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The state of the carpentry trade today....as compared to fifty years ago.
First....the trade these days is divided up into different categories.
Framer, roofer, sidewall, gutter installer, insulator, drywall, finish work, hardwood floor, ceramic tile, stair builder, cabinet installer etc...all being specialties and we hire different subcontractors for most of those....and all are jobs we use to handle ourselves.
When I entered the trade in the seventies we....carpenters... did all of that even the painting lots of times. Learning to build a house from the ground up far surpasses learning one specialty of the job....and not fully understanding the different phases intimately means they will never be fully fledged qualified carpenters.. I've even done footings and foundations working with my form subcontractors and building kitchens and vanities with plastic laminate counters on site was the norm. I know every aspect of every task that goes into it.
Today is totally different....over the years I've transitioned to finish work and fully understand what came before.
We have guys on our finish crew today that install pre-hung doors....which takes practically no skill...and our factory built window trim kits install in less than a minute...again very little skill or knowledge required....even the aprons are precut with returns attached. These finish carpenters would be hard pressed to trim a window from scratch. Looking at the tools they have.....they wouldnt be equiped to do said work.....not one of them have a block plane or sharpening stone.....christ...my boss use to sharpen his utility knife blades. So todays carpenters will never reach master carpenter status. IMO they dont meet my definition of carpenter. Carpenters helper is an old term....but it fits most of them. I dont mean this to be personal or condescending....just fact.
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