Construction techniques in history
I have a question about interior doors, as they would have been installed in 1901, for any of you budding historians.
Would doors, door frames, and casing have been site built back at the turn of the last century (1901 say)? Would the casing have been profiled on site by hand, or would that have been done in a shop?
The reason I ask is that we have a large number of doors in our house, and the hinge location, door hardware, etc. is surprisingly consistent, even after 106 years. Room doors are 32″, closet doors are 30″, pretty much the same latch sets and hinges on all doors. Public spaces have the same trim treatment, though closets are simpler on the inside than the outside. And room doors have transoms.
Also, is anyone familiar with “Japanning”? I think it involves applying something to hardware to make it black. Would this have been done to door hardware? Or transom hardware?
Thanks!
Replies
I think Jappaning is baked on black varnish. you can do a search in Knots, alot of conversation there on the subject. Also used on Stanley planes.
Thanks, but what I'm really asking about Jappaning is whether it might have been done to door and/or transom hardwire. I don't know if that is what I have, or the hardware in one room has really tarnished or something.
I would say it is tarnished. Pull a screw out and look at the threads.
It didn't polish up the same as some of the other rooms, and all the hardware in this room is black. They would have Jappaned the screw threads too?
I think the threads will tell you if it is brass or steel.
I've blackened some hardware using a couple of methods...For small stuff (screw and nail heads), a Sharpie can often do a decent job. I have also used a propane/MAPP torch to change the color of some hooks to hold up a pot rack. It doesn't give a consistent color, but the pot rack I was hanging didn't have a consistent color either, so it matched. Good luck, and I hope someone can give you a better answer.
My old house (1886 w/1916 addition; 30 miles from Atlanta) has all "factory" millwork and mantels, but hinges were mortised and doors were hung (incorrectly!) after the frame and casing was installed.
Forrest
RE. Doors
Yes and No.
What today we call "interiour packages" were quite common and available by the late 1800's. Millwork an Sashworks have been around a long, long time. But not all locations had the easy availability to one.Depended often on how close you were to a good shipping or rail head facility. So "Jointers" a trades person who practiced jointery (window, doors , cabinets etc. ) would do that all on site. They were the top finish carps of their day. Lacking a trained "jointer" carps did the same work.
We all tend , I think, to see the last centruy or two of home building as unmechanised when in fact there were machines cranking out virtually every detail of houses from the roofing down to the foundation blocks that the old timers used.
Those fancy Victorians elaborate trim details... mostly off the shelf stuff, ordered thru some local lumberyard or Sears or Wards etc. Shipped to the nearest depot, hauled as frieght to the local yard or your site.
The more things change the more they stay the same it seems
I wonder when the sears kit homes were in vogue?
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Piffen,
I honestly do not know. Seems to me Sears didn't really hit it's stride until about 1900 or shortly after as a catalogue company. I have worked on a couple of Sears kit homes out here that were rail shipped in then hauled by horse wagon into the hills or neighboring towns, family still had documentation of the costs etc..
I have several old Architectural Book Series ( one is Radfords, published 1921) that are somewhat like Audels stuff, only aimed at the at a more educated buyer. That series lists several places for kit homes, and has plates showing designs, complete plans and spec lists that could be purchased for a whole range of home styles.
It is strange sometimes to recognize a home here in town that I know was listed and shown in the plates from that series of books.
Aladdin sold the first kit homes in 1906, Sears started selling them in 1908, although they sold building materials and plans starting in the late 1800's.
http://www.fredbecker.org/News%20Letter/KitHomes.htm
Great little read at that site, thank you.
You offered this link about kit-built houses: http://www.fredbecker.org/News%20Letter/KitHomes.htmInteresting site, but the first line tends to raise doubt about Becker's historical expertise as he says, "After World War I, between 1900 and 1917,..."BruceT
LOL. I missed that statement completely. The "take home lesson" is "don't completely trust a single source from the Internet for important information".
