Please wait ...
Today, in modern era may be people letting go the use of wooden articles due to replacement of fibre and steal materials. But from the day of human evolution to the end of 20th century, human life was widely surrounded by wooden articles. Starting from construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges to home furniture and utensils were made by wood then. So today, let’s discuss more about the maker, who is called carpenter and the skill which is called carpentry.
We will discuss the whole part, starting from the history to modern day cutting, shaping and installation of the craft. Traditionally carpenters worked with natural wood and did the rougher work such as framing, but it has been evolved a lot, many types of ornamental and sculptural works can be seen on wooden articles.
Due to the flexibility to shape to anything, wood was the oldest building and craft material to human. The more complex shapes are improved with the technological improvement from the stone age to the Bronze age to the iron age. Some of the oldest archaeological evidence of carpentry are water well casings. These include an oak and hazel structure dating from 5256 BC, found in Ostrov, Czech Republic, and one built using split oak timbers with mortise and tenon and notched corners excavated in eastern Germany, dating from about 7,000 years ago in the early Neolithic period.
A little amount of information is available about carpentry from per-history, but from research of scholars, from folk stories and folktales it has been found that carpentry is as old as stone age but no written evidence is available to satisfy the argument. Some of the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world are temples in China such as the Nanchan Temple built in 782, the Greensted Church, parts of which are from the 11th century, and the stave churches in Norway from the 12th and 13th centuries.
Carpentry is a type of craft which require a lot of training, which involves both acquiring knowledge and a lot of physical practice. In the life time of a carpenter the phases are like; in the first phase carpenter is an apprentice, then he turns to a journeyman and after lots of experience and competency can eventually attain the name of a master carpenter. Today Institutions are providing pre-apprenticeship training through vocational course programs, in the form of workshop classes and community colleges.
But often the carpenter you will find they have worked along side of carpenters and learned by working along side as a peripheral assistance. Carpenter may work for an employer or as a freelancer, but for free lancing they need a good amount of experience and expertise required.
Carpenter in early ages used to make chairs, tables, wooden beds, and almirah for the home use and ploughs and carts for the farmers. But now every home product, it may be a bed, chair, table or a sofa they are full with craft works of flower, animal and birds. It is time consuming and they are using high level wood craving techniques now a days. If you want to know more about wood craving, you can check this article.
A carpenter carries a lot of tools. He uses saws for cutting the wood into pieces, sharp chisels and axes to cut it, a plane to make it smooth, a lathe or turning-table to make it round, and hammers and nails to fasten pieces of wood together.
The work of a carpenter is skilled labour. It takes a long time to learn to do the work properly. A carpenter has to use his tools he has to have a good eye for correct measurement and he has to think about his work. Before he can make even a chair, he must have the plan of the chair in his mind, and the skill to make it according to his plan.
In sort, a carpenter is very useful and important worker in the society and carpentry is a great form of craft. Wooden furniture is far more comfortable that the steal and plastic furniture today. But the situation of global warming is far more important than our comfort. The substitution of steal and plastic furniture to wooden furniture is a requisite demand for the collective good.
