Who is a carpenter? How to learn carpentry? Tips for beginners Joiner began to do.

Good afternoon friends!

Quite often there is a situation when a person who has not previously worked with wood suddenly decides to engage in carpentry. There can be many reasons for such a decision. For example, carpentry became interesting as a hobby, or a person realized that by doing carpentry as the main job and opening his own small workshop, you can earn income. By and large, the reason, as well as the age at which a person decided to engage in carpentry, is not so important. In any case, the first question that arises in all beginners is the same: I decided to take up carpentry, tell me where to start? ».

In fact, the answer to this question can consist of several parts: what tools are needed, how best to equip the workshop, where to get knowledge, and so on. The parts of the question about and are exclusively applied and the answers to them are not so difficult to find, but the question of whether where to get knowledge, in my opinion, is key and it will not be possible to answer it unambiguously.

To help the novice craftsman, I will give a few examples of places where you can acquire basic knowledge of carpentry.

Self-study on the Internet:

Indeed, if you have begun to be interested in carpentry, the first place to look is the Internet. Use the search - here you can find a huge amount of information: all kinds of sites, thematic forums, video tutorials on YouTube. By the way, you can read more about good educational channels on YouTube in one of the past.

One of the most popular carpentry forums Artisan (http://forum.woodtools.ru/index.php)

The undoubted advantage of self-study on the Internet is free. However, the downside of this approach is that there is a lot of information and it is poorly structured. That is why it can be difficult for a beginner to navigate and figure out where to start. Also, a person can be confused by the abundance of different points of view, especially on the forums. A novice carpenter spends a huge amount of time reading articles and watching videos, and in the end often does not understand how to do it right. As a result, the learning process drags on for a long time and it becomes difficult to continue without seeing progress. And in general, there is a risk that the desire to carpentry may disappear.

Also, do not forget that you still need to apply the knowledge gained in practice. To do this, you must have some minimum set of tools and a room for carpentry. This can be a stumbling block, because spending significant money on a tool without being sure that you will use it is reckless.

Courses

Compared to self-study on the Internet, the courses have a number of advantages: the course material is clearly structured, there are clear recommendations and the teacher's opinion on each issue. The teacher will always be able to answer additional questions. Courses, in addition to theory, necessarily include a practical part, which gives the student the opportunity to try to work with his own hands, without having his own tool and workshop. In addition, in the courses you see your progress in practice, and the established schedule of classes is much easier to follow than to study on your own at home.

This cupboard is the first item I made in a carpentry course This cupboard is the first piece I made in a carpentry course

Of course, the downside of the courses is that they are not free. Many will say that it is better to buy your own tool instead of paying for courses. But, firstly, in some cities you can find free municipal courses for retraining carpentry specialists. Secondly, in my opinion, the benefits of taking the courses justify the costs. After all, it is not necessary to attend expensive 6-month courses. To gain basic knowledge about tools, materials and safety precautions, a 2-3 week course is enough. And after the courses and understanding the most basic things, it will be easier for you to find the information you need on the Internet.

Journeyman

If you are already fully convinced that carpentry is what you want to do, then the option of becoming an apprentice is perfect for you! All that is required is to find a carpentry workshop in your city and meet with the master. A lot of masters are interested in teaching and transferring their knowledge to students. The terms of interaction with the master may be different, but do not expect that at the first stage it will be profitable for you. Perhaps the master will undertake to teach you for free, and you will help the workshop with your work. Or, you will need to pay some amount to the master for training.

This option is the most preferable, as it gives you the opportunity to get the most experience in practice. However, you should carefully consider the choice of workshop - see that the specialization of the workshop suits you. It is not very logical to go to a door and window workshop if you are interested in woodcarving.

These are the most obvious and common ways to learn about carpentry, but of course there are others. By the way, all methods can be combined with each other in any proportion that seems to you the most correct and effective.

The most important thing is real practice. As with any craft, the more you work with your hands, the more experience you gain and the faster you progress in your craft!

Good luck with your craft!

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Carpenter is a working profession associated with wood processing and the manufacture of wooden products. Who is a carpenter, how difficult and responsible is this specialty? This is a fairly skilled and complex profession, unlike such a profession as a carpenter (who is engaged in simple and rough work with wood), a carpenter can produce finished wooden products with high consumer qualities.

Where do carpenters work? In all areas of industry where wood is used in one way or another as a material. Joiners work in furniture factories, in construction, and even in the aviation industry! (models of aircraft and their parts for aerodynamic tests are made of wood).

What woodworking techniques are used in the carpentry profession? These are sawing, planing, turning, gluing, carving. To do this, carpenters use a wide range of tools. Among them are such well-known ones as a plane, a jigsaw, a saw, an ax, a chisel, and such exotic ones as a tongue-and-groove, kerunok, filler. Having mastered all this set of tools, a good carpenter can do a lot.

How harmful or dangerous is this profession? As in any other working profession, there are safety precautions in carpentry. Woodworkers use power tools that can cause injury (including loss of fingers or limbs) and may experience shavings in their work. Many of the power tools and machines used in carpentry are very loud, which can cause hearing loss. Inhalation of a fine suspension of sawdust without a respirator can cause various respiratory diseases, including oncological ones. However, wearing all the protective equipment provided and following the safety rules can avoid most of the listed health problems.

Where and how can you learn to be a carpenter? Theoretically, this is a profession that requires secondary specialized education (vocational school), but on-the-job training is also possible - in particular, for carpenters-machine operators in factories. In such factories, so-called student vacancies often open. The requirements for a person applying for such a vacancy are minimal: only an incomplete secondary education is required. During the training, a carpenter's apprentice learns to understand the drawings, studies various types and types of wood, and masters carpentry tools.

Do carpenters have career prospects? There are, and they are not fundamentally different from those in any other working specialty. With the growth of the rank, the carpenter gains access to the position of foreman. With higher education, he can become a foreman, engineer or superintendent.

