Jacques Andre Roubo
1769: André Jacob Roubo, L'Art du Menuisier Paris, 1769-74. Three volumes, over 300 plates.
[Through a blunder, I lost this
entry and thus must reconstruct it. It will, I hope, be better than
before, but it's time-consuming job, so please be patient.]
Roubo's manual is a classic, for
sure, but since it is only accessible in French. use of it by
woodworkers today will be limited in a number of ways. Access is
limited to the few woodworkers willing either to purchase the set (it
won't be cheap) or go through the rigors of borrowing the book through
interlibrary loan.
(A search on www.bookfinder.com proved unsuccessful in getting even a "hit", let alone a price quote. Antiq Books is offering it at $9500 American Reprinted as: Roubo, J.A. [1774] L’Art du Menuisier Geneva: Skatline Reprints, 1984.
There is some good news, though: Christopher Schwarz, editor at Woodworking Magazine is translating L'Art du Menuisier into English, and making it available online
And, perhaps more limiting,
access to it is restricted to the handful of American woodworkers
fluent in the French language. However, be aware that this
multi-volume set contains over 300 plates.)
Included in volume 1 chapters on basic geometry, uses and qualities of
woods, moldings and profiles, framing, the joiners' tools and specifics
of various building parts, especially doors and windows.
Chapter on Moldings
In his chapter on moldings, Roubo not only identifies the various types
of moldings but -- within the context of 18th century European
woodworking technology -- also explains the principles of their
construction. (For some extended background on Moldings, click here.)
Focusing on those used in joinery, Roubo points out such
principles as the necessity of adapting moldings to fit their
function, the materials, and the intended finishing of each individual
work. For Roubo -- to ensure maintenance of the purity of tradition --
use only designs approved by architects.
Recently, Roubo's workbench has
received considerable attention from such woodworkers a Scott Landis,
Sam Allen and Chris Schwarz (each has authored his own manual on
workbenches) and as articles in woodworking magazines. For an image of
the Roubo workbench, click here.)
Joiners' Tools
In the 18th century, the French Journeyman craftsman was expected to own his personal small tools. The Master provided the heavy and specialized equipment. Thus it must be understood that these inventories show the Master's private small tools and the heavy shop equipment. (Apprentices were supplied with their tools as they progressed through their apprenticeship.)
When the shop was in operation, the tools listed would have been supplemented by those owned by each craftsman. A rough estimate of the number of craftsmen working in a shop can be made by counting the benches. The typical organization of a French eighteenth-century woodworking shop is clearly described in the following translated passage translated from Roubo's L'Art du Menuisier Chap. V, section t:
'By shop-tools, one understands all those tools which master menuisiers are obliged to furnish for their workmen, both those which are used in common and those which are provided to each man individually.
'Formerly they provided every possible kind of tool, but since the practice has been introduced of workmen performing their tasks on a piece-work basis, the workmen furnish themselves with all the necessary tools except the large ones called 'd'affutage', such as the benches, jointing-planes, jack-planes, etc., which they cannot be known to possess without exposure to the confiscation not only of the tools d'affutage, but also of all the other tools which are found at their homes.
'The shop-tools are of two kinds as I have said above, i.e. those which are common to all the workers, and those which pertain to each of them individually.
'The first kind includes the rip-saws and cut-off saws of all types, hand-saws, squares of all sizes, large marking-guages or beam-compasses, large compasses, clamps of all sizes, one or several levels, presses, reglets (a device for judging if a plank is in wind), plows of all types, large hold-fasts fitting into the legs of the bench, glue-mops, stones for sharpening tools, glue and a copper pot in which to heat it.
'The tools pertaining to each workman which belong to the class d'affutage are first, a bench, a hold-fast, jointing-plane and jack-plane, two rabbet-planes, a bench fillister-plane, a mitre-plane, a smooth-plane, a hammer, a firmer and a chisel.[1 Chisels come in three weights; the heaviest is called mortising chisel, the next, firmer chisel, and the lightest, paring tool. It is not clear which type Roubo or the writers of the inventories mean by ciseau.]
Sources: François Leblanc, "L'Art du Menuisier, par J. A. Roubo le fils, Compagnon Menuisier, 1769", Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology 10, No. 4. 1978, pages 67-79; Norman Vandal, Queen Anne Furniture: History, Design and Construction . Newtown, CT: Taunton Press, 1990. Reprinted 1995. (Reprints some of Roubo's material on moldings. Except for not mentioning Daniel Marot's contribution to the design of the cabriole leg -- the central component of QA furniture -- the two-page bibliography in this manual is exceptional in its coverage of the sources.) A very brief entry on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Jacob_Roubo
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