Carpenters and woodworkers may both work with wood, but they don’t always do the same things with it. Find out what makes carpentry and woodworking different in the article below.
What is carpentry?
Before we dive into the dissimilarities between each field, first, let’s take a look at what they mean.
Carpentry is often defined as the act of cutting or joining timber to create buildings and structures like a house, an office, a shed or garage. Carpenters often frames a house out posts and beams and 2x4s.
They may also be involved in installing flooring, doors, windows, or other jobs involved in construction.
Carpenters may also make furniture like tables, office chairs or dining chairs, a bench or a vanity although not every carpenter is inclined to doing this. A carpenter can also be a cabinet maker, but ask anyone and they will tell you not all carpenters are cabinet makers either.
Most carpenters are skilled at following blueprints. Also, while traditionally they used to work with wood alone, many carpenters can also branch out to working with other materials like metal or steel when creating or building their project.
All in all, carpenters are known for their ability to create structures or buildings out of wood. Their skills are mainly useful for creating functional objects.
What is woodworking?
Now that we know what carpenters do, it’s time to delve into woodworking.
Woodworking is a craft that involves creating things out of wood. The product of working may be useful or purely decorative.
Most woodworkers create stuff like shelves, racks, bowls, wagons, vases or planter boxes, pergola, or other similar things. Some woodworkers can also make items that have mechanical features such as a bread cutter or a hand crank mixer to make ice creams the old-fashioned way.
Making cabinets, tables, and furniture also fall into the category of woodworking. Some woodworkers also specialize in restoring items instead of creating them.
These people deal with antiques and find ways to restore them.
They also follow blueprints, but not the kind structural engineers make.
All in all, woodworkers work on items that are on a much smaller case than carpenters since they don’t handle construction work. Instead, they make items that can have either decorative or a useful function.
How are carpenters and woodworkers different?
If there’s one thing similar between carpentry and woodworking, it’s that they both create things out of wood.
However, it mainly stops there. While many of the processes involved in carpentry can also be used in woodworking such as cutting, drilling, or sanding wood, their job scopes are a lot different.
Carpenters mainly work with contractors, home builders, engineers, or architects as well as other construction crews to create buildings and other similar structures. While they may dabble in woodworking, their main scope involves creating structures.
Woodworkers, meanwhile, tend to work on smaller projects such as furniture, gardening tools, cabinets, and the like. They may or may not create items that have a function like vanities and shelves, but a lot of their work also tends to have decorative purposes.
If you’re in need of someone to build you a wooden house, call a carpenter. If you want wooden crafts to put around your house, call a woodworker.
We hope this clears up the confusion. See you in the next article!
