18th century workshops — resources?

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marcus

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Hi there,

Just wondering if anyone can recommend any books or other resources giving information on how an 18th century carpenters workshop might be fitted out, especially regarding tool, timber and hardware storage etc. Even better if someone knows of sources relating to ship's carpenters of that period. Would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Marcus.
 
Hmm, that's a hard one. So much of what has been written is about the tools - which survive - rather than the workshops, which disappear.

Excuse me sounding pedantic, but do you mean joinery rather than carpentry? In general, a carpenter works on site and does not have a static workshop.

For contemporary descriptions the usual texts say very little about the shops. I don't think Moxon has anything. In France, the works of Roubo and Diderot will have something, especially in the illustrations.

In the USA there are some surviving workshop museums at Colonial Williamsburg. You could look at their website and the Hay Cabinet shop blog. Also the Dominy workshop at Winterthur, which is described in detail in "With Hammer in Hand" by Charles Hummel (but that's a rare and expensive book now).

A book which comes very close, and will interest you if you ask a question like this, is " Building the Georgian City" by James Ayres. It describes how the various building trades were organised and how they worked. It's a large format book with excellent illustrations including several of joiners in their workshops and some of carpenters at work.

For ship work it might be worth starting with a visit to Plymouth or Chatham, though I think much of what there is to see will be 19th rather than 18th century.
One book which does describe how an 18th century ship was built is "Building the Wooden Walls" by Brian Lavery, which says it was written to accompany an exhibition at Chatham.
 
Good stuff by Andy as always!

"Tools: Working Wood in Eighteenth Century America" is a tidy effort.

Not sure about shipwright exactly but I would assume some of the famous areas like Plymouth or Portsmouth would have something?
 
G S Haydon":wnqm4pp0 said:
Not sure about shipwright exactly but I would assume some of the famous areas like Plymouth or Portsmouth would have something?

A shipwright has much more workshop space than a ship's carpenter...

BugBear
 
Maybe but is not the whole ship the carpenters workshop? Ok, I'll stop trying to dig myself out now :)
 
I am not sure if this was the case in England but I have some kind of idea how early 19th century ship carpenters worked in the Nordic countries. I may be wrong at some point but I think this description comes fairly close:

A big shipyard would be on a gently sloping beach. There would be the bedding built directly on the ground without much earthworks. There would be a smithy without any kind of powered machinery. There would be bunkhouse where workers from further away could sleep and some kind of an office. There would be threstles for pit sawing (you cannot dig a saw pit on a low lying beach). There would be some simple storage sheds for some materials and a fairly small enclosed storehouse for more expensive materials. There would be a joiner's and blockmaker's workshop but it would be very small and 95 percent of the work was done outdoors. There would probably be a small rigger's workshop as well and outside the shipyard there might be a rope walk outdoors. Around the bedding there would be a lofting floor built outdoors on the ground. There would be timber stacks everywhere and a gigantig amount of rough hewn uprooted tree stumps waiting to become knees and futtocks. Timbers for scaffoldings and struts laying in stacks.
Along the beach trhere would be a simple wooden quay where ships were fitted out and a purpose built careening quay (I am uncertain if there is a proper English word).

A small shipyard would have no other buildings than the smithy and a storehouse or two and the outdoor lofting floor and sawing threstles. Riggers and sailmakers worked at nearby farms sometimes using the threshing barns. Most of the workers were locals who walked home for the night. The village road could be used as rope walk. Block making and joinery was farmed out to local farmers and tenants who did the work in their own kitchens. The ship would be anchored out in the bay for rigging in absence of a quay.

I think theese descriptions would apply to an 18th century shipyard as well except for the pit sawing. In the Nordic countries in the 18th century there would be no pit saws. Planking could be sawn on single bladed water powered sawmills elsewhere. Everything else would be split and hewn.
 
Could the OP clarify wether he wanted info on a shipwright (guy who makes ships in a boatyard) or a ship's carpenter (guy resident on a ship who maintains it)?

BugBear
 
Thanks everyone, Andy, very helpful as always!

A bit more detail, I guess I was meaning joiner more than carpenter, and I meant ship's carpenter as in the guy they used to take with them for running repairs etc. rather than the actual ship builders. The reason I am asking is that I am peripherally involved in a project to reproduce the carpenter's workshop on a historic ship so looking for insight into how things might have been....
 
I see............
What kind ship? Marchantman or man of war? Big or small? Sailing in which trade?
For instance an Eastindiaman or a ship carrying convicts to Botany Bay would have carried much more tools and materials for repairs at sea than a ship sailing back and forth with pit props from Göteborg to Newcastle and coke from Newcastle to Göteborg.
 
Marcus bugbears recommendation to look at the Mary rose site is a good one even as he says it is a little bit Earlier than the time you want, look up the ship Vasa that's more the time your looking for.
Just to clear up the confusion about the difference between a ships Carpenter and a shipwright, there is none when a shipwright goes to sea in a ship he is called the ships Carpenter when the same man steps ashore an starts to work on the land he is called a Shipwright.
 
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