What do you mean, long carpenter, short blacksmith, neither long nor short stonemason?

"Long carpenter, short blacksmith, neither long nor short stonemason" is the experience of ancient craftsmen in choosing materials and ingredients in long-term practice, and it also reflects the characteristics of different industries and processing objects.

When a carpenter is a carpenter, size is very important. Wood is long rather than short, and long wood can be cut down. But if the wood is short, it can't be perfectly combined, especially those wood products with buttonholes, so this is what the long carpenter said.

However, iron is malleable, so the length can be appropriately increased during hammering. If too long iron material is selected in the process of making the machine, it will be a little wasteful, so it is called short blacksmith.

Masons use shorter materials for carving than carpenters and larger materials than blacksmiths. The works produced are also very modest. Such as stone tablets, stone lions, stone mills and so on. Therefore, there is a saying that "neither long nor short is a stonemason".

Extended data

Woodworking is the most common name, which appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period. But it was only an official name at that time, indicating its scope of responsibility. Blacksmiths generally have their own blacksmith shops and furnaces for calcining iron billets. There is a large bellows pulled by hand at the joint of the furnace, which is mainly used to control the temperature and intensity of the fire, generally called temperature control.

"Book of Rites under Quli" records: "The six workers of the son of heaven, namely: earthwork, metalworking, masonry, carpentry, livestock workers and grass workers." Woodworking has a long history, as early as the pre-Qin period. At that time, it was considered an inferior occupation, so people in the upper class would not learn carpentry.

"catalpa craftsman" or "catalpa man" is also a common synonym for carpenters. But in ancient times, catalpa people were just a kind of carpenters, specializing in drinking shelves, bows and arrows, and bells.