But there is a ton of info about Sears homebuilding on the web (Google "Sears kit house") that appears to corroborate the main points. I think he has his facts about the building industry pretty straight, even if he doesn't know when WW I occurred.
"I wonder when the sears kit homes were in vogue?"
From 1908–1940, according to this link:
http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/
A friend wrote a book about sears homes called "Additionally Speaking" if anyone is interested:
http://www.hypography.com/books/apf4/amazon_products_feed.cgi?Operation=ItemSearch&SearchIndex=Books&Author=Laurie%20A.%20Flori
The concept of kits, or pre built components, is probably much older than can easily be found in common history books. I seem to remember reading a college level history book years ago that the first ships carrying the first settlers also carried pre cut timber frame components that had been assembled and disassembled so that when they landed they could have some immediate shelter, and food storage, and possible a shop space to work on more buildings through the harsh winters in and assemble in the spring.
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Can anyone else verify this to his or her knowledge? It seems too practical to be untrue. <!----><!---->
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It also appears to me on some of the older homes I have had the experience to work on that the old double hung windows were/may have been kits. The sash windows and hardware, (weights, pulleys, rope, etc.) were sent out and the jambs were site built using the kit hardware and the “select” pine from the lumber pile . And the doors too. Not all I’ve seen are this way though. In time the completed units became more popular.<!----><!---->
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The pier and beam balloon frames were necessary to get the roof up first and then install the wood floors in a dry environment too. The classic “Four Square” house design was well suited for this foundation/balloon frame/wood floor technology of the era. As well as material thrifty too.<!----><!---->
The word is "Joiner", a tradesperson who practices "Joinery". A term still used in my homeland of Scotland / Great Britain.
The word carpenter isn't really used in Britain.
That's true.Wee carpenters are a pretty uneducated lot over here in the colonies...;)
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Joiner is correct here as well I think, I typed it that way to start with , looked at it and changed it. Seeing it in your post makes me agree with you .
Doesn't any one here know of the UBC&J?
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners!
Geoff
NON-Union Here, but you got a laff out of me. DUH!!
yea, non-union here too, but spent a couple of years on the west coast (San Diego) and was a member then ('78-'79). Good for the schooling.
Geoff
Japanning link from Wikopedia
http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=handtools&file=articles_117.shtml
That was in the heyday of the golden age of the industrial revolution.
Al the old houses here were built in around 1896 to 1904 and all had their trim packages milled in the Philadelphia area and shipped up by steamboat.
Millwork in this state ( Maine) had already become common from mills on streams around 1830 or so, just in time for the advent of the Greek Revival style that became so common for regular folk. The primitive onsite millwork I have seen predates this time.
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Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
There were production millworks in the 1880's; probably before. Certainly, no carpenter was going to fashion a 6-panel door on site.
Consider that starting in 1908 one could order a complete house as a kit from the Sears Roebuck catalogue - pre-cut lumber, siding, drywall, paneling, doors & windows, nails - the works shipped to you by rail. All the components would have to have been readily available for Sears to have put such kits together. They were never innovators, just marketers and re-branders of products already available.
I have a clearly factory-made mahogony double bed from ca 1850, so power tools (driven by wide leather belts pulling power off a big steam-powered main shaft running the length of the building) were available for factory use even back then.
@@ I have a clearly factory-made mahogony double bed from ca 1850, so power tools (driven by wide leather belts pulling power off a big steam-powered main shaft running the length of the building) were available for factory use even back then.
Ever think of upgrading that old bed to something more modern in particle board? The new photopapers are not half bad.
(Bad, ToolBear, bad. No tool aisle for you.)
When we sailed to Hilo back when, had to get a fitting drilled in stainless. Close aboard the waterfront was a blacksmith shop.
What a wonder. Dark cave and all the machinery run off leather belts from a main shaft running across the shop. We watched the belt-driven drill press with wonder. Look, kids! The Industrial Revolution before your eyes!
The ToolBear
"Never met a man who couldn't teach me something." Anon.