Compagnons of wood trades include carpenters, joiners, cabinet makers, wheelwrights, cooper-stavers, clog makers, woodturners and basket makers. The variety of wood and its multiple uses gave rise to very different works: frameworks, doors and windows, furniture, wheels and carriages, cask wine and large barrels, clogs, shoes and baskets. Their reception masterpieces and great masterpieces are exhibited in the museum of Compagnonnage.
Compagnons stone cutters have maintained a reputation for excellence thanks to their knowledge in draughtsmanship and to their prestigious constructions. Stonemasons joined them with the development of reinforced concrete. To the stone sector, plasterers and roofers can be added because they work with slate, lay roof tiles, etc., even if their activity is sometimes common with the one of carpenters.
Compagnonnages associated with metal include blacksmiths, mechanics, locksmiths, metalworkers, farriers, panel beaters, boilermakers, plumbers and zinc workers. The variety of metals and alloys (iron, steel, copper, brass, lead, zinc, bronze) allow them to make works of many forms.
This sector of activity includes different compagnonnages of trades that industry and mechanization have partly dismantled, including those of the ropers, the weavers, the hatters, the dyers, the tailors, the cloth-shearers, the tanners-leather curriers, the blanchers-chamoiseurs (tawers). Today, the shoemakers-bootmakers, the saddlers, the leather craftsmen and the upholsterers are still represented.
Catering professions are represented since the 19th century with the compagnons bakers (1811). Cooks joined them later (1900), pastry cooks, confectioners and pork butchers. Only works in sugar paste (icing sugar, water, gelatine and lemon juice) or in pasta dough can be kept well and can therefore be displayed.
