Handcrafted joinery involves skilled and experienced craftsmen who take great pride in their work. This ensures that the end product is of the highest quality, with great attention to detail and precision.
A trade that has been passed down through generations should produce high quality work-but what if it doesn’t? Our latest article looks at the importance of quality craftsmanship in joinery and what you should be looking out for.
The quality of wood
The types of wood can be sorted in to three main categories – Softwood, Hardwood and Engineered Wood. Contrary to popular belief, Softwoods are not necessarily soft and neither are Hardwoods hard!
Tree species are broadly divided into two main groups – softwoods and hardwoods. Softwood trees are coniferous, or cone-bearing, mostly evergreen, and with needle-like leaves. Hardwood trees are deciduous, shedding their leaves at the end of the growing season or during a dry season.
Hardwood is a more durable wood than softwood, but each has many uses. Softwood is generally cheaper to buy and easier to work with and softwood is used for many furniture, flooring and roofing projects. Hardwood is also used in furniture and other projects with a long term purpose, such as gates and flooring and it is more complex to work with than its softwood counterpart. Teak, oak, maple, walnut, beech and mahogany are some examples of hardwood. Cedar, pine, yew and redwood are all softwoods.
Engineered wood is generally made from the same hardwoods and softwoods but mixed with additives like adhesives. This type of wood often utilises waste wood from sawmills, and are treated through chemical or heat processes to produce wood that meets size requirements that are hard to find in nature.
All of the aforementioned have the same thing in common-the quality of the wood is of upmost importance in quality craftsmanship.
Quality construction
The sturdiness of the piece of joinery will tell you all you need to know about its quality. Good joints will never be stapled, and any glue that is used will not show outside of the joint. The joints should also be without gaps so that the components slot together beautifully. The quality of carpentry is always clear in straight angles and corners. Woodwork tends to look tacky and cheap when corners are bent and structured at weird angles. Quality carpentry usually has no gaps between blocks or evenly spaced gaps.
The importance of research
Finding a high quality and reputable joinery company requires a combination of research and understanding around what you’re looking for – with case studies and testimonials a great way of seeing whether a company can provide what you’re looking for in terms of quality and finish. The more reviews and testimonials a company has, the more certain you can be that you’re working with a reputable team.
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