Tools and techniques 1600-1840

Fundamental to the understanding of furniture is an interest in the continuities and changes in the use of tools, and the application of techniques to furniture making. The development of tools over a long period established ‘type-forms’ that often remain the basis of hand tools (and in many cases powered versions) that are used today. Although most tools could be purchased from tool suppliers, there has been, and still is, a tradition of furniture-makers devising and making their own versions of tools for their own use. These included for example, bevels, braces, clamps, scratch stocks, moulding boxes, saw frames, gauges, lathes, planes and squares. This article briefly traces the development of the various processes and associated tools, from cutting out and shaping, construction and assembly and decoration in the period 1600-1840,