THE VARIOUS ACTIVITIES OF THE JOINER

THE VARIOUS ACTIVITIES OF THE JOINER

"The stages of the carpenter's work
The carpenter begins by tracing the different pieces he cuts by
sawing. He chooses the beautiful parts of the wood for the facade elements (without
defect with a beautiful veining).

For the molded parts, take the part close to the sapwood because the wood is softer to work and easier to profile.
To trim the boards, that is to say to remove the irregularities of the edges, he uses a saw with a swivel blade.
Then comes the stage of curdling, carried out using the plane. He eliminates the biggest deformations using the clasp and roughly draws up the boards with the rifflard. Traces of this tool are sometimes visible on the back of furniture.
The elements of the facade are used with varlope which gives them a smooth and homogeneous texture. The pieces of wood are held in place by a claw.

The craftsman traces the assemblies with a graduated ruler, a set square and a
point. The mortises are hollowed out with a wood chisel, and the tenons are sawn in
respecting the measures. The moldings are made with a molding plane, the iron of which is cut according to the profile to be cut. The guillaume (narrow plane) makes it possible to make the rebates, to cover the leaves of a piece of furniture.
The boards are hot glued with a thermoplastic glue designed from fish, nerve and skin.
The holes are made using the crankshaft.
Last step: polishing the surfaces. The plane already allows a smooth rendering. The scraper is used to remove a very fine chip. Polishing is carried out with a pumice stone and then, in the 19th century, with sandpaper.

Assembly techniques
The first pieces of furniture were certainly made in a portion
tree, dug in a log. But very quickly for reasons of weight and
deformations, the furniture was made from several parts and assembled.

To optimize the resistance of the furniture, the pieces of wood are only used in the direction of the grain of the wood. There are different types of assemblies: tenon / mortise, dovetail, grooves, tongues etc ...
The mortise is a cavity made in the thickness of the upright, it receives the
tenon cut at the end of the crosspiece. This assembly is generally maintained by pegs. It can also be made non-removable by gluing it or by using recessed wedges at the end of the tenon which blocks the mortise.

This great assembly principle makes it possible to make seats, tables, beds or storage furniture. "

 

Txt: Teacher's file / The golden age of Lorrain furniture