Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/168

 140 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [August, accidental in most other sciences or arts, are essential in armory, and as, accord- ing to the old view* of the classic prac- Romans painted their imitations of the human figure, both sta'.ues and reliefs. The old belief — our present practice — is better, but such is the fact. tice, chasteness requires all statuary or sculpture, to remain of the color of its material, and these therefore cannot be tinted — the colors are to be expressed by arbitrary but appropriate dots and lines, in a manner we will describe on a future page. PRACTICAL CARPENTRY AND JOINERY. IN" architecture, practical carpentry embraces that portion of the work upon a building, or other structure, per- formed b}' a carpenter, in the course of preparation, erection and construc- tion, namely : the getting out and set- ting home of piles, and all other timbers used in foundations ; the centres to arches and vaults, girders, joists, sleepers, and planking, lintels and haucl-timbers, wall- plates and rafters, naked flooring, roof- ing, partitioning, furring walls, and rib- bing ceilings to form vaulting, commonly called cradling, which applies to any form of vault, and its preparation for lath and plaster. -^_Jotnery is of much more accurate nature ; and requires greatly finer and better-fitting workmanship than car- pentry. Joinery demands workmen well skilled in a number of points ; as the stuff must be very accurately planed and squared, then the work be marked or laid out geometrically, so that the various joints — whether dove-tails, ten- ons, halfings, mitres, or whatever else the nature of the job may require — come together with the utmost nicety ; and, to crown all, the surface must be perfectly smooth. All the internal and external finishing, of those portions of any build- ing constructed of wood, belongs to this branch. Its work is, therefore, always near the eye ; and must bear close in- spection. Of late years, it has become so much the custom to use hard wood, in the in- terior finish and decoration of edifices, that joinery is almost separated thereby, into two distinct branches. The work- man in hard woods, well-trained and grown skilful, will far excel both the carpenter and the ordinary joiner, in producing -a mechanical piece of work- manship, and will be able to accomplish any particular task, within a much shorter time than either of the former could, if not skilled far beyond the mere requirements of his own art. It is, con- sequently, the interest of the projector, always to employ those practically skilled in the particular arts they pro- fess to follow. Let him take then the carpenter, for the good heavy, solid and reliable work needed in the construction of a building; the joiner for the light, smooth, accurate and ornamental inte- rior and exterior finishing; and the stair- hand, or the ship-joiner — the latter, also, one of the most exact and exacting of workmen — for all the intricate curves and ornate niceties of embellishing in wood of all kinds ; and, by all means, let him employ either of the latter two, for producing the utmost despatch, finish and effect, in hand-rails, wainscoting, and so forth. Much of the former mere drudgery, or unimaginative work, of the carpenter and the joiner, is now performed by steam machinery, in what are usually called carpenters' mills. We refer to mould- ings simple and complex, brackets, etc., produced with amazing rapidity, and in endless varieties. In fact, the machi- nery, for this class of work, is now so
 * Later researches prove, that the Greeks and the