THE CABINET-MAKER, AND THE UPHOLSTERER.

THE CABINET-MAKER.

1. It is the business of the cabinet-maker to manufacture particular kinds of household furniture, such as tables, stands, bureaus, sideboards, desks, book-cases, sofas, bedsteads, &c., as well as a certain description of chairs made of mahogany and maple. Many of the operations of this business are similar to those of the carpenter and joiner, although they require to be conducted with greater nicety and exactness.

2. The qualifications of a finished cabinet-maker are numerous and of difficult acquisition; so that they are seldom concentrated in any single individual. He requires not only a correct taste, but also a knowledge of drawing, architecture, and mechanics, besides the abilities of a good practical workman.

3. A knowledge of drawing is especially useful in designing new articles of furniture, or in improving the form of those which have been already introduced. It also enables the artist to determine with accuracy what would be the general effect of furniture, were different pieces of it placed in any proposed apartment; and, combined with architectural knowledge, it enables him to adapt the style of his wares to that of the building for which they may be designed.

4. In general, the principles of this business are fixed, so far as relates to the mode of operating in the execution of the work; yet continual changes are made in the form and construction of its various articles, so as to keep pace with the advancement of correct taste, or with the caprices of fashion. In fact, the shapes of furniture are almost as changeable as those of female dress; and this causes many expensive pieces to fall into disuse, while others are introduced, which, for a time, are considered indispensable to comfort, and which in turn enjoy but a temporary favor.

5. The cabinet-maker uses various kinds of wood in the manufacture of his wares; but those which are most frequently employed in the United States are pine, maple, poplar, cherry, black walnut, white oak, beach, mahogany, and rose, all of which are abundant in this country, except the last two. Mahogany is brought in great quantities from the West Indies and South America; rose-wood is obtained chiefly from the West Indies and Brazil, although it was first introduced into notice from the island of Cyprus.

6. The applicability of mahogany to the manufacture of cabinet-ware, was accidentally discovered in London, about the year 1724. A physician, named Gibbons, received a present of some of the planks from his brother, a sea-captain, who had brought them from the West Indies, chiefly as ballast. The doctor was, at that time, erecting a house, and, supposing them to be adapted to the purposes of building, gave them to his workmen, who, on trial, rejected them as being too hard to be wrought with their tools.

7. A cabinet-maker was next employed to make a candle-box of some of it, and he also complained of the hardness of the timber; but, when the box was finished, it outshone in beauty all the doctor's other furniture. He then required a bureau to be made of the same kind of material; and this, having been finished, became the subject of exhibition to his friends, as a piece of remarkable beauty. The wood was immediately taken into general favor, and it soon became an article of merchandise of considerable importance.

8. In giving the reader a view of the operative part of this business, we have selected the bureau as affording the best means of illustration. The material which composes the frame and drawers of this piece of furniture, is commonly some kind of soft wood, such as pine or poplar; and this is faced with thin layers of mahogany in those parts which are to be exposed to view.

9. The materials for the frame and drawers are first marked out, and the several pieces reduced to the form and dimensions required, with planes and other instruments. Thin pieces of mahogany are firmly fixed to the surfaces which require them. This part of the work is called veneering. The workman prepares the surface of the soft wood for the veneer, by cutting it into small contiguous grooves by means of a small plane, the cutting edge of which is full of little notches and teeth.

10. Melted glue having been spread upon both surfaces with a brush, the parts are placed in contact, and firmly pressed together by means of hand-screws. Before the screws are applied, the surface of the veneer is covered with a piece of heated board, termed, in this application, a caul. One piece of this kind commonly serves a veneer on each side of it at the same time.

11. The mahogany thus attached to the softer wood, is afterwards wrought with the toothed-plane, and others of the common kind. It is then scraped with a flat piece of steel, having edges which act upon the surface in the same manner as pieces of broken panes of glass. The polishing is finished, so far as it is carried at this stage of the process, by the use of sand-paper.

