CARPENTRY AND WOODWORK

The traditional tools of the carpenter are the hammer, two-handed saw, chisel, draw-knife and adze. The plane was added to this list some time in the twelfth century.

Most items of furniture are made of stout posts and thick boards nailed together at the joints. Common items of furniture include trestle-tables (tables made in a single piece being fairly unusual), benches, settles, stools, chairs, chests, ambries (which we now call cupboards) and cupboards (boards for putting cups on).

Joining is less common than the traditional hammer-and-nails carpentry, and was introduced as late as the twelfth century.

Ceiling, in its original sense as a verb meaning 'to cover with woodwork panels', is common in the houses of reasonably well-off people. Ceilers decorate their work in a variety of ways, including sunk carving, scratch carving, gouge carving, chip carving and stamping with a steel punch. Panels are almost always painted; medieval people did not find unpainted wood to be decorative or attractive.

There are three different methods of coopering, depending on the exact nature of the barrel to be constructed. Dry coopering is used for normal casks, and consists simply of binding planks togeteher with wooden bands. Wet coopering is used for water tight containers and employs oak beams and much tighter binding. Finally, white coopering is used for making pails, wash-tubs, butter churns and the like.

Farm-carts are generally constructed of light staves and wickerwork, while baggage wagons are made from panels and planks, sometimes covered with fabric or leather. The wheelbarrow was invented some time around the thirteenth century.

RENAISSANCE DEVELOPMENTS

A number of new carpentry tools have been invented, perhaps the most important being the brace. Others include the T-handed auger and the gimlet. The use of the adze is declining, although not yet abandoned. Turning, hardly ever used in the middle ages, is by now used quite widely for making decorated chair-legs and the like.

The art of the joiner has greatly improved and a large range of items are now produced in this way. These include ambries, presses, tables, court-cupboards, benches, settles, chairs, stools, beds and panelling and house fitments. Tables are now generally supported on a frame with corner posts held by frieze-rails rather than on a trestle.

Cheap furniture is generally either wickerwork or stick-furniture, which consists of round wooden sticks nailed together with a few small planks. More expensive items are often covered with decorative leather, especially coffers and X-frame chairs.

The wainwright's art has also been substantially improved. In the fourteenth century, projecting hurdles were added to the backs of carts to improve their load capacity. Surboards are sometimes added over the wheels of carts to stop mud splashing too high. The bogie was invented in the early fifteenth century, allowing the front axle to swivel on the chassis.

New types of vehicle introduced include the coach, with strong suspension and well-constructed bodies. Solid wheel trucks moving on wooden rails are now used in mines and similar areas.

Wheels are now sometimes reinforced with metal, although such vehicles are generally not permitted in towns because of detrimental effect on the streets. Nails are sometimes driven into the wheel rim to act as studs instead, or the dowels of the spokes are allowed to project from the felloes. The dished wheel, with the spokes arranged in a flat cone, is another innovation, and provides strength against sideways thrust.

PAPER

The raw material for paper production is linen, cotton, straw, or more usually, wood. This material is beaten to a pulp on a stamping mill while being thoroughly washed. The pulp is then drained or carried into a vat. A mould consisting of a wooden frame covered by tight parallel 'laid wires' and surrounded by a second wooden frame (the 'deckle') which forms the boundary of the sheet, is dipped into the vat. The resulting sheet is then squeezed dry on a wooden press and then left to hang for several days to remove any remaining moisture. Watermarks are produced by sewing a wire shape into the mould.