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oinery r, (called by the French menuiserie , from menu , small,aad bois, wood, or small wood employed in that art) includesad the interior finishings and ornamental work, and is gene-rally valued by the superficial foot.
, Carpentry itself is properly divided into three branches,Vlz o descriptive, constructive, and mechanical.
Descriptive carpetitry shows the lines or methods for°rtning every species of work in piano, by the rules of geo-metry. To this branch of the art, sometimes called “ finding,tne celebrated Monas sravft the. name of descrintive mCo;
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Litti e " f • no houbt of its being of the highest antiquity,from +i° ' ts history, however, hasai, thor 6 anc ’ en ts. '
times . S - ( ' V ^ ose writings on the subject have reached modernchoice' U ,i as their observations are merely confined to thec°nat ru Siting of timber, they are of no use as to the, . lve part, and only demonstrate that such an art
ti..r“i nave commenced in the very earliest ages, h>r inin! firSt attem P ts the construction of the pnm.tive buih -" gs of those days, carpentry must have been brought into* er «se. R i s p ro bable that the necessity of mtroducini Pediment roof! occasioned the first use of timber frames,W c ° nse fiuently the art of carpentry in building. 1(p.. en , tlon °f the pediment roof is justly attn u . ,r e ehs; as the oldest buildings of this description are to bebe! f m their “untry; they also appear to have «sedt,m-<Z ! >r 0t . ller Purposes, as in the framing of floors, and thes ruction of rustic buildings.
haht!r rm00Untries '
lt '^ confined to movable articles, where lightness was anm’ atad quality; we must, therefore, not look to these clis tor any traces of the art.u >e nextWere "all,
furnishing stone or marble, it is pro-
'*e that th . .
"'as n (mfi e , use of timber was not very frequent, and that^anthd fined ‘u
or
the p„“ reat P e °ple, in succession of time, to the Greeks,
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womans, who seem to have employed timber fornearly all, the purposes that the modems are acwh!i l d with - They not only constructed their roofs, buttil f^'ubbngs, of timber: in Vitruvius we have a descrip'temoi 1e ’ r ’nanner of constructing the architraves ° uin uJf?’ and of the foundation of arched ceilings and flow s,“ber work. The Romans also used wooden cornices,eatres and amphitheatres at Rome , and in 1 erenItaly , were at first constructed of timber : as we ven
Th,
Parts of
®f th e won,! ’ Were at first constructed of timber; as we readbu ilt of t ) a<in theatre of Pompey, and the amphitheatre° n a cc 0Utlt Sa ® e material, by Augustus , to exhibit the showsi, . m the victory at Actium . The roofs of theWere somet- SS Were not uiways concealed; the timbers«nes exposed, and in magnificent buildings
Monze gave the name of descriptive geometry.^HxM\ lSirUC ^ Ve car P entr y shows the practice of reducing theintent''" 10 Porms » an( l joining the parts, according to thecnm^i 10n or design of the architect, and thereby forming a®| lete whole.
hers e ° la , n ^ ea ^ carpentry shows the relative strength of tim-arv, and the strains to which they may be subjected by theirIn an( i disposition.
wliat US art icie> after a few preliminary observations onintend terme d the “ history ” of carpentry, it isPrehe • t0 *=' ve suc b definitions as may conduce to a corn-show f) 100 op '•he theory and practice of the art, and then toEno-i; i m Progressive improvements made by the severalth e °ti , Wnters in carpentry ; the various rules for formingUnd er tli • S ’ and Por tie individual operations, being shownt) Esc leir respective heads. See particularly Constructive,I { ls ( VTlVE ’ an d Mechanical Carpentry.there ' d ^' s art i® °f such general and important use, that
they were gilt, as in the basilica of St. Peter, erected byConstantine; sometimes they were encrusted with bronze.
Though circumstances require certain dispositions of tim-bers in a building, the timbers will still admit of infinitedecoration, without injury; and sometimes so much as atfirst view to conceal the principal use. In the middle ages,carpentry partook of the style of building called Gothic; theroofs were pitched very high, but were frequently defective,on account of the want of tie-beams, which were omitted inorder to obtain more lofty ceilings; height being one of thepredominant features of this species of architecture.
Carpentry has been cultivated by the modern Italians .Serlio , in his first book, exhibits a construction for nakedflooring, with timbers shorter than either of the dimensionsof the area to be covered; in the fourth book he shows somevery curious and strong methods of framing doors, accordingto the principles of trussed work; and in the seventh book,he has some very good forms for the trusses of roofs. Thewooden bridges of Palladio are most excellent examples.
Among the French , the construction of wooden domes hasbeen improved by Philibert Delorme , and Moulineau ; andthe centerings of arches and bridges by Perronet.
In England, the very curious construction of naked floor-ing, exhibited in the works of Serlio , has been demonstratedand improved by Dr. Wallis, and carried into execution, inthe theatre of Oxford, by Sir Christopher Wren , who alsodesigned the wooden trussing of the dome of St. Paul’s, andcontrived a very curious scaffolding, which supported itselfwithout anything below it, for the purpose of building andpainting the interior dome. The art of carpentry has beenmuch cultivated of late years in England, so that it has nowbegun to assume a scientific form. In accuracy and celerityof execution our workmen are unequalled.
Of late years the improvements in the manufacture ofiron, both cast and wrought, have caused the introduction ofthat material into buildings in every variety of form—asgirders, beams, &c. The floors, and sometimes even theroofs of those intended to be secured from fire, have beenconstructed of iron ; and iron hooping is now used insteadof bond-timbers in walls. The use of this material, how-ever, as a substitute for wood, does not change the principle,as both materials are affected by the same gravitating laws.
The operations to which timber is subjected, from thetime of its arrival in the carpenter’s yard, in its naturalstate, to the period of its final employment in a building,may be classed under two general heads ; as, those whichrelate to individual pieces, and those that relate to theirconnection with others.
Under the first head is the pit-saw, by which whole piecesof timber are divided, and reduced into scantlings. Thisterm (from the French , enchantillori ) means the dimensionsin breadth and thickness, without respect to the length.
Planing is the operation of reducing the wood to a smoothsurface, by means of an instrument called a plane, whichconsists of a chisel fixed in a frame, serving at once as ahandle and a regulator to the edge, which cuts the wood inthin shavings as the plane is moved to and fro by the work-man. The operations of the plane, besides that of reducingtimber to a uniform surface, are those of grooving, rebating,and moulding: the latter not being necessary in carpentry,we shall only describe the former two: Grooving is thereducing of a piece of timber below the surface, so as to takeaway a prism, and thereby leave a channel consisting of twosurfaces of equal breadths, and another surface, of equalbreadth, joining the other two, parallel to the surface fromwhich the recess is made, generally forming two individualright angles.
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