Awarded Carpenter of the Month, by Carpentry Australia.

May 2026

Business Overview - Tony Gouverneur, The Lockcarpenter

My story starts at 16 in Dunedin, New Zealand, where I began a carpentry apprenticeship earning around $10 an hour, sharing a rental house with a group of mates and learning the trade from the ground up, literally.

First-year apprentices did the unglamorous work: digging, formwork and braving South Island winters on exposed job sites. It built resilience that has never left me.

As I progressed, I moved from ground work to timber framing then fix-out, earning the trust of experienced carpenters around me and taking on increasingly complex tasks. That rotation through different job sites and different carpenters gave me a broad foundation that many carpenters never get.

The real turning point came when I moved to Sydney. The passing of my uncle, a seasoned builder, pushed me to stop working for others and back myself. I started my own business and quickly found myself drawn to a very specific niche, the installation of expensive high-end doors and door hardware. It was high-risk, demanding and largely untaught. Most carpenters I knew avoided it. I leaned into it.

Over time I realised that there was a skill gap in the market. The specialisation of installing luxury door hardware sat between two trades, locksmithing and finish carpentry. No word existed for this niche. So in 2019 I coined the term “Lockcarpenter”, and in 2021 it became a registered trademark with IP Australia.

Today, after 32 years in the trade and more than 22 years specialising exclusively in luxury door hardware installation, I am personally recommended by leading door hardware suppliers and am in high demand to install for Sydney’s high-end builders.

I have built an online course platform teaching Lockcarpentry, merged with Doorprofi to create the most advanced Lockcarpentry Router Jig, and sell specialist door and lock installation tools online at the Lockcarpentry Shop.

From Dunedin's frosty construction sites to Sydney's finest homes - the motto has never changed: Done Once, Done Right!

What Makes My Business Unique

Since 2008 I have owned the brand The TIDY TRADIE, built on a simple mission: to clean up the messy tradie reputation.

Working in expensive, immaculate homes means the standard of care on site has to match the standard of the work itself. I lay down Tidy Tradie work mats to protect floors and surfaces, wear Cleanboot work boot covers to protect the client's flooring, and use Tidy Tradie work bins to keep tools and rubbish organised throughout the job. I call these my customer service tools, because they show the client I respect their property as much as they do.

When installing door hardware with a router, I use the Lockcarpentry Router Jig with a vacuum attached, which captures all the dust at the source. The result is a clean, precise installation with no mess left behind.

Working quick, neat and tidy has been my philosophy from day one, and I believe it has had a genuine positive impact on the trade industry as a whole.

The other thing that makes my business unique is the niche itself. There is no one else in Australia doing what I do at the level I do it. Lockcarpentry is not a service you can find in the Yellow Pages. It exists because I created it, named it, trademarked it and spent 22 years perfecting it.

My Favourite Part of the Trade

The part of the job that really gets the adrenaline rushing is cutting and routing into doors that cost $10,000 or more. There is something about that moment, the router spinning, the jig set, the vacuum ready, knowing that what you are about to do has to be perfect the first time.

I love being a human CNC machine. It's very satisfying plunge routing to precisely install the hardware, then standing back and watching it all work to perfection. No mistakes, no damage, no dust, no call backs. That feeling never gets old.

What would take most carpenters many hours, and still leave a flawed finish with dust everywhere, I can do in under half the time with a high level of finish while keeping the work area completely clean and tidy. That gap between what I can do and what the average carpenter can do is the result of 22 years of repetition, precision and continuing to raise my own standards.

Worldly non-standard hardware is particularly challenging. It arrives with minimal instructions, unusual dimensions and no margin for error on doors that are expensive to replace. Most carpenters avoid it. I seek it out. After 22 years of installing hardware that others won't touch, I have built a depth of knowledge and skill that I am genuinely proud of.

Advice for Apprentices

My advice to any apprentice who really wants to be a carpenter is simple: stick at it, even when it's tough.

I never had financial support and moved out of home at 16. Surviving on a first-year apprentice wage while watching mates earn more as labourers or in jobs with no future was genuinely hard. There were moments where the easy option was tempting. But I kept going.

Four years of hard physical work on minimal pay felt like a long road at the time. Getting my carpentry qualification at the end of it was my first major achievement and one I am still proud of today. That piece of paper meant more to me because of how hard I had worked for it.

Finishing what you start is a virtue. It builds the mental toughness and resilience you will need for every big challenge that comes after. The trade will test you constantly and that is exactly the point.

If your boss and the people around you are decent, keep your head down, do your time and trust the process. You will come out the other side a qualified tradesperson with skills that no one can ever take away from you. You can do it.

What's Next for the Business

Even though I feel like I am already on the leading edge of luxury door hardware installation, I will continue to fine tune the techniques I use and teach through the Lockcarpentry online courses. There is always room to improve and the hardware industry keeps evolving.

One of my biggest goals is to have more trained Lockcarpentry installers that I can confidently recommend right across Australia. One of the most common things I hear from clients is, "if you can't install for us, can you recommend someone who is just as good?" Right now I don't have a lot of dedicated installers. Building a network of qualified Lockcarpentry installers would change that.

I genuinely believe I have made a positive impact on the high-end door hardware industry over the last 22 years. And while handles and locks might sound like a boring subject to most people, I was the first to post music videos on Instagram and TikTok showcasing door hardware installations, and it has since become much more popular for tradespeople to share their door hardware work and take pride in a neat and tidy finish. I'd like to think I played a part in that shift.

I will continue to promote Lockcarpentry as a niche trade, grow the course platform, and keep raising the standard of what a professional door hardware installation looks like.