12. The several pieces which compose the frame of the bureau are put together with the joint called mortice and tenon; and those which form the four sides of the drawers, with that called dove-tail. The bottom is united to the sides on the right and left, and sometimes in front, by the groove-and-tongue, and its rear edge is fastened with a few nails. The bearers of the drawers are fastened on by means of nails.

13. The joints are made to fit not only by the accuracy of the work, but by the application of glue previous to the union of the parts; this is especially the case with the mortice and tenon. The back of the bureau is composed of some cheap wood, such as pine or poplar; but the panel at each end is most commonly plain mahogany through its entire thickness.

14. The parts which are to be exposed to view are next to be varnished and polished. The material for the former purpose is called copal varnish, because one of the principal ingredients in it is a kind of gum called copal, which is obtained from various parts of South America. This kind of varnish is made by melting the gum with an equal quantity of linseed-oil and spirits of turpentine or alcohol.

15. To give the work a complete finish, four coats of varnish are successively applied; in addition to these, a particular kind of treatment is used after laying on and drying each coat. After the application of the first coat, the surface is rubbed with a piece of wood of convenient form; after the second, with sand-paper and pulverized pumice-stone; after the third, with pumice-stone again; and after the fourth, with very finely powdered pumice-stone and rotten-stone. A little linseed-oil is next applied, and the whole process is finished by rubbing the surface with the hand charged with flour.

16. Some parts of several pieces of furniture are turned in the lathe; and, in large cities, this part of the work is performed by professed turners. The veneering of certain kinds of work of a cylindrical form is, also, in some cases, a distinct business; but, in places distant from large cities, the whole work is commonly performed by the cabinet-maker himself.

17. Mahogany is brought to market in logs hewn to a square form; and persons who deal in it, commonly purchase it in large quantities, and cause it to be sawn into pieces of suitable dimensions for sale. Formerly, and in some cases at present, slabs were sawn into thin pieces for veneering by hand; but, within a few years, a more expeditious method, by the circular saw, has been adopted. In performing the operation by this means, the slab is placed upon its edge, and shoved along against the teeth of the rapidly-revolving saw. It is kept in the proper position by holding the right side of it firmly against an upright plank, called the rest.

18. Mahogany is either plain, mottled, or crotched; nevertheless, the different kinds expressed by these terms are met with in the same tree. The variegated kinds are found at or near the joining of the limbs to the trunk; and these are used almost exclusively for veneering. The plain sort is employed for more common purposes, and in those parts of furniture required to be less splendid in appearance. It may be well to remark, also, that plain mahogany is often veneered, as well as the softer woods. Black walnut, white oak, rose, and several other woods, are likewise used for veneering, although not so much as mahogany. Our native woods will be hereafter more used in this way, since mahogany is becoming scarce.

19. In Europe, particularly in England, the business of the cabinet-maker is commonly united with that of the upholsterer; and this is sometimes the case in the United States. All, however, who make sofas and chairs, intrude enough upon the latter business to cover and stuff them; or they employ a journeyman upholsterer to perform this part of the work.

THE UPHOLSTERER.

1. The upholsterer makes beds, sacking-bottoms, mattresses, cushions, curtains for windows and beds, and cuts out, sews together, and fastens down, carpets. One branch of his business, also, consists in covering or lining and stuffing sofas, and particular kinds of chairs, the frames of which are made by cabinet-makers and fancy chair-makers.

2. Beds are stuffed with the feathers of geese and ducks. The sack which contains them, when in use, is called a tick, and the striped stuff of which it is composed, is called ticking. The feathers used by the upholsterer, are purchased from the feather-merchants, who in turn procure them from country merchants and pedlers. The dealer in feathers also employs travelling agents to collect them in different parts of the country.

3. Beds and pillows are also made of down obtained from the nests of the eider-duck, which is found in the northern parts of Europe and America, above latitude 45°. Eider-down is worth about two dollars per pound, and five or six times that quantity is sufficient for a bed of common size.

