Carpentry Vs. Woodworking – Differences

Just because Carpentry and Woodworking both deal with wood, people often mistakenly consider both of them to be the same thing. However, that’s far from the truth. One of the only things that they have in common is that they both need wood.

Each trade is different. One is construction-oriented, and the other is craft-oriented. While carpentry comes with a lot of burdens, including calculations and planning, woodworking is mostly concerned with using machinery and crating products like wardrobes and cabinets and so on.

Although these distinctions already exist, there are a lot more differences to explore. So, if you’re looking for the difference, read on and find out.

Carpentry

Carpentry is possibly one of the oldest trades to ever exist. Its history goes way back by thousands of years. After all, wood is one of the oldest and most frequently used building materials in history. Carpentry has existed from back when the first wooden house was built.

That should already give you a hint on what this craft exactly is. Itis concerned with primarily wood construction. That means it deals with building wooden houses, creating floor plans, installing roofing, and so on and so forth. Besides, it also deals with building bridges, homes, and offices.

As you can already tell, there’s a lot of mathematics that goes into carpentry. A good carpenter should be able to accurately take measurements and build the right amount of supplies to install them.

For example, when you’re flooring your house, a carpenter will take the dimensions of your house and use that to figure out how much wood you’ll need to install the floor.

It requires precise dimensions to find the number of materials you need and how to best utilize them. This takes a lot of mathematical prowess, dexterity, and ingenuity. Making errors could prove catastrophic, especially if they’re working on vital projects like bridges.

There is no room for error when it comes to carpentry. Or else, the entire bridge could fall apart. Judging from these activities, you can already deduce that carpentry works mostly with construction work, once mixed with crafts like masonry, and metalworking to create great structures.

It’s essentially a supplementary skill that assists in construction work and the primary skill to integrate wooden pieces.

Also, carpentry is also responsible for installing leveled out fixtures in houses and other projects. Otherwise, it could throw off the entire design and mess up the whole project. As such, this craft comes with a lot more responsibility than woodworking.

Carpentry comes with all sorts of specialized forms. It can center around flooring, roofing and so on. One specialization focuses on building fixtures, while others could work on big projects like houses and buildings.

Here is a quick summary of what this trade involves–

• It involves shaping wood into materials that are meant to go towards construction work.
• Properly calculating the amount of wooden material needed to complete a project.
• Carefully following blueprints to build houses, rooms, and bridges.
• Inspecting damaged wooden structures and by the ones who have the resources and expertise to fix them.
• The projects associated with carpentry include flooring, roofing, walls, windows, doors, insulation, and so on.

With this information, you should be able to tell what carpentry is now. However, what about Woodworking?

Woodworking

Woodworking might be as old as carpentry. Possibly even older! This is a craft that had existed from back when mankind created its first wooden objects. It was often associated with holiness for a completely different reason from carpentry.

Ancient civilizations would transform pieces of wood into idols for worship. As such, it was a commendable art even back in the day. However, with the help of modern technology, the field of woodworking has taken completely new heights.

While basic mathematics is still important when it comes to woodworking, it’s nowhere near as vital as it is in carpentry. Instead, this craft focuses on a completely different kind of expertise. That is the use of machines.

A good modern woodworker is versed in the use of a plethora of machinery, whether it be shapers, routers, and so on, and so forth. There are a ton of machines that assist in this craft.

Without the use of said machinery, it would be impossible to create such intricate designs. Besides, it takes a lot of time, effort, and a huge degree of creativity. Yes, while math skills are still important, most priority shifts over to the artisan’s creativity. The more creative you are, the more magnificent crafts you can create.

Essentially, woodworking is a craft that transforms wood to create products like cabinets, shelves, panels, beds, and so on. Emphasis is placed on the design. There is practically no limit to the things woodworking can produce. As a result, different types exist which specialize in different methods of the craft.

Types of Woodworking

• Carving– This involves carving the wood into a variety of creations with specialized knives or other tools.
• Furniture Making– The name says it all. In this specialization, you take wood and transform it into a variety of different furniture. The products for this specialization include chairs, tables, beds, cabinets, and so on.
• Turning– There are a plethora of gorgeous designs you can come up with by using a lathe. That is exactly what a turning involves.
• Luthing– You probably noticed that most classical musical instruments are made from wood. Luthing is responsible for that. It involves creating and repairing the wooden musical instrument.

There are a lot more distinctions that exist, but this article would be longer than a novel if we went over every single one. Now that you’re aware of some of the types, you should have a better idea of what separates this from carpentry.

In summary, these are the key characteristics that you would expect from woodworking –

• The focus lies on artistry and creativity to form new objects
• Woodworking creates a plethora of products such as cabinets, shelves, tables, chairs, wooden showpieces, instruments and so on
• The skill extensive knowledge when it comes to operating a variety of woodworking machinery
• Operations aren’t enough, maintenance knowledge for the said machinery is equally vital
• Woodworking usually takes place within a factory or a workshop
• Sanding and finishing projects is an essential part of woodworking.

Conclusion

It’s safe to say that carpentry and woodworking are different at their core. Although their history probably stems from the same source, right now, they’re too different from each other to be lumped together.

So, just remember that at its core, woodworking is an art that creates products while carpentry is construction work that creates and installs complex fixtures like floors, doors, and windows.