Carpentry tools and their handling

When purchasing the equipment necessary for carpentry, you must first of all have a clear idea of ​​the nature of the work that is supposed to be performed.

It is not at all necessary for a novice craftsman to purchase the entire complex assortment of tools of a professional carpentry workshop; but at the same time, you should not save on the necessary tools, and you need to buy them of better quality. In general, the greater the number of various tools at hand, the more economically the physical forces of the master will be spent, and the better these tools are, the longer they will serve their owner.

Based on these considerations, we will give a description of a set of carpentry tools, dwelling in particular detail on those that are useful for any job, and only secondarily noting those that will be needed already for more complex work and can be purchased later.

Workbench. The workbench is the most important and essential piece of equipment for every carpentry workshop, even at home. Any objections that a lot of work can be done without a workbench should disappear if we remember how much strength and even health it will save the worker, thanks to the conveniences it provides and the ability to take the correct body positions when working, which do not impede breathing and distribute evenly the efforts made. Thus, the main purpose of the workbench is to strengthen materials in a position that is most convenient for processing.

The workbench consists of two main parts - the workbench and the base, which is sometimes called the workbench.

In various workbenches, the workbench has from 2 to 4 arshins in length, with V2 being 1/4 arshins wide. Its height from the floor should be selected according to the height of the worker and the length of his arms.

The workbench is made of hard, well-seasoned wood and, to avoid warping, is sometimes even glued together from several thin bars, the puff rings of which are directed in opposite directions.

Along the left edge of the workbench, a number of square holes are hollowed out - nests that serve to insert wooden or metal blocks, between which the processed piece of wood is clamped. A rather significant recess is made in the rear left edge of the workbench, in which the back or share vice, consisting of a quadrangular box, in the upper part of which there is also one workbench, moves freely on the screw. By rearranging the block (comb) on the workbench into different nests and screwing the back vise with their comb, you can firmly clamp a board of any length on the workbench in a horizontal position. The same rear vise can be used for longitudinal, transverse sawing and in many other cases. Less often, they use the side or transverse vise located in the left front corner of the workbench; they are mainly used when planing the edges of long boards.

The workbench rests on the workbench, which should be strong, stable and, if possible, heavier. Sometimes a locker for storing tools is arranged in the basement.

Tools that should be at hand during work are placed in a recess that runs along the entire right edge of the workbench.

Knowing the device and purpose of the workbench and its individual parts, in the absence of funds, you can make yourself some kind of simplified workbench, which can also be used for simple work. Its device depends on the skill and requests of the master, to whom we nevertheless advise at the first opportunity to acquire a real workbench.

Next we will describe the accessories necessary for the carpenter to mark and check the workpiece; it is necessary here:
1) Folding rule or tape measure with various measures of length applied to it;
2) a metal ruler with the same measures of length;
3) thickness gauge;
4) T-square;
5) compasses;
6) caliper;
7) square;
8 and 9) yarunok and malka.

The thickness gauge is easy to make yourself; it consists of an even bar-ruler, passed through the block. Compasses at first can be replaced by a ruler with holes or just a string with a nail tied to one side and a pencil on the other. The square, yarunok and malka are already familiar to us from carpentry.

Tools that serve directly for processing wood, we will divide into sawing, planing, chiselling and drilling.

The former include saws, primarily bow and rotary saws.

We already met with a bow saw when describing carpentry tools, but a rotary saw differs from it only in a narrower blade and a tall machine, so that it can cut along a curved line even in relatively thick boards and rotate the cut line. For small work, hand saws and hacksaws can be successfully replaced with a bow saw, and a jigsaw is used for cutting curved lines and very thin boards or plywood. Jigsaws are both wooden and metal, and thin files can be separately purchased for them, which, when stretched, are clamped into the jigsaw with the screws on it.

Of the planing tools, the most necessary will be: sherhebel, which serves for the initial rough processing of wood. Sherhebel has almost the same design as the bear already familiar to us from carpentry, but differs from it in its smaller size and somewhat semicircular blade (bevel) of its piece of iron. This piece of iron strongly enters the tree and removes rather thick chips. It is better for them to plan not along the line of fibers, but obliquely to it, since then it does not tear so much.

With a planer, the tree is processed more purely, the chamfer of its piece of iron is straight and wider. There are planers with a double piece of iron, or sanders that process the planed surface even cleaner; of these, especially for small jobs, a metal “American” grinder is very convenient.

Jointer. We have already had to use the word jointing - to smooth and fit planed surfaces. For this, a jointer serves, which has a look similar to the tools just described, but differs from them in its considerable length and is used for large-scale work. Like a grinder, a jointer also has two pieces of iron and also works with the only difference that due to its large length - up to 1 meter - it needs to be held in hands in a slightly different way.

The following planing tools will be needed already for more complex work and can be acquired later, after acquiring the skill.

These are: zenzubel - for grooving in boards; tongue and groove - for sampling the sheet pile; headquarters - for planing convex surfaces; kalevki - for planing cornices, skirting boards, etc.; tsinubl - with a vertical jagged piece of iron, which serves to give the board a rough surface, for example, before pasting with plywood, etc.

We have already met with chiselling tools in the carpentry department; in carpentry, they only hollow out nests with very wide sides, while smaller holes are usually drilled, for which a brace and a drill with perks and drills for them are used.

A brace is a machine for inserting feathers, made in the form of a metal bracket with a persistent cap at the upper end, a handle for rotation in the middle and with a socket equipped with a clamping screw for feathers at the lower end. The most common are the center perk, which, precisely holding in the center of the hole with its sting, cuts perfectly even round holes in the tree, and the spoon perk, which is used to make holes in which special accuracy is not required.

Center perks come in different diameters, according to the size of the holes required. Countersinks are used in cases where the head of a screw screwed into a hole made with an awl must be flush with the surface of the product; they drill only shallow funnel-shaped depressions.

