A Joint Effort: The Craft of Joinery at Colonial Williamsburg

Unlike the butcher, the baker, or the candle-stick maker, the basic definition of the joiner’s role requires a bit of an introduction. At Colonial Williamsburg, master joiner Ted Boscana and his apprentice Scott Krogh recently offered just such a primer to the students from the University of Delaware’s class in Early American Craftsmanship. Entering the shop beneath the sign of the saw and plane, we knew well enough that we would be learning about an important woodworking trade. But exactly what jobs did an early Virginia joiner perform? How did his practice differ from those of his London counterparts, or from his fellow colonial settlers engaged in other woodworking crafts, such as cabinetmaking or general carpentry?

 

Saws and planes – crucial tools for a joiner – line the walls of the Williamsburg shop.

Ted and Scott would answer each of these questions for us, also letting us try our own hands at some of the “art and mystery” of the joiner’s craft. To begin with, Ted explained that because colonists were not regulated by the same strict guild structure as London craftsmen, the local distinction between joinery and cabinetry was somewhat looser. Joiners in eighteenth-century Virginia made a variety of products, including carved work and dovetailed pieces that we might be more apt to associate with the craft of cabinetmaking.

  Left: Master joiner Ted Boscana provides us with an introduction to the historic trade of joinery.  Right: Libby and Allie examine the handiwork that went into the making of a corner cupboard.

However, joiners more commonly worked on architectural projects – such as window sashes and ornamental molding – than did their cabinetmaking counterparts. When joiners did make furniture, it was more likely to be utilitarian in nature, making use of common woods such as pine and poplar, rather than the walnut and mahogany most often reserved for finer and more expensive furnishings. Still, there were exceptions: Ted pointed out that an eighteenth-century Williamsburg joiner was contracted to make pieces for the Governor’s Palace – very swanky, especially by local standards – including a mahogany knife-box and an elaborate bird house.

With such specialized objects far beyond our novice capabilities, the Craftsmanship students attempted some of the basic work that would have served as the joiner’s bread and butter. From a vast selection of molding planes, Ted chose a few simpler ones for us to try. First, using an ogee plane and a bead plane, we made a decorative molding from a tulip poplar plank.

 Using the molding planes was a deeply satisfying and almost meditative experience. The smell of warming wood filled the air as we took turns running the plane down the plank, creating friction and working up “a good polish.” Curls of wood fell to the floor as we worked decorative grooves into the surface of the wood.

Notably, our finished product resembled no recognizable classical architectural order and would therefore have been anathema to the knowledgeable eighteenth-century eye. Someone like Thomas Jefferson, in particular, would have expected architectural components to conform to a strict set of principles governing the size, shape, and combination of molding types. While such a stickler as Jefferson would not have been the everyday client for a Williamsburg joiner, the craftsman would nonetheless have needed a complete understanding of the common visual vocabulary in order to maintain basic standards.

The joiner might have kept books on hand for reference, such as Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works.

Moving from the ornamental to the more practical, we next spent some time working with match planes, a pair of tools designed to construct a groove and a corresponding tongue for a set of boards. The perfect fit Ted created gave us a feel for one of the joiner’s primary goals – forming a neat joint, as implicit in the name of the trade. To introduce us to several more joint types, Ted and Scott showed us multiple different dovetails as well as the traditional mortise and tenon.

  

Examples of mortise & tenon (left) and dovetail joints (right).

Finally, we took a closer look at the process of assembling window sashes, a surprisingly complex job that drew upon the joiner’s ability to use careful measuring, a systematic approach, and tension between components in order to create a final product. The “story stick” was a measuring device used to map out the dimensions of a window. The measurements for a particular client’s house or shop could then be labeled and saved on the story stick for future repair as needed. Ted emphasized the labor-intensive nature of making a single window, with a “twelve light” (or twelve pane) window representing a full day’s work for a master with help from apprentices. He likened the process to that of constructing a door, working with the outside in, with the final addition of glass panes providing a crucial element of tension that would hold individual muntons in place and ensure the window’s overall stability.

  

A window sash and a “story stick,” recording the measurements and profiles for a corresponding sash.

At the end of our session, we each came away with a small section of ogee- and bead-molded poplar. Likely not something that would impress Thomas Jefferson, but good enough for a group of novices! As Ted pointed out, the bead edge to this molding would have offered a distinct advantage to a joiner who might want to conceal an imperfect joint. “If you can’t join it, bead it,” Ted advised us with a grin. We now have a bit of a better sense for how to do both.

A first attempt: Scott sawed our molded plank into pieces so that we could each come away with a memento of the day’s activities.

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By Emelie Gevalt, WPAMC Class of 2017

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 For many years, the Department of Historic Trades at Colonial Williamsburg has generously hosted Winterthur students as part of a course in pre-industrial craftsmanship.  Over the course of several days, we students work closely with the tradespeople, trying our hands at a wide range of eighteenth century occupations that bring our studies, quite literally, to life.  Every year, we leave with a deeper understanding of the material world.  This post is part of a series that chronicles our visit in March, 2017.



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