Historical background to woodworking joints

[StarGazer]

There is a well understood technical development of timber frame roofs for large buildings (tie beams, hammer beam, kingpost etc) being limited by the available size of timber and the cutting edge of wooden structure technology.

Does anyone know of a similar progression for wooden joint (eg lap, mortice and tenon, dovetail) historical development. Any good books or references?

For example anglo-saxon and viking age woodworking was well decorated with carving but structurally very simple (lap joints), did the mortice and tenon come to the UK with the Normans who introduced so many other modern building techniques? When did dovetail joints start appearing in furniture?

cheers

StarGazer

 

[dirtydeeds]

i have a couple of books but will need to look them out

in the mean time.

half lap dovetail joints pinned with dowels were used in cruck roof constuction in vernacular buildings such as barns and houses even before the middle ages

buildings 600-700 years old have these details so it is safe to assume they were in use before this period (on the basis that the techniques were already in use)

the development in vernacular building joints followed the use in the major building projects like cathedrals and those of the kings

these buildings of state used hundreds of carpenters from all over and these men took back the ideas to their own communities

but the one thing people always forget.............. carpenters have always been in the mid range of education / intelegence

(even in my time the A,B and C grades in schools were there for a reason, A= bright kids, B=potential tradesmen, C=potential labourers)

these men developed their own ideas with out outside help, those in towns and cities belonged to their own guilds.

guilds were places of learning and disemination of trade knowledge (to tradesmen only) as well as providing help to widows and broken men

 

[tnimble]

Very interesting!

 

[StarGazer]

My starting point was the Urnes stave church....almost 1000 years old and constructed entirely of wood (except for some iron hinges and locks, even the shingles are pegged in place). The joints are almost entirely lap and dovetailed half lap with pegs.

I also have a reference for a woodworkers tool chest (Mastermyr chest 1000 years old) which uses simple dowelled lap joints and a mortice and tenon joint for the base. The tools contained within the chest are interesting in themselves with many modern parallels.

So it is likely that both these joints are over 1000 years old. But for the dovetail joint as used in furniture I have no idea, looking at very old furniture in castles etc, anything pre 16C seems very crude by modern standards but relies on very heavy M and T joints, but also using rebated panels in grooves.

 

[dirtydeeds]

tnimble's comment has made me remember other bits and pieces particularly from europe


trade has always been important across the channel and across the continent

trade was never ONLY just about money, it is also exchange of ideas and carpentry is no exception


my GUESS is that trades guilds existed in europe just as they did here for exactly the same reasons, trades people getting together for training and mutual help in difficult circumstances, even in some cases ""mirco banks"


on the continent there was another concept of the "journeyman carpenter" i believe it still exists (or did until even within living memory i believe in germany, i have no doubt it existed elsewhere)

the journeyman litterally learnt his trade by moving from town to town in this way he learned ideas from all the communities he worked in and the same way the journeman would have passed on his ideas.

a carpenter doesnt have to TELL other carpenters what he has done, other carpenters can see the work he has done years after he has left

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I suppose we ought to remember that sophisticated joinery, including dovetail joinery was used by the Egyptians as artefacts from the pyramids indicate. The pillars and lintels (can't recall their proper names) of Stonehenge were put together with woodworking style mortise and tenons. That takes us back to somewhere between 3000 BC and perhaps 5,000 BC.

Later on the Romans brought their skills with them when they invaded Great Britain in AD 43. If the ancient Britons had forgotten the skills they'd known centuries earlier then the Romans would surely have reminded them of them.

It's almost certainly unlikely that sophisticated joinery has only been developed in recent times, ie, in the last 1000 years or so.

Outside Europe the skilled workers of the Indian sub-continent, China and Japan, along with the ancient south American's were also pretty nifty with joinery, metalwork and stonework several millenia ago. Slainte.

 

[dirtydeeds]

with the exception of mobile phone and cordless screwdriver all the tools in my tool belt would be instantly recognisable to carpenter a thousand years ago

the same goes for any carpenters tool belt

some things would be "modern" like a pencil but the principle would be instantly recognisable (chalk, charcol or a knife)

even if a guy hadnt seen nails (in a nail gun) he would recognise the principle as being a peg or a dowel

my estwing (yes strange to their eyes) but the principle would be obvious

 

[bugbear]

When did dovetail joints start appearing in furniture?

quite early...

http://kellerdovetail.com/gallery/dovetailsinegypt.html

BugBear