The drill is used to drill the smallest holes and can be replaced for a start with gimlets, the disadvantage of which, however, is that when they are drilled, the wood cracks more easily.

In conclusion, we note that a carpenter, no less than a carpenter, needs to have an ax and several hammers, of which one is wooden for working with chisels (a wooden hammer is called a mallet by carpenters).

To the tools listed above, it is also necessary to add shells that serve to sharpen tools, which will be a constant need during hard work.

First of all, here you need a whetstone, on which all the planing tools are sharpened, and a whetstone, on which their final editing after the point is made.

It should be sharpened by firmly pressing the piece of iron on the bar and observing that its chamfer is always at the same angle to the bar. So that the metal does not heat up (this can cause the steel to lose its qualities), the beam should be moistened more often with water. On the touchstone, the final editing of the instrument is carried out with more gentle movements, and the touchstone should be lubricated with wooden oil.

As for sawing tools, as mentioned earlier, they are sharpened with files, and it is also desirable to have special small vices for clamping the saw blade so that the blade does not oscillate at the point and the file goes exactly in that position relative to the saw teeth, in to which he is directed.

For large heavy tools, such as an ax, you need a round whetstone, which rotates with a handle and always touches the lower part of the water located in a trough arranged under it.

It should be noted that all instruments used for sharpening tools should be kept as neat as possible, for example, the whetstone should be protected even from dust and kept in a closed box.

Joinery connections

Before proceeding to a description of the techniques of carpentry, we will describe, as in carpentry, various ways of connecting parts of a tree together.

Joiner's connections, as well as carpentry, are divided into splicing, knitting and rafting.

Splicing in joinery is very rare, since with the small size of normal joinery, the length of commercially available grades of material is usually quite sufficient. If, nevertheless, the need for splicing appears, then it is done either with the help of a slope lock (wood bars), or, more often, with tongs (boards).

The most important in joinery work are knitting and rafting of wood, which we will dwell on in more detail.

Connecting wooden parts at an angle, as we already know, can be done in various ways. Here we will note only the most used in carpentry.

Spike locks - very often used in white-wood work, for example, for window frames, paneled doors, etc. Spikes are through or dark, hidden.

The following matings belong to the first of them:
A simple through thorn lock (Fig. 1a) is considered the simplest way of the corner connection of a tree. To do this, the end of one bar or board is divided along the length into three parts, from which the extreme ones are cut out, and the remaining middle part forms a spike. Corresponding to this spike, a nest is sawn through and cut out in another of the parts to be joined, with which the spike forms a strong corner joint.

A double through spike lock is made in the same way as the previous one, with the only difference that the end of the bar is divided not into three, but into five parts; in one bar two parts are cut out and in the other, respectively, three, after which both bars are knocked together.

Rice. 1. Joiner's connections: a - a simple through spike lock; b - a lock in a mustache; in - a lock with a spike; g _ pohemochny lock in a mustache; d - key lock; e - a raft with insert.

If spiked joints are made without glue (glue will be discussed below), then a wooden wedge is driven into the end of the spike, which, bursting the end of the spike, prevents it from jumping out of the socket.

A spike lock in a mustache is also very often used in carpentry work (Fig. 1b). It is done by drawing an oblique spike at 45 ° and, accordingly, an oblique nest in another bar, as can be seen from the figure.

A lock with a spike is used for corner knitting of simple picture frames. To perform such knitting, their ends are first tightly jointed, and then, having measured 45 ° angles at the ends, they are cut along this line and, having made a frame on glue, insert a triangular spike into the slot made in the cuts of the corners of the frame. For greater strength, the spike can also be grabbed with several carnations (Fig. 1c).

When knitting a tree in the dark, the spikes should not be visible from the outside. This is a prerequisite for clean carpentry work.

The dark mustache lock shown in Figure 4d is an example of this kind of knitting. In it, nests and spikes are not cut through, but only up to V4 of the thickness of the board or timber, so that when they are connected, the knitting will not be visible. Our drawing shows only one spike, finished in the form of a frying pan (see carpentry joints), but several such spikes can be made, depending on the width of the shields to be connected.

A key lock is used to connect boards or boards at an angle, when the end of one board must enter the middle of the other, as happens, for example, when strengthening shelves in cabinets. The lining of such a knit is visible in Figure 1e.

The rafting of shields in carpentry can be done in the same way as in carpentry, for example, with the help of tongues, dowels, etc. is selected in both bonded boards and a solid spike is driven into them along the entire length of the raft. This method has the advantage that it maintains the full width of the boards, while with a normal sheet pile, part of this width is spent on cutting a pen inserted into the tongue of an adjacent board.

Carpentry techniques

A novice master needs to remember that carpentry work in itself is not difficult. They require only some skill in working with tools, care, accuracy in the cleanliness of the finish of each piece of wood from which the object will be made, and a conscious attitude to the properties of the material from which this object is made.

It is necessary to warn the beginner against excessive haste in work - it can lead to numerous failures; you need to remember that with the acquisition of basic practical skills, speed in work will come by itself.

Particular attention should also be paid to giving the correct position to one’s own body during work - then carpentry work will be much less tiring than without taking into account such considerations, and even more than that, it will serve as excellent gymnastics.

We now turn to a description of the various types of work.

Sawing. We already know that wood can be sawn both along and across its grain. This work is very simple, but it requires some skill in owning a saw, that is, the ability to saw correctly and cleanly along the intended line, without deviating to the side and without making gashes.

The greatest difficulty for a beginner is to work with a bow saw, which, however, is most often used.

