Glossary R

Rabbet

or earlier Rebate: See Dado.

Rack-and-Pinion

A mechanism -- using a combination of round/circular and flat "gears" -- designed to convert rotational motion into linear motion. In its operation a "rack-and-pinion" mechanism engages teeth on a flat bar of the rack -- with corresponding teeth on a round "gear", the pinion. Rotating the pinion causes the rack to move laterally. In woodworking, an example of a rack and pinion arrangement is commonly found in the floor drill press, where -- the drill's operator can adjust appropriately the distance from the drill's cutting bit to the workpiece to be drilled -- this mechanism allows raising and/or lowering of the drill press's "table".

Radial Arm Saw (RAS)

A saw -- with the blade and motor mounted on a track, above the work surface -- used primarily for Crosscutting and Dadoing, i.e., cutting Grooves across a board's Grain. Now largely replaced by the Compound Miter Saw, a saw in group of saw models often characterized as "Chop Saw", the RAS still has a cadre of supporters, from the ranks of "old tool enthusiasts", such as the Old Woodworking Machines web-based group.

Dadoing, in particular, that separates this saw from its competitors. In Dadoing with any saw, such as a Tablesaw, where the Blade extends upward from below the Table, the Dadoing operation necessarily is completed on the bottom-side of the workpiece, out of sight of the woodworker. Not so with the RAS. In Dadoing with a RAS, the  workpiece sits on under the motor and blade, and the blade cuts the Dado in full sight of the RAS operator.

Radial Bearing

A support which assumes the load at right angles to the axis of the shaft.

Source: Home Craftsman 4 1935 July- August page 260.

Rail

The horizontal ends of a cabinet or door frame.

Red Oak

A strong, coarse grained wood used extensively for trim in Craftsman-type homes and, when quarter sawn in Mission-style furniture. Red oak is porous to the point that it cannot be used for tight cooperage.

Rectilinear

Resawing

When the Oxford English Dictionary claims that rersawing is "the action of sawing again" it misleads. Instead, think of the operation as "slicing" wood -- usually with a bandsaw into thin pieces -- for veneering operations. Below are some historic uses of "resawing taken from the OED.

1611 FLORIO, Risegatione,

a resawing, a clipping.

1875 KNIGHT Dict. Mech. 1920/1

Resawing-machine, a machine for cutting up squared timber into small stuff or boards.

1881 FRANKLYN Glance at Australia 369

One of Fay's large re-sawing machines.

Reed and Prince

Right-Tilting Blade

Rip

Cutting lumber lengthways, with the Grain. Rip blades have fewer square top (chisel) teeth (typically 24) and large Gullets. A rip cut produces long strands of shavings.

Riving Knife

A Riving Knife, similar to a Splitter, is widely used in Europe and now is becoming more frequent in America. A Riving knife is a) the same thickness as the kerf width of the saw's Blade and b) stays close and equidistant to the top rear quarter of the saw blade, keeping the kerf open behind the cutting face regardless of the depth of cut.

Random Orbital Sander (ROS)

Used for general finish sanding. The "doubly circular" motion -- an awkward term for describing the combination of "orbital" and "circular" motion -- of the sander produces a smooth finish on most woods. Comes in both electrical and "air-driven' models.

Riven Oak

Router

Click here for webpage dedicated to the router

See also Shaper. A powered cutting tool, handheld or table mounted -- . See also Router Table --  with a cutter located on the end of the Shaft of a high speed Universal (25,000 RPM) Motor. Used for making Profiles,Pattern Cutting, Dovetails, etc.

Router Bit

Router bits are smaller than Shaper Cutters for good reasons.

The larger the diameter of the router bit, the greater the stress on the router's motor. Heed the advice of Nick Engler --  a noted authority on both shapers and routers -- : "Just because you can fit a 3 1/2-inch-diameter panel-raising bit in your 11/2-horsepower router doesn't mean you can use it. If the router isn't equipped to handle the load, the motor could heat up and bum out." Source: Nick Engler, Routing and Shaping: Techniques for Better Woodworking. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1992, page 2. this link is not working click on this link for discussion of  Router Bits, Shaper Cutters and Jointer and Molding Knives.

Router Plane

[should go to Planes (Hand) entry] A double-handled holder for a small cutter used for surfacing the bottoms of grooves which are parallel with the top surface. Home Craftsman 4 1935 July-August page260)

Rub Collars

Mounted on Spindle with Shaper Cutter, and allows shaping operations without protective Fence. used for shaping curved work such as Cathedral Doors as well as many custom shapes. They are also used for limiting the depth of cut (same principle as router bits with guide bearings). Use them below, in between or above cutters.

Router Table

[Temporary Fix - I am adapting this entry from material located in the Sources:  section directly below. While a Router and Shaper have similarities, I have never encountered the usage of these two tools in quite the manner below.

The Router Used as a Bench Shaper [from Hjorth, 1949 -- this is a fragment from a larger piece on the router and its uses, one of a series of seven or eight articles that Home Craftsman commissioned Hjorth to write in the later '40s.] Shaping. With the use of the router molding bit shown in Fig. 7, the hand router can be used to cut moldings along the edge or end of stock as shown in Fig. 32. With the use of a special stand to hold the motor, the machine can be used for fluting or beading a turning as shown in Fig. 33. By installing the motor in a unit called a shaper plate, the router can be converted into a spindle shaper as shown in Fig. 34. Shaper cutters to make straight, con-cave or convex cuts are available in a variety of sizes. Corner, spindle and sur­face head cutters are also available. Flut­ing, chamfering and V-rabbeting cutters can also be obtained. These cutters can be used individually or in combination as shown in Fig. 35. pp 56-57  Image needed.] Source : Herman Hjorth, “The Router”, Home Craftsman 18 1949, pages 56-57.

