By Jack Degange

What’s the best way to check the quality of a well-made cabinet or piece of furniture? Rely on a tried and true approach.

“I’m always turning furniture upside down,” said Ron Fenton, foreman of Trumbull-Nelson’s Carpenter Shop. “You’re looking at the details, checking for variations on how a piece is put together, finding new ideas.”

It’s not neurosurgery or space technology. But the way Fenton and the craftsmen who work in the shop approach each project, it’s not far from it.

Rare is the T-N customer—academic, manufacturing, retail or residential—whose project doesn’t include custom cabinet work that takes shape in this shop…

The sign on the door reads “Carpenter Shop.” A more accurate term for the work produced these days by Fenton, Mitch Ross, and Stephen DeCourcey is “architectural millwork.”

It’s no surprise that this shop is at the virtual hub of T-N’s sprawl of buildings on Sand Hill along Route 120. Rare is the T-N customer—academic, manufacturing, retail or residential—whose project doesn’t include custom cabinet work that takes shape in this shop—where the sound of silence measures the intense scrutiny that defines each piece.

The Carpenter Shop is a large room with oversize work stations positioned strategically to provide convenient access to the table saw or planing mill that whine only after the woodworker’s First Rule has been followed: Measure twice, cut once.

There are hammers and finish nails somewhere in this shop but, more frequently, the preferred methods for joining two pieces of wood involve a variety of joints, cut with precision, then glued and clamped with care.

This is a place where teamwork is fundamental because oversize clamps usually require four hands. One of the risks of the business: “You’ve just glued a big piece and are putting the clamps in place...when the phone rings,” said Fenton.

In this shop, “custom” is standard. That’s especially true when the T-N team is creating cabinets and counters that will meet the specifications of architects and customers for a physics or chemistry laboratory at Dartmouth College, or cabinetry in a renovated home, bank, bookstore, or a ski area’s base lodge.

Just about every job involves custom requirements of both material and design. T-N’s finish carpenters deal as often with applying vinyl and veneer finishes as with shaping all kinds of wood.

“This is work that requires consultation to consider options that address both strength and aesthetics,” said Fenton, who has been in this business for more than 21 years, including nine at Trumbull-Nelson.
“We’re frequently working to blend something old with something new. We have a repertoire of styles to choose from and making recommendations about alternative approaches is part of our business.

Just about every job involves custom requirements of both material and design. T-N’s finish carpenters deal as often with applying vinyl and veneer finishes as with shaping all kinds of wood.

We’re usually working with blueprints or drawings but we try to build some ‘thinking time’ into every job.”

Schedules and job value are also part of the process. “Deadlines for delivery rarely change, but decision dates do,” said Fenton. The shop’s work flow frequently requires juggling as these craftsmen work to ensure that cabinetry, rarely fabricated at the job site, is ready to move when the message from the project manager is, “The schedule just changed. We need it tomorrow.”

The word “value” is also important. “A lot of thought goes into accomplishing a job,” said Fenton.

“Everything is done for a reason but you can’t lose sight of the the job’s value to the customer. We can do anything, but not if it requires hours of work that aren’t in the budget.”

In the precise world of T-N’s Carpenter Shop, the ultimate measure is a satisfied customer because, as Fenton affirmed, “In custom mill work, every job builds toward the next job.”