The main thing here is the ability to set the saw in the correct position, according to the sawing conditions. The saw blade must be installed in the beam so that it is in the same plane along its entire length, and not bent by a screw and at the same time it is tightly stretched. It is not difficult to check this position - it is necessary that the eye cannot see the sides of the saw blade if it is sighted on the edge of this blade. Then the saw will cut evenly, in the opposite case, it will deviate from the intended line, and if it is strongly skewed, it will even burst. In the same position, sighting the eye on the edge of the blade, sawing should be carried out.

As for the saw beam, it usually deviates at a certain angle to the blade in such a way as not to interfere with the movement of the latter - not to cling to the edges of the board into neighboring objects or a workbench. With transverse sawing, this angle may not be very large, but with longitudinal sawing, there are cases when the beam has to be placed almost at right angles to the canvas.

The lines along which sawing should be made are usually marked with a pencil, using a square or thickness gauge.

When sawing transversely, this is done as follows: a thick edge of the square is placed on the edge of the bar in the place where the cut should go, and the upper side is outlined along the edge of the thin and long part of the square. Then this feature, if the bar is rather thin, is transferred to both of its edges and to the lower side. All this is done using the same square, superimposed on the faces, and the ends of the lines drawn, if the markings were made correctly, should converge into a quadrilateral.

Having marked the cut line, the bar or board is transferred to the workbench and placed so that the end to be cut is outside the workbench, and, if necessary, clamped with a vise.

The saw is taken in the right hand, covering the lower part of one of the vertical racks and the handle of the beam with the fingers. The tree being cut is held with the left hand. Since the bow saw has asymmetrical teeth, it should be noted that the straight side of the teeth is directed away from the person working with it, and, therefore, that the cut itself occurs when the saw moves away from itself.

Sawing should be started from the corner of the bar so that both the top and one of the sides are captured at the same time. In this position, the risk of chipping off the edge of the processed piece of wood is reduced. The first movements of the saw should be very careful and light, and only after the saw enters the tree by about the width of the blade, you can begin to work bolder. You should not rush into work at all, and the beginner should especially remember that haste and excessive pressure on the saw will not help the cause, but will only rather tire the worker. The saw must cut by pressing on the wood with nothing but its own weight, and thus requires almost no physical effort to operate; only the ability to handle it correctly is important - dexterity. This is especially true when the cut comes to an end and the saw only has to cut the bottom edge of the board or bar. Here you need to work especially carefully so that this thin line does not break off and spoil the whole thing. Sometimes it’s even better to turn the bar over to the other side and saw through the remaining piece from the untouched place.

It should be noted that with a transverse sawing, the width of the saw blade is almost irrelevant; it is only important that the saw is sharp and its teeth are correctly set. A dull saw will “stick” during operation and cut the tree poorly, and if the wiring is incorrect, the saw teeth will break. Tooth breakage can also occur for another reason due to poor hardening of the steel.

If a very long piece of wood is being sawn, or a large beam has to be cut into almost equal parts, of which one will stick out or hang far outside the workbench, then it is necessary to substitute some support under this hanging part, even before starting sawing. Otherwise, when the cut reaches a certain depth, this part will break off under its own weight and will certainly break off the lower edge of the beam along the line of fibers.

With longitudinal sawing along the line of layers and in the direction of the fibers, the methods of work change somewhat.

Having beaten off the rope with a cord or thicknesser, a bar or board is installed along the workbench and firmly clamped with clamps. The saw is taken with both hands and placed vertically, embracing the beam stand at the handle with the right hand, and the opposite end of the same stand at the rope with the left hand. At the same time, the bow is bent to the side in such a position that it is more convenient to hold it and that it does not touch anything.

Longitudinal sawing is generally faster than transverse sawing, since the connection of the fibers along their length is weaker and the tree has less resistance in work.

When sawing small blocks of wood longitudinally, the work is simplified - the block can be directly clamped in the vice of a workbench in a vertical position and, having placed the saw blade horizontally, sawn in the usual way. As you cut, the clamped parts can be lifted or even moved in a vise so that you can work at a convenient height. To facilitate the movement of the saw, a small wedge can be inserted into the top of the cut; however, this measure must be used with caution - the wedge can easily split the tree along a line that deviates from the required one.

It is useful to lubricate the saw blade while working with lard, and when sawing a highly resinous tree, moisten it with water. When sawing curved surfaces, the tree is clamped according to the same rules as for longitudinal sawing; a feature of this kind of work is only the use of a repeated saw. It is necessary to work with this saw more slowly than with an ordinary bow saw, especially when cornering, since the saw blade may break if handled carelessly.

When making internal holes, curved outlines, it is easier to work with a narrow hacksaw; moreover, in order to pass it through the middle of the board, in the place that will be cut out completely, they drill a hole with a brace and already out of it they go out with a saw to the intended line, along which sawing is carried out further. For very thin boards or plywood, in such work, as we have already said, a jigsaw is used.

trimming. A sawn off piece of wood may not always match the thickness and shape of the thing that is made from it. To separate the excess part of the material, if it is inconvenient to do it with a saw, trimming with an ax is used.

A carpenter's ax differs from a carpenter's ax in almost half the size and weight. Its blade is also somewhat thinner than that of a carpenter's axe.

Trimming of small bars is usually done as follows: they put the bar vertically on some kind of stand (it’s good to take a simple block of wood), hold it in this position with the left hand, and use the right hand to amuse it with an ax, directing its blade somewhat obliquely relative to the surface being hewn. At the same time, you should not be in a hurry to strike too often and in general. It is also dangerous to hit too hard with an ax - this will separate large chips and you can easily chip off more wood than necessary.

Planing. When the product is given its external shape with a saw or an ax, the resulting surfaces are smoothed using planing tools, which we have already met above.

Processing always begins with coarser tools, and only then the surfaces are finally smoothed out with grinders, jointers, and sometimes cycles - a sharp steel plate, which scrapes out the last roughness. (Often the cycle is replaced by simply sharp edges of pieces of broken glass, and the results are no worse than when working with cycles).

