Benjamín is a master of workshop joinery with manual tools and techniques in making parts for the artisanal manufacture of doors, windows, stairs and the like, involving woodwork tasks such as marking, sawing, roughing, shaping, moulding, jointing, etc.

He also works with all conventional woodworking machines:… a band and disc saw, a planer-thicknesser, a spindle moulder or a sander, as well as their modern refinements – a sliding table saw, a moulder or a CNC router.

He does everything from felling and cleaving trees and drying the timber to installing the resulting products. His team works timber with axes and adzes, cuts logs with two-man saws, and handles heavy lumber with levers and pry bars or rope tackle.

Through his structural carpentry work he has acquired enough building knowledge to undertake complete projects, including proficient monk-and-nun tiling, laying of screeds or filling of stone walls by traditional techniques. He has also done full refurbishments and restorations of old buildings.

The updates, developments and changes undergone in woodwork over the years have been many and considerable:

-Manual carpentry tools have fallen into disuse, giving way to machinery, and the sharpening and maintenance of such tools requires a knowledge, skill and painstakingness that is generally incompatible with today’s way of working. But Benjamin always has to hand an axe, an adze, a handsaw, a spokeshave, a plane, chisels and a whetstone – naturally alongside a chainsaw, circular saw, jigsaw, electric planer, etc. There is no lack of opportunities for using manual tools and indeed they much enhance his work, such as when cutting battens or other light pieces without having to run a cable up to a roof, correcting slight bevel defects in a shop-made piece, chamfering sharp mechanically cut end-grain edges so as to make a fit, making or rectifying a missing or poorly cut mortise, etc.

– The advent of glued laminated timber (glulam) was a milestone in wood construction. Benjamín created his first artefact with it at the age of 9 (in 1969): the stem of a model caravel for a school project, emulating one of the products made by his family’s firm. In the early eighties he tried offering glulam roof and floor structures to builders and technicians, but their usual answer was: “This is serious work: we build with concrete and iron and don’t make shacks!” Yet with glulam, we progressed from the Spanish truss, with its limitations, to being able to cover much larger spans. But though this may have been good for timber construction, it was bad for the traditional craft. Mortises were replaced by iron hangers, wedged scarf joints by extra-long beams, and the tricky process of drying whole-log beams by industrial board-drying. This was where traditional structural carpentry yielded to the modern trade.

– When Benjamín started working professionally, pieces were cut on site with a handsaw and everything was nailed, as coach screws were expensive and many sizes were unavailable. Screws are always used now. Other developments have included autoclave and other chemical treatments that enhance the value of cheaper timber.

– CAD 3D stands out as a valuable development for both traditional and modern woodwork, involving easy anticipation, exact measurements and an ability to display the end product, thereby optimising work and improving efficiency.