4. Mattresses are made of curled hair, moss, shavings of ratan, flock, straw, corn-husks, and cat-tail flag. The hair most employed for this purpose grows upon the tails of cattle, and upon the manes and tails of horses. It is purchased, in its natural state, from tanners, by persons who make it a business to prepare it for use. The last process of the preparation consists in twisting it into a kind of rope. These ropes are picked to pieces by the upholsterer, and the hair, in its curled and elastic state, is applied to stuffing mattresses, cushions, chairs, and sofas.

5. Moss is obtained from the Southern states of our Union, where it is found in great abundance, and of a good quality. Flock is made by reducing to a degree of fineness, by machinery, coarse tags of wool, pieces of woollen cloth, old stockings, and other woollen offals of little or no value in any other application. Of all the materials for stuffing upholstery, hair is much the best, and, although it costs more in its original purchase, it is much cheaper in the end.

6. In making and putting up window and bed curtains, considerable taste is required to insure success. A knowledge of drawing is particularly useful here, in improving the taste, as well as in exhibiting to customers the prevailing fashions, or any changes which may be proposed. The trimmings consist chiefly of tassels, fringes, and gilded or brass fixtures.

7. We have not space for a particular description of the manner in which any of the operations of the upholsterer are performed; nor is this necessary, since the work itself, in almost every specimen of it, affords obvious indications of the manner of its execution. We will merely remark, that a great proportion of it is performed by females.

8. In the first ages of the world, it was the universal practice to sleep upon the skins of beasts, and this is still the custom among the savage nations of the present day. The Greeks and the Romans, in the early part of their history, slept in this manner, and so did the common people of some parts of Germany, even until modern times.

9. The first advancement from the use of skins was the substitution of rushes, heath, or straw, which was primarily strewed loosely on the ground or floor, and finally confined with ticking; and these and similar materials are still used by the poor in various parts of the world. So late as the close of the thirteenth century, the royal family of England slept on beds made of straw.

10. During the civilized periods of antiquity, the wealthy commonly filled their beds with feathers. After the Romans had become luxurious, they used several kinds of beds, among which were the lectus cubicularis, or chamber bed, whereon they slept; the lectus discubitorius, or table bed, whereon they ate; and the lectus lucubratorius, on which they studied.

11. The Romans adopted the Eastern fashion of reclining at their meals, at the close of the second Punic war, about 200 years before Christ, when Scipio Africanus brought some little beds from Carthage, which were thence called Punicani. These beds were low, made of wood, covered with leather, and stuffed with hay or straw. Before this time, they sat down to eat on plain wooden benches, in imitation of the heroes of Homer, or after the manner of the Cretans and Lacedæmonians.

12. From the greatest simplicity, the Romans at length carried their supping beds to the most surprising magnificence. The bedsteads were sometimes made of gold or silver, and very commonly of wood, adorned with plates of these metals or with tortoise shell. On the couch was laid a mattress or quilt, stuffed with feathers or wool.

13. Three persons commonly occupied one couch. They lay with the upper part of the body reclined on the left arm, the head a little raised, the back supported by cushions, and the limbs stretched out at full length or a little bent. The feet of the first were placed behind the back of the second, and his feet behind the back of the third. Reclining at meals was customary in Asia, in the time of our Savior, as is clearly shown in John, xiii., 23 and 25, and this rendered it convenient for Mary to anoint the feet of Jesus, while at the table.

14. The Romans, during the republic, made their tables of a square form, and on three sides of it was placed a couch; but, under the emperors, a long couch of a semicircular form having been introduced, the table was made of a similar shape to conform to it. In either case, one side was left empty, to admit of the approach of the servants.

15. We have no certain evidence that carpets were known in the civilized periods of antiquity. They appear to have originated in Persia, at a time comparatively modern, and to have spread in a gradual manner towards the West. They were unknown in England in the reign of Elizabeth; for it was then the fashion to strew the floor with hay and rushes. Even the presence-chamber of this princess was covered in this manner. The manufacture of carpets was not commenced in England, until the year 1750. They are now extensively manufactured in the United States.