JOINERY. 



JOINT. 



and panels from that of the styles, the tendency of the respective parts 

 to shrink or to warp is to some extent counteracted. Again, the 

 heading joints of the styles and rails are made with what are called 

 mortice and tenon joints, or those in which a hole of a rectangular form 

 is cut in either the styles or rails, and into it is closely fitted a pro- 

 jecting tongue left on the other piece to be assembled, which is sub- 

 sequently fixed by the use of glue, wedges, or pins. Before, however, 

 the framing in this supposed case is wedged up, the panel is introduced, 

 and fitted into grooves left in both styles and rails ; and after the whole 

 has been wedged up, a moulding is nailed to them, all round the panel, 

 so as to allow the latter to shrink without exposing the joint. It is a 

 similar motive to the latter which leads to the use of what are called 



matched and beaded linings 



for the shrinkage in 



the width of the planks is in them rendered less apparent by the 

 introduction of the double quirked bead, formed by the bead on the 

 edge of one board and the rebated joint on the other. These remarks 

 apply also to doors ; but the introduction of panels in them, and in 

 window shutters, Ac., has the additional advantage of rendering the 

 particular articles to which they are applied actually lighter ; whilst at 

 tile lame time they tend to destroy the unpleasant effect of large, 

 unmeaning, plane surfaces. The introduction of panelled work into 

 strings of staircases seems to be very questionable, either in point of 

 taste or of construction ; and that joiner's work which is manifestly 

 intended to radst violent actions or great weights, should be, and 

 should look as though it were, of the most solid and substantial 

 description. 



In the preparation of tanks, cisterns, vats, and other vessels intended 

 to contain water, groat attention must be ]<aid to the manner of making 

 the horizontal joints, which are usually formed with grooved and feather 

 tongues, set with white lead instead of glue, and to the lateral stiffness 

 of the sides. The principles which regulate the thickness of such 

 vessels belong to the science of HYDRODYNAMICS. 



It is essential to observe that the durability of joiner's work depends 

 upon ita being removed from sources of damp, or from confined air, 

 especially when the Litter is both warm and damp. The planks which 

 contain any sap-wood are certain to decay with rapidity in such 

 situation! ; spruce fir decays more rapidly than pine, or ordinary deal ; 

 all soft woods decay more rapidly than oak ; and of oaks, those which 

 an: the hardest last the longest in damp positions ; mahogany resists 

 change of hygrometric state better than fir-woods, but not equally well 

 with oak. Joiner's work which has been veneered is not fit to be 

 exposed to alternations of wet and dryness ; and indeed any glued work 

 will certainly fall to pieces if kept for any time in a damp state, whilst 

 extreme heat is equally prejudicial to it. Perhaps mahogany resists 

 strong light and heat better than any other wood, and it is on this 

 account much used for making shop-fronts, or for external joinery. It 

 is also used for hand-rails of staircases in preference to all other varieties 

 of wood, because of its markedly small tendency to break into splinters, 

 and this fact may also account to a great extent for ita use for tables 

 or counter-tops. 



3. It is rather curious that whenever the taste or the fashion of an 

 age has brought the art of wood-carving conspicuously into notice, the 

 architecture of the period has begun to degenerate into a florid and 

 rather over-ornamented style ; as for instance, about the latter end of 

 the middle ages, the taste of the wood carvers of Westphalia seems in 

 Germany to have led to the elaborate complicated style observable in 

 the Gothic structures of the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th 

 centuries ; whilst the elaborate wood sculptures of the Flemish churches 

 of the 17th century were contemporary with the introduction of a still 

 more equivocal taste. How far the art of wood-carving has acted upon, 

 or been reacted upon, by the taste of the age, it would be hard to say ; 

 but there certainly would appear to exist some tendency on the part of 

 those who work in a material so easily made to yield to the artist's 

 as wood certainly is, to indulge in the display of their imagi- 

 nation, and of their own manual dexterity ; and this tendency has on 

 some occasions proved to be so overpowering that it becomes almost 

 necessary to recall the attention of the workers in wood to the necessity 

 for their studying the abstract laws of beauty as applied to art 

 structures. Kven in the case of common joiners, there seems to be 

 somewhat of the tendency to transfer to other arts the modes of 

 let suggested by the practice of their own; and we consequently 

 find that the architecture known as "carpenter's architecture" is 

 I by the panelling of all plain surfaces, and an unaccountable 

 nction of beads, toruses, and ogees. The laws of taste appli- 

 cable to one art, in fact, are rarely applicable to others; and those 

 applicable to joinery are of so narrow and so limited a character 

 as to lead to very ridiculous results if extended beyond their proper 

 sphere. 



It seems, indeed, that beyond the mee questions connected with the 

 colour [' the woods employed (so far as they influence the 



' ' 'I, the principal laws of taste in the use of joiner's 



* that, 1st, no ornament* should be introduced, or no mode of 

 nbUng the framing be adopted, which should appear to weaken 

 strength of the work, or to bring efforts upon it in directions 

 i tho wood would be the most likely to yield ; 2nd, that no 

 attempts should bn made to represent in joiner's work methods of con- 



- r 



struction exclusively applicable to other materials ; 3rd, that the har- 

 monic proportions of panels, or other framed joiner's work, be rigor- 

 ously observed. All questions of detail must of course be made 

 subservient to the general design ; and, in the latter, care should be 

 taken not to bring the works of oue set of artisans too strongly into 

 prominence. 



