One traditional definition of carpentry is “the art or science of cutting, fitting, and assembling wood or related material in the construction of buildings and other structures.”

1. WHAT IS CARPENTRY?
• One traditional definition of carpentry is “the art or
science of cutting, fitting, and assembling wood or
related material in the construction of buildings and
other structures.”
• Another common definition is “the occupation in
which carpentry tools are used.” These tools, include
the handsaw, the hammer, the brace and bit, chisels,
and other tools generally found in a carpenter’s tool
box.

2. CARPENTRY AS AN
ANCIENT CRAFT
• Carpentry is the art of working with wood, in the construction of
buildings in which men live or work, the making of furniture, and
many other devices of wood, to help man adapt himself to his
environment.
• The art of carpentry is thousands years old.
• The carpentry began when man first left the caves in which he
had lived until then; driven out perhaps by hunger and the need to
seek better hunting grounds, he made for himself crude shelters
of branches which he covered with leaves and grass.

3. CARPENTRY AS AN
ANCIENT CRAFT
• However, this early ancestors had no tools, as we know them
today, and since tools are so vital a part of carpentry, it would
perhaps be more correct to say that carpentry began when men
first fashioned crude tools from bronze and iron.
• The art of carpentry is thousands years old.
• With these tools, wood that was used for building and making
could be cut instead of broken. Men then began to shape wood
into useful objects and to improve the shelters which protected
them from their enemies and the weather.

4. THE MODERN CARPENTER
• At one time the carpenter’s work was almost entirely with wood.
However, in recent years many substitutes for wood have been
put on the market, and, in order to protect the interests, the
carpenter has claimed the right to work in many of the newer
materials, on the basis that such work requires the use of
carpentry tools.
• When a jurisdictional disputes arises among the different trades
as to which trade is to do certain work, each trade in question
selects a representative to present its case, and these
representatives jointly select a neutral judge or referee who
analyzes with care the facts presented to him, and then renders a
decision in favor of one trade or the other.

5. THE MODERN CARPENTER
• Through jurisdictional award, the following work has been
adjudged to be carpentry:
o The erecting and insulating of metal trim, such as bucks, jambs,
doors, transoms, casings, metal medicine cabinets, metal
weather stripping, and other similar work; the laying of plain
and ornamental cork and rubber-tile flooring, baseboards, or
wainscoting, whether laid or set in composition or glue, and
where brads or nails are used; the erecting and applying of all
composition materials, and other rigid-board substitutes;
assembling and setting of all seats in theaters, school, halls, and
similar buildings; all millwright work such as setting of engines,
and installing of all types of machinery in factories and mills.

6. THE MODERN CARPENTER
• However, the carpenter’s work is not confined to the erection of
buildings, this is only one phase of carpentry. Carpenters are
employed in the buildings of the following that required trainings
which is different from building and construction work.
o Bridges
o Piers
o Docks
o Wharfs
o Boat or ship

7. TRADE CLASSIFICATIONS
• Persons unfamiliar with trade classifications are apt to assume that
everyone who works in wood is a carpenter, this is not so.
• There was a time when the carpenter not only built the house, but
also made the trim, the built-in cabinet work, and even in some
cases, the furniture.
• However, today, a builder of furniture is a cabinet-maker, while the
man who makes the interior trim and builds stairs is a mill-man. In
general, mill-men and cabinet-makers, together with similar
woodworking craftsmen, belong to the large group of men who
work in factories; whereas the carpenter is employed on what is
known as outside work.