When working with planer tools, you should ensure that their pieces of iron are well sharpened and correctly inserted and strengthened in the shoe.

The sole of the latter should be completely smooth and even.

The ability to correctly fill the piece of iron in the block is not given immediately. You need to make sure that it does not stick out too much down and, when planing, would not spoil the thing being processed. In addition, during operation, the glands are slightly shifted inside the block and they have to be brought back to their original position with light blows of the hammer. The tool block should always be held and moved with both hands, with the left hand in front. During planing, attention should also be paid to the directions of the wood fibers, especially when working with a sherhebel; the tool should be guided in the direction of the fibers, and not against it, otherwise you can lift the tree, which will be difficult to correct.

It is best to plan a little at an angle with respect to the direction of the fibers. When planing a shield, cohesive of several boards, in which the fibers go in different directions, these boards should be cut out individually or a planer with a double piece of iron should be used. In most cases, the planed surface needs to be smoothed with a jointer. The significant length of the jointer block not only ensures the evenness of its work, but can also serve to check the evenness of the planed product. To do this, you just need to turn the block on the edge, if it fits snugly to the treated surface everywhere, then everything is in order.

As for planing with curly tools (moulders, tongue-and-groove, etc.), then it should be started only after sufficient experience has been gained with the usual ones. In curly instruments, even greater care must be taken when installing their glands and in the correctness of the movements made during operation.

Chiselling. The carpenter more often than the carpenter has to make recesses and holes in the tree of square, rectangular and round sections. They usually serve as nests for thorns when knitting and rafting wood.

Correctness in this part of the work is very important, since the entire strength of the whole product depends on the accuracy in the manufacture of spikes and sockets for them. An incorrectly hollowed socket will not allow the spike to enter it tightly, and the entire fastening will be unreliable.

Hollowing out nests is done like this. Having outlined the edges of the nest with a pencil using a square, they take a spiked chisel, set it, slightly stepping back from the line with the straight side to it, and with a chamfer inside the nest, and begin to hammer, hitting the handle of the chisel with a mallet. Having made a straight incision in the fibers, the chisel is taken out and, placing it obliquely, somewhat departing from the straight line, they begin an oblique incision so that it converges with the first one. As the chisels deepen, chips are chipped. Having taken out the first layer of wood, they hammer it further in the same way until the depth of the nest reaches the required value. When the work with the chisel is completed, the resulting nest is smoothed out with a chisel, both along the bottom and along the edges outlined before starting work.

Chiseling of round sockets is also carried out, with the only difference being that semicircular chisels are used. By the way, round nests are hollowed out only in those cases when they should be too large in diameter. Small nests are usually drilled.

drilling. This is the simplest of all the works used in carpentry. Here you only need to know which drilling tool you need to use in one or another case of work. Center perks are preferred, but they require careful handling, otherwise you can break off the edges of the hole or break the perks themselves.

When working with a brace, the latter is pressed from above in this way: the left hand is placed on the upper hat, into which, for gravity, they also rest against the chin. At the same time, the whole body should have such a position that when the brace is rotated with the right hand, there would be no swing in time with the turns and the perk would crash into the tree all the time at a right angle.

For iron nails, holes are usually drilled with a gimlet and at the same time only up to half the length of the nail, so that the latter sits more firmly in the tree. For small screws, the tree is pierced with an awl, moreover, necessarily thinner than the screw.

Preparation and use of glue

As we said earlier, in carpentry, many parts of a tree are joined together using glue.

Wood glue in the form of thin horn-like plates is probably known to everyone. It is made from the waste of animal skin and bones, by means of boiling.

Dried sticks of glue for use must be dissolved - again by boiling. When the glue dissolves, do not continue cooking for too long, as the glue will again settle to the bottom of the dish and will have to be digested.

It is best to do this: break the glue plates into small pieces, put them in a vessel with cold water, in which they hold until the time when they are completely softened. This takes 3-4 hours. After the pieces of glue begin to be crushed when pressed with a finger, you need to drain the excess water and put the vessel on a gentle, even fire. After about half an hour, individual pieces of glue will merge into a liquid, viscous mass, the density of jam syrup, and then the glue is ready for use. It should be noted that the glue should be stirred with a wooden stick all the time while cooking, otherwise it may burn and lose its adhesive properties.

In the same way, glue should not be boiled over too high a fire, as this will cause it to foam; at the same time, all its sticky mass rises up in bubbles and evaporates.

If the glue has been in the water for too long and has become too liquid, then cooking should be continued until the excess water has evaporated.

On hot summer days, the welded glue quickly deteriorates and becomes moldy, so it has to be digested often.

It is good to add a little crushed alum to the glue, this increases its strength and adhesive ability.

To spread the glue, bristle brushes should be used, the larger in size, the larger the surfaces to be covered with glue. These brushes should not be left in the glue container when it is heated, as the bristles can easily burn and ruin the glue.

Gluing. We must remember the following rule: the less glue remains between the boards to be glued, the stronger they will hold; in addition, it is necessary that the boards to be joined fit one another as best as possible. If the edges of two boards are to be glued together, care must first be taken that these edges are as smooth and rectangular as possible.

To do this, the boards must be well planed and smoothed, and the corners of their edges must be checked with a square. The boards prepared for gluing should be folded together and see if there is at least the slightest gap between them, and if there is one, then smooth the edges a little more with a planer. You can start gluing only when the boards will fit one to the other completely tightly.

When gluing, heat the welded glue to a boil, making sure that it is of sufficient density. At the same time, prepare a workbench to put boards into it. Both edges are heated, and then thickly smeared with glue and, connecting together, pinched in a workbench with a vise, with such force that all excess glue flows out. It is only necessary before screwing the vise to make sure that the boards have not moved in any direction relative to each other. If any end began to protrude, then it is equated with a few blows of a hammer.

