perfectly straight,..especially when a Joynt is to be shot.
> b. Masonry. A tool used for filling with mortar or for marking the joints
>between courses of brick or stone work.
>1703 MOXON Mech. Exerc. 247 A Jointer of Iron, with which, and the foresaid
>Rule, they joint the long Joints,..the Cross Joints..being done with the
>Jointer without the Rule.
> c. A bent piece of iron inserted into a wall to strengthen a joint.
>1864 in WEBSTER.
>a "jointer" as a craftsman is:
> 2. A workman employed in jointing; esp. one who makes the junctions
>between parts of an electric wire, etc.
>1876 PREECE & SIVEWRIGHT Telegraphy 235 Not only should the jointer's hands be
>scrupulously clean, but he should see that the wires to be joined are equally
>so, the copper being scraped bright and clean. 1895 B'ham Weekly Post 16 Mar.
>4/8 There are plenty of excavators, but the pipe jointers are very scarce.
>a "joiner" otOh, is:
>JOINER
> 2. a. A craftsman whose occupation it is to construct things by joining
>pieces of wood; a worker in wood who does lighter and more ornamental work
>than that of a carpenter, as the construction of the furniture and fittings of
>a house, ship, etc.
>1386 Pat. Roll 9 Rich. II, I. memb. 3. 10 Jan., Joynour. 1412-20 LYDG. Chron.
>Troy II. xi, For eche caruer and curious ioyner. 1428 E.E. Wills 82 Y
>be-quethe to Iohn Hewet, Ioynour, my cosyn..vjs. viijd. 1523 Act 14 & 15 Hen.
>VIII, c. 2 Vsing any of the misteries..of smithes, joigners, or coupars. 1563
>SHUTE Archit. Aijb, Enbroderers, Caruers, Ioynars, Glassyers. 1649 FULLER Just
>Man's Fun. 23 Let..the most exquisite Joyner make the coffin. 1710 Tatler No.
>252 4 What Method is to be taken to make Joiners and other Artificers get out
>of a House they have once entered. 1872 YEATS Techn. Hist. Comm. 43 The
>workshops..of joiners and cabinet-makers.
> b. In possessive case, denoting tools used specially by joiners: see quot.
>1875. joiner's work: (a) the work or occupation of a joiner; (b)
>woodwork made by a joiner.
>1530 PALSGR. 234/2 Ioyners worke, menvserie. 1647 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. I.
>§199 Inclosing it with a Rail of Joiners Work.
>the craft itself is "joinery":
>JOINERY
>1. The art or occupation of a joiner; the construction of wooden furniture,
>fittings, etc.; also concr. such articles collectively; things made by a
>joiner.
>1678 MOXON Mech. Exerc. iv. (1683) I. 59 Joynery is an Art Manual whereby
>several Pieces of Wood are so fitted and joyned together by straight Lines,
>Squares, Miters or any Bevel, that they shall seem one intire Piece. c1695 J.
>MILLER Descr. New York (1843) 31 The trades of joinery, carpentry, masonry.
>1794 STEDMAN Surinam (1813) II. xxviii. 347 Chests, cupboards, lockers, and
>all sorts of joinery. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. III. 183 The higher branches
>of joinery approach cabinet-making and wood-carving.
>and is, as you say, quite distinct from that of carpentry (though more or less
>synonymous with "cabinetmaking")
>> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:40:00 -0600, John Dillon wrote:
>>>How has it been established that being a carpenter and being a cabinetmaker
>were mutually exclusive in Joseph's environment? I am aware of twentieth-
>century North American carpenters who also do cabinetry or other joining and I
>doubt that I am unique in that awareness. Was Joseph's situation so
>different that he as a carpenter could not also have been a joiner?
>the fact that those in or own benighted epoch not familiar with the very real
>distinction between the two generically refer to them all as "carpenter" is
>irrevelent.
