The Woodworkers, 1960

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They are called woodworkers, or joiners, and their job is to work, shape, sand, saw and assemble wood to make it useful. Laars and Magnus were already learning this absorbing, skilful craft at their primary school in Sweden. They were in deep concentration, putting their hearts and souls into their passion for the wood. As Lars filed the hull, Magnus tapped the hammer to finish the deck. The pair were attempting to make a model of that colossal ship, the Titanic. That giant of the seas sent shivers down Magnus’ spine. “Hard work, isn’t it? Not easy, this kind of thing!” The file moved back and forth over the ship’s hull, shaping and smoothing the wood. Their primary school’s wood shop had all the tools they needed. There were files for smoothing, planes for shaving, chisels for chipping, gouges for rounding shapes, and sanding blocks for the rough edges and surfaces. Laars was proud of his work. He grabbed the pincers to remove a wonky nail.  

Joinery has been a trade since the time of the Pharaohs: beds, trunks, stools, doors and coffins all speak to an exceptional craft in the many species of wood the Egyptians brought in from neighbouring countries. There was cedar from Lebanon, and ebony from Sudan, for only palms and sycamores grew in the lands of the Pharaohs. The Egyptians used saws, chisels, hatchets and adzes; they had already mastered joints and mortices without the use of nails. They were even able to add mouldings to their woodworking. Such joinery was also well-known to their Hebrew neighbours; however, the first Book of Kings in the Bible tells us that it was Phoenician craftsmen who decorated the temple and palace of Solomon, using planks of pine and cedar wainscoting: “Hiram gave Solomon timber of cedar and timber of fir according to all his desire.” 

Today, joiners and woodworkers have guilds and corporations of their own – yet in the French “Book of Trades” by Etienne Boileau, published sometime around 1270, the profession did not yet exist as a single entity. Rather, in addition to carpenters themselves, the “corporation of carpenters” encompassed furniture-makers, doormakers, coopers, wheelwrights, roofers, and others professions. Smaller items were made by table-workers, who shaped wood and bone, but who were forbidden from making tables. 

“The day we finish the Titanic, we’ll launch her on the water!” Magnus said proudly.  

“You think she’ll sink?” asked Laars. “These bits of wood are heavy. Still, she’s taking shape. It’s just a question of time now.” 

“Sink? Wood always floats, and there’s Archimedes’ principle too!” Magnus explained matter-of-factly.   

“The what principle?”  

“Archimedes’ principle! When you put something in water, the seawater exerts a force upon it that counteracts the thing’s weight. For example, if our Titanic ends up weighing 12 kilos, it will only weigh 5 kilos once we put it in the water to show the teachers.”  

“What are you talking about?” asked Laars, with a touch of annoyance. “If the boat weighs 12 kilos then it weighs 12 kilos! Don’t talk nonsense!”  

“If that’s true she’ll sink, Laars. It won’t float.”  

“Wood always floats, even tree trunks float in rivers...but enough with this nonsense about principles. It doesn’t work like that. To float you need wood, and to sink you need weight.”  

“Like the Titanic,” concluded Magnus.  

The school bell rang; their wood shop time was over. Laars set down his rasp and Magnus put his hammer back on the shelf. It was time for the two chums to learn about animals. There was little they found more irksome, or more boring: animals, the savannah, the forest and the tropics.  

“Damnit,” scowled Laars. “We have to go. It’s nature class now.”  

“Nothing else for it. We’ll come back tomorrow to finish the hull and the bridge!” Magnus comforted him.  

Alan Alfredo Geday