Bush carpentry

Bush carpentry is an expression used in Australia and New Zealand that refers to improvised methods of building or repair, using available materials and an ad hoc design, usually in a pioneering or rural context.

The tradition

The phrase 'bush carpentry' is a familiar Australian usage, but finding an exact description of its practice is rare. The Macquarie Dictionary for example, defines a bush carpenter as a rough amateur carpenter, and G. A. Wilkes says he is a rough and ready carpenter. The Macquarie in turn defines rough-and-ready as rough, rude or crude, but good enough for the purpose. Wannan says that a bush carpenter is 'a very rough, unorthodox artisan indeed', and includes a sardonic excerpt from Henry Lawson to exemplify it. In his Bushcraft series Ron Edwards describes hut and furniture building, and 'stockcamp architecture', without once using the phrase 'bush carpentry', though 'rough and ready' recurs. Tocal Agricultural College offers a course in 'Traditional bush timber construction'; The word 'traditional' appears six times in the course outline, but not 'bush carpentry'.
Cox and Lucas, writing in 1978 of Australian pioneer buildings, remarked:

"... perhaps because it has been the symbol of hardship and country toil; perhaps because it was thought too crude and rude to be treated seriously as architecture by the academics ... there have been few books and articles written on the subject ... The vernacular, often, is a fragile architectural form, evolved for expedience and resulting—especially in the case of the more primitive examples—in early decay and disappearance ... designed by an amateur, a builder with little training in design and who will be guided by a strict set of conventions developed within his own locality, perhaps paying some attention to fashion, but local only and certainly not international. Within the vernacular building, function is the dominant factor.

A similar and familiar phrase is traditional bush carpentry; this implies that its principles are well-known, but informally transmitted. Like folk music, bush carpentry exists within an oral and demotic culture, and is often undocumented. The tradition of Australian inventiveness, however, has an extensive literature:

"... vigorous attitudes to innovation prevailed in the Colonies in the nineteenth century and established for Australia some significant technological leads. Lessons from these attitudes both underline the continuing importance of the 'lone inventor' and hold relevance for education, management, and technology policies today."

Henry Lawson, "A Day on a Selection" :

'The dairy is built of rotten box bark—though there is plenty of good stringy-bark within easy distance—and the structure looks as if it wants to lie down and is only prevented by three crooked props on the leaning side; more props will soon be needed in the rear for the dairy shows signs of going in that direction. The milk is set in dishes made of kerosene-tins, cut in halves, which are placed on bark shelves fitted round against the walls. The shelves are not level and the dishes are brought to a comparatively horizontal position by means of chips and bits of bark, inserted under the lower side. The milk is covered by soiled sheets of old newspapers supported on sticks laid across the dishes. This protection is necessary, because the box bark in the roof has crumbled away and left fringed holes—also because the fowls roost up there. Sometimes the paper sags, and the cream may have to be scraped off an article on dairy farming.'

"The bush"

In Australian parlance, 'the bush' includes not only all remote and rural areas, but ways of living there, especially the limitations and hardships endured. Even though remote areas in contemporary Australia are easily reachable by air and modern communications, there remains a mythology of the tyranny of distance: tyranny over comfort, sophistication, over civilization itself. The expression bush carpentry includes two criteria of 'remoteness'. The first, that the builder is separated from regular methods of construction. The second, separation from regular resources such as milled timber, fasteners, specialized tools, and similar manufactured products. Those in both 'remote' circumstances are forced to invent and improvise. They produce a necessary structure or object via unorthodox procedures, and it will be serviceable, if inelegant in appearance.
Thus, in an Australian suburb today, a self-taught handyman might devise and erect a backyard structure using purchased timber, and practising 'bush carpentry'—a gazebo, a fernery, a children's playhouse for example—while at the same time, a skilled tradesperson, in a distant run of an outback cattle station, might be forced to use heavy tree-trunks, saplings, undressed stone and rusty fencing-wire to construct a stock race.
These two criteria allow the use of manufactured materials—e.g. milled timber—in an irregular manner, and materials other than wood. They exclude the fabrication of large structures like wharves and bridges, built by contracting tradesmen, which incorporate massive tree trunks, even when a manufactured item, e.g. a steel beam, is available.