If the craftsman does not have a workbench, then the boards to be glued can be clamped in another way, namely: put them in a home-made machine, resembling carpenter's "pulps", and clamp them with wedges driven along the sides of the boards, between their outer edges and the machine.

After gluing, the product must be dried; drying normally requires three to six hours of time, depending on the temperature and humidity of the room in which the drying takes place.

The novice master should remember that to begin with, you should never try to glue more than two boards at once; if he needs to make a wide shield, then it is better to connect the boards first in pairs, and only then, from these connected pieces, make up a wide one. Gluing more than two boards at once will succeed only after a long experience.

A well-welded adhesive of sufficient density, with proper gluing, on the second day should grab the tree so strongly that it is easier to split the tree in a fresh place than to break the gluing. The latter can be destroyed mainly only by dampness.

If you want to glue a wide board with a narrower one, one on top of the other, then there is a risk that the smaller board may rebound due to the influence of heat or dampness. To avoid this, such gluing is done as follows: freshly planed and glued boards are screwed into clamps and at the same time a suitable piece of wood is inserted between the screw and a narrower or thinner board. In this case, the glue should not be very thick, and the more clamps, the longer the length of the gluing.

As for the clamps, they consist of three rectangular and very strong pieces of wood joined together, and the strength of their fastening is further increased by a metal bolt. One of the bars is equipped with a wooden screw, which can be used to make strong pressure on an object placed between it and another bar located opposite it. Under this screw, in order not to spoil the workpiece with its end, be sure to put a piece of some plank. In addition to ordinary clamps, there are clamps with a movable bottom bar. This movable bar can be moved up or down, depending on the thickness of the clamped object, and secured in position with a wedge. The screw produces only the final clamping of the workpiece, which speeds up the work.

When gluing spiked joints, both the spikes and the sockets for them should be smeared with glue, and both of them should be well heated.

In conclusion, it should be noted that you should not immediately wipe the glue that has leaked out of the gap when clamping things in a vise. This can only stain the wood, while the dried glue easily bounces off the wood itself with slight pressure with a stick or a dull chisel.

Plywood bonding

We have already had occasion to mention that furniture and other things made by cabinetmakers are only rarely made from solid wood of valuable varieties. Instead, pasting work is usually carried out, in which things made from simple wood are pasted over for beauty with plywood sawn from valuable and beautiful varieties of wood.

These plywoods have to be bought ready-made, because, due to their subtlety, there is no way to cut them yourself with a hand saw.

Plywood is usually made in factories, on mechanical machines, which simultaneously saw out a number of plywood from a bar. Plywood sawn from one block of wood is the same in size, but somewhat heterogeneous in quality - extreme plywood is worse than those sawn from the middle of the beam. However, this difference is almost completely hidden during the final finishing of products - varnishing and polishing.

The most expensive plywood is made from trunks with healthy branches and a wavy texture of wood, giving its surface a very beautiful look after polishing. Such plywood is used to decorate expensive furniture and small gizmos, which require special elegance.

Preparing for gluing. The product that they want to paste over with plywood must first be prepared for this. To do this, with thin planing tools, all the slightest bumps and irregularities on the surface of the object are removed, and this surface is then passed by a cynoble - a tool that we have already talked about - having a gear piece of iron installed at right angles to the surface being processed. The latter after that becomes rough, and therefore the plywood is glued to it more reliably.

You should also pay attention to the fact that the thing intended for gluing is made of dry wood, without cracks and the ends of the boards would not come out in it, as they strongly absorb glue and prevent the plywood from sticking well in this place.

Performing pasting. Having prepared the intended thing for gluing, or, as the carpenters say, the skeleton, it is necessary to pass with a cynoble and along that side of the plywood that will be smeared with glue; if the plywood is so thin that the tool can ruin it, then they cover it with canvas on this side. After that, with a hacksaw or a jigsaw, pieces of the desired size and shape are cut out of plywood, heated by the fire, smeared with glue on the core, lightly smeared with glue on the plywood and put it on the core. Now you need to press the plywood firmly enough against the frame so that it sticks to it firmly. If the surface is not large, or if it is narrow and long, then the plywood is rubbed. In order for the plywood to stick everywhere evenly, you need to drive with a flat hammer quickly and, moreover, over the entire surface, grabbing the edges as well. If at the same time the hammer gets dirty with glue and starts to stick to the plywood, then you need to moisten it with water, since the glue does not stick to the wet iron. Edges and seams (the junction of two plywood) should be ironed especially carefully.

It happens that in some place the plywood will begin to bubble; this means that she did not stick here, and the glue has already dried. In this case, you need to heat the hammer on the fire and iron this place again: the heat will disperse the glue, and the plywood will stick to the frame well.

If the glued frame is very large on the surface and it can be assumed that the glue dries before the master has time to go over the entire glued surface with a hammer, then the necessary compression is performed using the so-called sulage and clamp clamps.

Sulaga are called thick, smoothly planed boards, corresponding in shape to the outlines of the pasted surfaces.

If they paste over, say, a table top, then all the work will turn out in this way. Having prepared the skeleton and fitting the plywood, they heat it all up and, having smeared it with glue, put the plywood on the skeleton. With their large size, as well as so that the plywood does not move, they can be grabbed at the corners with thin wire pins. Then they take two sulags and put them one on top of the plywood, and the other on the bottom, just under the same place of the lid. All this folded together is put into the clamps (there must be at least three screws in them) and they begin to screw. First you need to screw in the middle screws, and then further and further to the edges so that excess glue can be squeezed out from under the plywood. So that this leaking glue would not stick even to the sulagi itself, this latter must be smeared with something greasy, then the glue will not stick to it.

When the glue dries enough, you can remove the lid and trim the edges with a chisel or planer.

You can find out if the plywood has stuck well as follows: the entire glued surface is tapped with a hammer, and if in some places a dull sound is obtained, it means that the plywood has not stuck in this place. Such a place is moistened with boiling water, rubbed on it with a very hot hammer or iron and screwed into the clamps again.