JOINT. In constructive operations the word joint is used to express 

 the means adopted to ensure a greater length in any part of the work 

 than can be obtained by the use of the natural materials, or to form 

 large masses of work ; or to enable oue part of the work to turn upon 

 another, in the manner of a door, casement, &c. The different kiuds 

 of joints of the first description assume names dependent upon their 

 forms, positions, and the materials in which they are executed ; and 

 the joints of the second description assume names dependent upon the 

 manner and extent of opening they are intended to secure. 



Thus, in masonry and brick-work, the sides, or vertical faces of the 

 materials within the face of the walls, are called joints, in contradistinc- 

 tion to the horizontal faces or beds ; and they are called either heading 

 or stretching-jointe, as they may be laid with their shorter or longer 

 dimensions in the same direction as the face. They may be perpen- 

 dicular to the face or dovetailed, as in the courses of the Eddystone 

 Lighthouse ; and in arches they are made normally to the curve of the 

 intrados ; in ornamental work they are sometimes rusticated, or made 

 either with a species of sunk rebate or with splays on the edges, thus : 

 and they are either (in ashlar masonry) cramped on 

 the top, doodled, or made with a joggle thus : ,^|^ 

 this form of joint is used for landings of 

 staircases. When straight architraves are 

 carried over wide openings, it is customary 

 to form in them what are called concealed arch-joints ; a very 

 vicious style of construction, it may be added. 



The various descriptions of joints used in timber-work differ from 

 those of masonry and brick-work, in this respect : that they are 

 expressly made for the purpose of lengthening the several pieces of 

 wood, rather than of enabling them to form parts of a structure, 

 whose stability should consist in the reaction of the laws of gravity, on 

 the materials employed, upon those materials themselves, as in the case 

 of stone and brick-structures. The joints of wood work then are : 

 No. 1, the lap-joint, in which one piece of timber is cut out so as to 

 allow the other to fit over it and to be fastened simply by nailing. 

 No. 2, the dove-tailed lap-joint, in which the faces of the laps are cut 

 1 2 3 



with an inclination from one another, so as to offer a resistance to the 

 lateral displacement of the timber ; and this object is more effectually 

 attained by the scarf -jmnt, No. 3, especially when it is (as in the sketch) 

 keyed and wedged. In certain positions, as in tie-beams of long span, 

 the scarf -joints, instead of being made horizontally, are made vertically ; 

 but, in all such works it is customary to stiffen them by means of 

 bolts and of plates of wrought-iron, on either side of the scarf. In 

 joiner's work, lajp-joints, grooved and tongutd-juintt, tenon-joints and 

 splayed-headinyt are used, for a description of which see JOINERY. 



In metal works, joints are sometimes lapped, dovetailed, and scarfed, 

 as in carpentry ; but they are also either welded, brazed, or soldered, 

 according to the nature of the metal and of the purposes intended to 

 be effected. Welding consists simply in bringing the ends of the 

 metal to such a heat, as to allow the percussion exercised upon them, 

 when in that state, to effect a complete homogeneous junction of tho 

 respective ends to make the lengthened bar, in fact, precisely analo- 

 gous in its powers of resistance to longitudinal strains to those of the 

 original bars. Brazed joints are those made when edges of iron, 

 copper, brass, &c., are run together by means of an alloy consisting of 

 brass and zinc, with occasionally small proportions of tin and silver. 

 SOLDERED JOINTS are very nearly the same as brazed joints, or they 

 are those made when surfaces of metal are united by means of a more 

 easily fusible material, which is run between the said surfaces, and 

 binds them together by chemical and cohesive force; and thus 

 according ai the metal surfaces are similar or different, it becomes 

 necessary to vary the nature of the solder to be used. The most 

 important observation to be made with respect to the execution of 

 either of these fused joints is, that it is essential to keep the faces of 

 contact perfectly bright, and free from any kind of dirt or extraneous 

 bodies. In metal work, rivet joints are als6 used. 



The hinge joints used in joiner's or smith's work, are of an almost 

 endless variety, but in common practice they may be said to be com- 

 prised under the following principal varieties. The butt joints are 

 those in which the hinge is made to bear a rounded edge, for the 

 purpose of carrying on the line of a bead worked on the edge of the 

 frame, designedly to hide the mode of hanging ; sometimes, however, 

 the butts are made to project when the] door, casement, flap, &c., 

 may be required to fold back over a projection. A description of 

 hinge joint, called a back flap, is sometimes used in common work, 

 for the same purpose as butt hinges ; and wheu the development of 

 the door is very considerable, the joint is made with what are called 

 pulpit hinges. Rule joints are used when the doors or windows require 

 to open back to great distances ; that is to say, when the centres of 



