Joinery and Carpentry - What’s the Difference?
Carpentry is generally defined as being different from joinery, in that a joiner is a craftsman who constructs wooden items without the use of nails. Specialist joints are used, together with wood glue, to form a joint. This is quite simply where you get the name joinery. Whilst the expertise involved in carpentry is just as demanding, joinery skills are far more specialist. For example, you will never find a fence, shed, or door frame constructed with joinery techniques. Joinery takes the older, more traditional, methods of creating the strength of the piece. A carpenter would normally work on the site where the item is to stay, whereas, cabinet makers, who are joiners who specialise in making pieces of high quality furniture, are normally found in a workshop. The finished piece would then be sold in a high street shop, or these days through an online furniture retailer.
Birch Chest with Dovetail Joints
So why don’t they just use nails and be done with it? Well, there are several advantages in using joinery to construct furniture. When using a solid hardwood, for example when making oak furniture, there is inherent strength within the timber. This can be utilised by constructing with joinery techniques. A joinery style joint will be many times stronger than pinning two pieces of hardwood with nails.
Oak Table with Box (or Finger) Joint
Another advantage of joinery include aesthetics. In joinery, the joints can either be hidden, leaving them virtually invisible, or made a feature. Nail heads will always be visible. Well constructed joinery will leave attractive joints, such as dovetail joints and box joints. Here the joinery techniques leave a feature in the wood which look like a dove’s tail, or, in the case of a box joint, the effect you can replicate by simply interlocking the fingers of your hands at a ninety degree angle. If the joinery is of a high quality, these will look stunning. If the joinery is poor, it will be instantly obvious, so the joints of solid hardwood furniture will give you a good idea of the quality of the furniture, making the joinery skills of the cabinet maker crucial. Joinery and the quality of the wood are the two major factors when looking at solid hardwood furniture. These are related, because the joinery will suffer if the hardwood is of poor quality. So, in summary, if you make sure the joinery is of a high standard, you can be sure you are buying high quality furniture.
To me a carpenter is a general word for someone who works with wood and makes things with/in wood. A joiner I would say is a specialist in carpentry who would be employed in the making of doors and frames within the building of a new house. There is also the possibility of a joiner being involved in something like cabinet making. I suppose you could make a rough analogy by talking about a musician as a general description but the specialist would be for example a trumpet player.
It is funny as I find that most people think the other way round, that a carpenter is someone who is more specialised.
I would have to agree with Jazmin. I am an experienced carpenter, but joinery requires a much higher level of skill, due to the precision fits and close tolerances involved. When I see the beautiful quality of the joints on some of the solid oak furniture these days, I am more than a little envious!
I also play the trumpet, by the way!
“For example, you will never find a fence, shed, or door frame constructed with joinery techniques.”
Hmmm, I wonder how those split rail fences are put together, then? They look a lot like mortise and tenon joinery to me. I have seen plenty of log cabin style sheds constructed using joinery. You do have a point about the door frames, though.
Hi Jane,
You may well be correct, but being from the UK (and not having travelled too much) I don’t have a great deal of experience with either split rail fences or log cabins. From what I’ve read on various web sites after receiving your comment I have to bow to your superior knowledge of these constructions.
Generally, however, I would still class joinery as more of a precision art primarily used in furniture manufacture.
Thanks for your input :o)
My two cents…
A Carpenter builds structures. Walls, suspended floors, roofs and so on. A Carpenter is more of a timber engineer. A carpenter is concerned with strength, not accuracy.
A joiner does all the ‘finish’ work, doors, windows, mouldings and increasingly, fitted furniture and kitchens.
Each job is skilled and important in it’s own right.
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