>as a cabinetmaker (who has also done a bit of carpentry, living in my own work
>as we speak) there are two main differences between the two:
>1) Scale & Tools: carpenters traditionally started with trees, a felling axe
>and a good, razor-sharp goosewing axe and ending up with hewn beams, which
>were then (indeed) joined together at the building site in a quite marvelous
>variety of craftily-designed joints, depending upon the function they
>fulfilled.
>b) Scale & Tools: cabinetmakers begin work with either bolts of wood (i.e.,
>transversely cut sections of trees) which they progressively "rive" (split)
>until they arrive at the rough shape of the piece needed; or (in more modren
>times) with more or less rough boards which they obtain from a sawyer (who,
>like the carpenter, also begins with a tree/log).
>the pieces of wood are then worked with a variety of tools, mostly chisels and
>planes (planes being, essentially, chisels with larger and differently shaped
>handles).
>carpenters generally have no use for planes --they "true up" (make square and
>flat) their timbers with the broadaxe (a large axe, perhaps with a bent
>handle, the working edge of which is, like a chisel, sharpened on one side
>only) and the adze (a long handled axe-like tool, but with the cutting edge
>set at right angles to the handle rather than parallel to it).
>both carpenters and joiners would use, for example, mortise (the hole) and
>tenon (the male member) joints to join their vastly differently sized pices of
>wood together, but the carpenter's mortising chisels will be, appropriately,
>*vastly* larger and much more substantial than the smaller, more delicate
>mortising chisels of the cabinetmaker.
>cabinetmakers also use specialist planes --like router, rabbet and moulding
>planes-- which the carpenter has no use for at all.
>
>>>What does one profess in order to be a carpenter?
>a love of trees and their wood, i suppose.
>>Put another way, why should carpentry be considered a profession and not a
>skilled trade?
>why not both?
>btw, the End of the Middlevil Tradition of both carpentry and joinery can be
>seen in 17th-early 18th c. New England, where we have, in Massachusetts and
>Connecticut particularly, "half timbered" houses built in a "joined" manner
>which is indistinguishable from those seen in England,
>John Frederick Kelly, _The early domestic architecture of Connecticut._
>New York, Dover Publications, 1963 ("Unabridged and unaltered republication of
>the work first published ... in 1924.")
>http://books.google.com/books?id=8fdJR9HWZqMC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=kelley+connecticut+houses&source=web&ots=ZR0RkqWE8h&sig=D-
6pRbIlONwxY6wV6SN41hb34yg#PPP1,M1
>as well as "joined" furniture, especially quite magnificent chests which,
>eventually, included drawers and, eventually became our "chest of drawers."
>the nicest early examples of these are the "Hadley Chests" (so called after
>the town where they were particularly common) of 1675-1740:
>http://antiquesandthearts.com/Archives/Images/AuctionWatch05-08-2001-14-43-42Image1.GIF
>http://designingonline.com/dreamsalive/winter2002/features/colorcure/oldstuffa0102.jpg
>these are, to my eye and mind, the supreme products of the cabinetmaker's
>craft:
>look closely at the profile of the legs and you will note that they are not
>rectangular, but rather trapizodial in shape --they were *riven* (rather than
>sawn) from bolts of wood, riving producing a triangular shape rather than a
>rectangular one, the triangle being worked into a trapizoid so that the legs
>present right angle exposed corners;
>the vertical and horizontal elements (technically, the "rails" and "styles")
>are joined together with rather straightforward, simple mortise and tenon
>joints;
>the spaces between the rails and styles are filled in with panels which are
>set in "ploughed" grooves, their backsides "feathered" (tapered) in order to
>make a better fit.
>basically, this craft goes back, historically, to the Egyptians (who, we might
>think, didn't have much in the way of forests, btw).
>of course, a Carpenter *might* also make a chest like these (just as he
>*might* paint portraits or write music), but the skillset and (even more
>important) the tools required for this work are quite distinct from that of
>the craft/profession of Carpentry.
>c
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