When pasting curved surfaces, you must first prepare the husks according to the shape of this product, and then proceed in exactly the same way as with straight surfaces. If it is difficult to make such crooked hulls, then you can do without them - make pillows with sand, lay them between straight hulls and start clamping them into clamps. Sand under compression will be distributed evenly over the entire surface, which has a curvilinear outline, and will produce sufficient compression. Pillows, so that they do not stick to plywood, must also be greased with a layer of fat.

When gluing with plywood, it is necessary to arrange them according to the pattern formed by the wavy layers of wood, and carefully joint the edges of the plywood to be joined. Due to the thinness of the planks, when jointing, of course, you can’t put plywood on edge - you have to lay it flat, turn the jointer on its side - with a piece of iron to the edge of the plywood - and work in this position.

It should also be noted that when pasting a large shield with several plywood, some seams may come apart due to the pressure of the sulage; to avoid this, you need to pre-glue the seams with strips of paper.

Examples of carpentry work

We have arranged the given examples of carpentry work in order of gradual transition from the simplest to the more difficult in execution.

Some of the items described are probably in the home of a novice master and can serve as a clear explanation of what has been said in this manual, while others can be made from drawings.

As a general advice to everyone starting to engage in carpentry, we recommend, at least at first, not to get carried away by choosing beautiful, but complex things for work, but first of all, test your strength and skill, and at the same time gain experience in making the simplest gizmos , and, only having achieved success with them, gradually complicate the task assigned to oneself.

Excessive arrogance and haste are harmful to any practical work, and they can only discourage the beginner from continuing to work.

The wall shelf consists of a board and two brackets (props) that hold it on the wall in the correct position.

The taken board is first planed on one side so that it becomes completely smooth and everywhere the same thickness. All corners must be made straight, and the edges smoothly jointed.

Then the underside of the board is planed and, after appropriate checking, the entire board is cleaned with sandpaper.

If the taken board is longer than the shelf should be, then you can also cut a piece out of it into brackets by cutting this piece diagonally (obliquely).

The resulting brackets should be smoothed along the edges with a rasp and file.

There are two ways to strengthen the shelf: you can directly nail the brackets to the wall, of course, at an equal height, and then lay them on the main board, nailing it to each bracket with two or three nails or screws. But you can do better: cut into the main board, at equal distances from the ends ^ transverse grooves, make suitable spikes in the same places of the brackets, on which to drive the brackets into the grooves of the shelf. Such fastening can be reinforced with glue or several nails. Such a shelf is hung on the wall, either by nailing the brackets through with nails, or by screwing commercially available loop ears with screws. These hinges should be screwed so that some screws capture the brackets, while others capture the edge of the shelf itself.

Folding ladder. Ladders are necessary in almost every home, and it is not difficult to make it yourself.

The ladder consists of two pieces of planks, 6 inches wide, and the length chosen according to the desired height of the ladder. On the inside of each board, a series of grooves is made, similar to those that we described in the manufacture of the shelf, but cut somewhat obliquely. Steps are made from shorter pieces of the same board; To do this, all the boards are sawn to the same length, longitudinal solid spikes are cut out at their ends, which are inserted into the grooves of the main boards. Racks are screwed to the upper ends of the resulting ladder on purchased iron hinges, for strength they are connected into a frame by transverse crossbars. The bottom rung is connected to the bottom step with a rope so that the ladder cannot move apart. The legs of the stairs are cut obliquely, so that when the stand is pushed back, they stand firmly on the floor, with the entire plane of their ends. Due to the fact that the ladder must withstand considerable weight, all connections of the wooden parts must be made with both glue and screws.

Boxes. One of the most necessary accessories of each household are boxes of a wide variety of sizes and shapes.

Boxes can be knocked together either directly with nails or with spikes. Nailing with nails does not require special explanations; the best boxes with spiked joints are made like this. Segments of the board are taken (their width and thickness are selected depending on the size of the box) and planed along the entire length. If semi-edged boards are taken, then it is also necessary to align their edges along the entire length. After that, they proceed to the transverse sawing of these boards; they are sawn into two sizes - respectively, the length and width of the intended box. For the bottom and lid of the box, the length of the segments is made equal to the length of the box.

If the height of the box is greater than the width of the board, then first of all these boards should be connected into shields, in other words, the walls, bottom and lid should be made separately, and this raft can be made with glue or with a transverse plug-in spike; two spikes for each shield.

Along the edges of the shields that serve as the walls of the box, markings are made for spikes. With the help of a square, a series of parallel lines is applied to the edge with a pencil, at equal distances. Parts of "o, o, o" are cut with a saw and cleaned with a chisel, which forms a series of oblique spikes "a, a, a". On the other segment, the same markup is made, but only the gaps between the “oh, oh” parts are cut out, so that one less tenon is obtained against the first piece. When connected at an angle, the spikes of one wall are tightly driven into the nests of the other and a strong connection is obtained, which can be further strengthened with glue. The bottom of the box is attached to its walls with glue and long thin nails.

The lid is made in the same way as the box, only smaller, and if it is desirable to make the lid retractable (especially in a small box), then for this you need to remove the groove from the inside of the three walls with a tongue and groove, cut off the upper part of the fourth wall to the level of the lower lines of this groove.

Caskets. The carpenter can start making caskets, as well as any other items that, according to their purpose, should be in sight, after he has fully mastered the “first step” of his craft. It is especially important here to practice making simple boxes.

With some experience, it is not difficult to make an elegant thing; the whole point is only that, as in any handicraft work, it is necessary that the workers do not neglect any apparent trifles, but remember that it is from these trifles that the quality of work is created.

Every oversight, every slightest malfunction in the work in the finished product is very noticeable and often cannot be corrected even by an experienced craftsman.