Skills

Modern scholarship suggests Australian Aborigines were the first 'bush carpenters'. From the Aborigines, European settlers learned how to strip bark in large sheets from particular tree species, and use this for roofs and walls.
Although there are few specific skills required, each must be well-mastered and neatly executed. Bush carpenters may learn from observing the methods, or the evidence of, another person's work, or entirely through their own invention. The scarcity of any reference books with any local applicability is another factor.
Ron Edwards asserts that no training at all is required. The requisites are 'a calm mind, reasonable health, and a willingness to learn'. Edwards points out that the early settlers built their homes without prior knowledge and experience, and 'many of these buildings are still in existence a century later'. Edwards adds, 'Confidence in your own ability is the first requirement ... the second is access to knowledge.'
In his autobiography, Sam Weller remarked of a young man who had worked for a period as a jackaroo:

"The bush is one of the best educations a young fellow can get if he's interested. That bloke knows livestock, knows how to work them, can cut a straight line with a saw, handle concrete, build a set of yards, fix a motor car—you name it. When you're a hundred miles from town, you can't afford to get a tradesman out for every little job that bobs up. So you've got to slip in and do it yourself ... One of the bosses from a cattle station told me "Sam, if a bloke comes in here in a big hat and ringer boots, he's got a job. They can turn their hands to anything. They know how to work and they don't gutsache all the time."

Tools

The bush carpenter historically possessed few tools, and rarely any specialized tools. Mann's Emigrant's Guide of 1849 suggests that those heading for Australia's unsettled areas take with them a plentiful supply of a wide variety of tools and fasteners, but he lists as the very minimum, 'A hand saw; Axe; Adze; Mortising chisel; Two augers, 1 and 1^1/4 inch; Two maul rings; Set of wedges; 1 Spade; Pick-axe; Two-foot rule; Chalk line; Square; A Plumb Bob.' A majority of early settlers had formerly been manual labourers, or servicemen, and brought with them a sound practical ability and aptitude for 'making do'; others observed or helped and copied their techniques.
Freeland observes:

'With a saw, an axe, a hammer and a spade on his cart and possibly one of the useful little books on construction written especially for him ... he had to do the best he could with the materials that were to hand wherever he stopped. Helped a little by his book, a fair amount by advice and precedent and a great deal by ingenuity and native wit, the settlers developed a surprising number of variations on standard constructional materials and techniques.'

Ron Edwards' 1987 list of suggested tools to construct 'stockcamp architecture' include only an axe, pliers, a hammer and 'perhaps an auger'. Edwards also demonstrates the technique of the Cobb & Co. hitch for tightening fencing wire that fastens structural elements.
With the upsurge in Australia of the restoration of so-called 'Heritage items', the techniques of Australian bush carpentry may be moving closer to formal identification and categorization. Tocal College's 2002 list of tools for its 'Traditional bush timber construction' course includes the broadaxe, adze, sledge hammer and wedges, , froe and mallet, draw knife, and hand auger.

Design and materials

Structures or objects such as furniture created using bush carpentry techniques often have minimal or even an ad hoc design. Projects built according to properly drawn plans, for example, architectural blueprints, cannot be called examples of bush carpentry. The design of a barn or shed is likely to be intuitive and functional; the settler's slab hut derived from the vernacular English crofter's hut, a simple rectangular walled shelter with one door, and perhaps holes to allow air to enter.
Historically, the materials at hand for Australian settlers usually included a plentiful supply of hardwood, in the form of fully-grown trees and saplings, bark, brush or grass, clay, mud and stone. The classic Australian bush carpentry image is the .
Nails, bolts or screws were often not available; wooden pegs, wire, or strips of greenhide might be used as fasteners. Greenhide strips might also be used as hinges for doors or shutters. Ron Edwards comments that 'Fencing wire was a very popular resource because it was always available. Bolts and long nails were expensive, and had to be ordered from town ... a shed or stockyard would be fastened together with wire and would be stronger than one that was nailed.'
Less usual building materials include flattened steel kerosene containers used as wall cladding, or such containers filled with sand and used as building blocks. Sheets of hessian have also been used as walls, for coolness.
The etymology of the word carpenter shows that it derives from 'a carriage maker', and later, 'one who builds frameworks'; thus, the term 'bush carpentry' does not necessarily imply that wood is the only material involved.