After the sawdust settles

The sights and smells of the Millwork Shop are hard to miss — a thin layer of sawdust covers all surfaces, and the earthy, slightly sweet scent of fresh-cut wood fills the air.

A team of five millworkers — masters of their craft — repair, restore, and replace many of Yale’s older, often historically significant wooden architectural elements, such as doors, shutters, decorative trim, intricate cabinetry, and detailed woodwork. Collectively, they bring a diverse set of skills, including custom cabinetry and furniture fabrication, wooden boat building, metalworking, carpentry, and sculpting.

Their central hub, an 8,000-square-foot shop located at 344 Winchester Avenue, is outfitted with a wide range of hand and power tools, such as table saws, sanders, cordless drills, chisels, mallets, sanding blocks, and hand planes, as well as more high-tech equipment.

Project planning and stewardship

Before any project begins, the team maps out a plan. Each member brings his own strengths to the process, such as hand tool work, dimensioning, or computer-aided design (CAD) drawing. “We work together to make the piece successful, whether it’s a gate, cabinet, or small sculpture,” said Millworker Colin Evans. “We do many door repairs, which are often vintage one-of-a-kind pieces.”

In 2017, the team started the multi-year project of restoring twenty-seven sets of exterior doors at Payne Whitney Gymnasium (PWG). Each door, resplendent with wrought-iron features, stands almost 7 feet tall and weighs 287 pounds. The doors, made from white oak in a Neo-Gothic style, date from 1932, when PWG opened. The handles, hinges, pins, and nuts were fabricated by blacksmiths.

“We believe they were forged by Samuel Yellin Metalworkers out of Philadelphia, which did many doors and trim throughout campus in the early part of the last century,” said Millworker Barry VanSteenbergen.

The first set of doors was restored by hand. After transporting the heavy pieces to the shop, the team painstakingly removed all the intricate hardware, hand-sanded layers of glue, varnish, and dirt, repaired “deadwood,” applied six layers of varnish, sandblasted, and repainted the hardware. Then, they reassembled and rehung the doors. It took almost four months to complete just one set.

“It takes about three days to reinstall all the hardware, including the thresholds, closers, and dash bars. These heavy doors are so well balanced when hung that you can open them with relative ease,” said VanSteenbergen.

Welcome automation

The following year, the shop got a computer numerical control (CNC) router machine that could cut, shape, mill, drill, engrave, and surface finish metal, plastic, and wood, and create prototypes. After carefully measuring the second set of doors and using lessons learned from their first experience, the team was able to program the CNC machine with its super-sharp cutting bit to quickly and precisely remove the varnish. With the help of this automation, the second set of doors was completed in half the time.

“Using the CNC machine eliminated a lot of hand sanding work. Once down to the hardwood, we easily identified rotted wood that needed replacing or cracks that needed filling,” said Evans. “We do a lot of repair to keep the original appearance, removing deteriorated pieces and creating a dutchman, a matching filler piece. We even have a trick to make something look old again, like a wall carving. When the varnish gets tacky, we blow some very fine dust on it to age it,” said Evans.

A recent addition to their workspace is a larger CNC machining center that can carve and cut material up to five feet by 12 feet in three dimensions. Located in the back of the shop, another team member uses the newer machine to replace a dozen green shutters from Davenport College. “I’ll take measurements, make a CAD drawing, program a toolpath, and do a mockup to see if it fits and matches the original style,” said Millworker Philip Vitale.

“We also spent time drawing programs for the doors. The machine stores all that information,” said Vitale. When a new set of shutters is needed, or another set of PWG doors arrives in the shop, the machine can be put into service quickly. Vitale adds, “Before, working by hand, it took a whole day to complete one or two shutters. Now the CNC machine knocks out a dozen in the same amount of time.”

After the doors and shutters are completed, they are sent across the hall to the paint shop, where Millworker Marc Lussier does all the finishing, such as varnishing, staining, or painting.

While discussing their craft, each team member exudes a sense of excitement in the process and immense pride in the finished product, and they relish tackling new projects.

“Every project is different. Something new and unusual is always coming into the shop. That’s the challenge and what makes this job fun,” said Franklin Venturini, millworker.