Caskets, even the most elegant, are almost never made of solid wood of a valuable breed; not because of its high cost, but simply because it is not required. The frame is usually made of simple, strong, smooth and dry wood, such as birch, alder, etc., and then pasted over with plywood of one sort or another, whole or assembled in the form of a mosaic from pieces of different species. It makes sense to put a solid tree of expensive breed only when the thing is supposed to be covered with carvings from above; but we will not dwell on this area, as having little practical application.

The knitting of the walls in the box is usually done with a frying pan or in the dark, and the spikes and sockets are made very carefully and with thin tools so as not to spoil the edges of the tree and achieve greater accuracy in work. It is necessary to check the knitting with a square all the time so as not to distort the corners. You can start gluing only when the correctness of all angles is checked with a square on a box folded, so to speak, in a rough outline. After gluing the walls, planks for the bottom and lid are prepared and glued, clamping the entire box in a clamp. The box should dry in clamps for at least a day. The screwing of the clamps must be done so that the bottom and the lid are squeezed evenly over the entire surface, for which it is necessary to attach linings from pieces of thick boards under the screws.

When the glue dries completely, unscrew! clamp screws and clean the box of glue smudges, doing it with a chisel and perhaps more carefully. Now you can paste with plywood, which we have already talked about earlier, and then with a thin hacksaw, with an absolutely even and correct cut, divide the resulting tightly closed box into two parts. Of these, one will be the lid, and the other will be the box itself. The sawing is done, of course, at such a height that the lid on one side and the box itself on the other side would have sufficient depth and would turn out beautiful. Usually such a cut is made at a height of V4-3/4 of the casket, but sometimes, for example, when making a chessboard, the cut has to be made very precisely in the middle, since in this case the opened casket should just form a completely flat surface with its bottom and lid.

The cutting planes are carefully cleaned with a cycle and sandpaper, after which small cuts are made in them for the loops. These cuts should be no deeper than the thickness of the open loop and be made with a thin chisel at equal distances from the corners of the box. When buying loops, it is necessary not only to choose their size, but also to pay attention to the material from which they are made. The best would be copper or brass hinges. It is also necessary to choose good screws for screwing the hinges, so that when they are screwed in, their heads do not stick out above the plane of the hinge. Sometimes you should slightly expand the reamer and the very holes made in the loop for these screws. The hinges should also be fitted very carefully, as a slight deviation from the general line can pull or warp the lid of the box.

In the same way, the lock cuts into the box; here it is only necessary to cut or gouge a deeper recess and drill and trim a hole for inserting a key.

Furniture. This department of carpentry is so varied and so dependent on the requirements of fashion, taste and means, that it is quite impossible to describe the production of all varieties of furniture in our essay. We will give only basic instructions for the manufacture of such common items as a table, chair and cabinet.

Table. Each of the readers, of course, has seen a wide variety of tables in his lifetime. Having some knowledge of carpentry, he, of course, will understand how the table is made, at one glance at it, and he will successfully make a simple table himself.

If all parts are made and fitted correctly, if the spikes fit snugly into the nests of the legs, and these legs are cut correctly, then the table is easy to assemble. As for the more elegant tables, we have already given sufficient instructions regarding the pasting of their covers with plywood, and regarding the manufacture of carved or turned legs, we will wait until our reader acquires more experience, as well as tools.

The next section of our book - “turning” analyzes the production of just such products.

Chair. The attached figure 2 clearly shows the appearance of the individual parts of a simple chair and the way they are connected to each other.

The shape of the curved front and rear legs should first be drawn in full size on large sheets of paper; cut out the resulting pattern, and, using this template, outline the shape of the legs on a thick (inch in 1V2) board. If you need to make several identical chairs, then it’s good to cut yourself such a template from a thin lilac board or plain plywood.

Four blocks for the chair frame are sawn off from the same thick board. Spikes are made at the ends of the bars, nests for them are made at the upper ends of the legs, and spikes are inserted into these nests with glue. Our drawing shows rather complex spikes, but they can be made simpler by choosing some kind of knitting on the previously placed drawings. Then, strips for the back are cut out of a less thick board and are also attached with spikes to the upper segment of the rear legs. For strength, you can make the crossbars between the legs, also strengthening them with glue on the spikes (they are not shown in the figure).

The day of the seat can be planed smoothly or one wide board, about 1 inch thick, or stuffed on the frame in parallel with several narrow sticks (as is done in garden benches), or you can buy ready-made plywood for a chair and nail it to the frame.

Rice. 2. Parts of the chair

Closet. Cabinets can be designed for dishes, dresses, books, but whatever their purpose, the assembly of the main frame of the cabinet is generally the same. Two vertical side shields are connected to two horizontal ones - upper and lower - with spikes and glue.

Bars with a tongue groove are glued to the deep frame, formed as a result of such knitting, from the back side, into which a shield made up of thin boards is inserted - the back of the cabinet. In simple cabinets, the backrest is simply screwed to the trailing edges of the horizontal planks.

In the front of the cabinet, bars are glued to its sides, on which doors are hung with hinges. The latter are single-leaf or double-leaf and, moreover, almost always paneled, that is, made in the form of a frame into which shields are inserted with glue. A cornice is attached to the top of the cabinet to cover the connections and for beauty, with which three sides of the cabinet are circled (except for the back); at the bottom of the cabinet; on the same three sides, a plinth is attached. Straight or turned legs are cut into the bottom board at the corners on spikes.

Hangers or just a few round sticks are arranged in wardrobes for dresses, on which “shoulders” with a dress are hung; shelves are made in bookcases and utensils. It is most convenient to make the shelves removable, for which four racks are fixed inside the cabinet at the corners. Planks are inserted into their teeth, and shelves are already being placed on them. By rearranging the slats in the teeth, you can install the slats at different heights, as well as remove or add extra shelves at any time, placing them again at equal distances or in the required order relative to each other.

- Carpentry