[More on "router" This is a fragment from Campbell and Mager, for a woodworker's manual commissioned by Stanley Tools, and where Stanley Tools are featured exclusively]

Because of its motor rotates at a high-velocity -- 18,000 to 27,000 r.p.m. -- the router is designed by some manufacturers to be convertible for use as a bench shaper. The advantages of using the router in this manner,  rather than as a portable tool, for cutting moldings and other shapes, is apparent if you consider awkward it is to clamping small workpieces to a bench and then attempt to move the router over them. A shaper plate, which converts your router into a bench router, is first installed in a bench. When you plan to use your router to cut moldings, unscrew the router from its base and mount the router motor on the shaper plate underneath the bench. This permits tilting the motor 45 to 90 degrees. The shaper cutter extends through a hole in the bench top. Work is fed into the cutter by pushing it along the shaper fence, which extends across the bench top on either side of the cutter. By using different shaper cutters and by tilting the router motor to various angles, an almost infinite variety of shapes can be produced. The shaper cutter is of high-speed steel with three shaped blades spaced 120 degrees apart around it in one integral piece. Some shaper cutter blades are Carbide-tipped for much greater resistance to wear. As with other cutting tools, it is important to keep a sharp edge on the shaper cutters. A silicon carbide Hone, especially shaped for router bits and shaper cutters, is available and is very useful for honing router bits and shaper cutters to keep them at peak cutting efficiency. It can be used on either High-Speed Steel or Carbide-Tipped tools. One or more shaper cutters fit on the shaper arbor and are secured by means of a nut. This nut should be wrench-tightened. It turns counter to the rotation of the shaper arbor in order to prevent its being loosened by shocks and vibration. The shaper arbor, like the router bits, is held in the chuck of the router, which also should be wrench-tightened. Spacing collars of various thicknesses can be used to position the shaper cutter, or cutters of the shaper arbor. Several shaper arbors are provided by the manu­facturers, those for use with shaper cutters having 5/16-inch or 1/4 -inch arbor holes, for use in 5/16-inch or 1/4 -inch chucks, the length of which permits the use of spacing collars. Many types of shaper cutters are provided, each type available in a wide range of dimensions. They find great usefulness in the quantity production of moldings by home builders, as well as in woodworking projects by the homeowner and craftsman. Straight face cutters. The cutting edge is straight across on this one. It will cut a chamfer if tilted to an angle. Convex cutters. Convex cutters cut a concave surface on the piece. They can be used to cut fluting in the surface of a piece, or to make a concave angle on the corner of a piece. Surface bead cutters. These cut a bead into the surface or on the edge of a piece. Not used for joinery work but to add decorative touches to moldings. Concave cutters. Concave cutters cut a convex surface the piece — in other words, round off corners. Operating the Table Shaper When shaping a piece either against the fence or against a collar, the piece must be held flat against the table and against the fence or collar. A spring hold-down can be used to keep your fingers out of harm's way. When the shaper is used as a jointer, the outfeed half of the fence supports the piece after it has been shaped. It should be adjusted so that it is out of line with the infeed half of the fence by a distance equal to the width of stock you wish to remove. In other words, to make a cut 1/4  inch deep, move the outfeed portion of the shaper fence back 1/4 inch. With shaper blades that do not remove the entire edge of the piece, the two sections of fence are in line with each other. The fence is used only to shape straight edges. Curved and circular edges are shaped against a collar. The collar, on the shaper arbor, rides along the edge of the work and controls the depth of cut. A fulcrum pin can be used to position the work more exactly. Collars are available in various diameters. Always feed the work on your shaper against the rotation of the cutter, and with the grain of the wood. When a cut across the end of a piece must be made, cut that first, then make the finishing cut with the grain of the wood. The easiest way to make a small-size molding is to shape the edge of a larger-size board, then rip off the molding with a saw. This can be repeated for as many moldings as you wish and is easier for quantity production of moldings as well as just one. Special guides, or jigs, for shaping curved and circular pieces can be cut from plywood and clamped to the table. More positive control of the piece to be shaped can be gained if the jig has the same radius as the piece, though this need not be so. The jig can have a larger radius than the piece; it is especially important in this case to clamp the jig carefully to the table to obtain the correct depth of cut. V-shaped jig will accommodate circular pieces of many sizes. Sources: Robert Campbell and N H Mager How to Work with Tools and Wood, Stanley, 1965 (Copyright 1952) pages 312-315; Herman Hjorth, “The Router”, Home Craftsman 18 1949, pages 56-57; Robert Campbell and N H Mager How to Work with Tools and Wood, Stanley, 1965 (Copyright 1952).

Rule Joint

A hinged joint, usually consisting of two half-round members, used on Drop-leaf tables.

Source: Home Craftsman 4 March-April 1935, page 172.

Ruler File

A curved file for working in recessed areas. Commonly used in conjunction with carving chisels. Source: Home Craftsman 4 March-April 1935, page 172.

Run Out

or Runout: The Cutting Edge of several woodworker's power tools -- Routers, Drill Presses, Lathes, Shapers, Mortisers -- operate by rotation. The rotation speeds of each of these tools vary from a few hundred revolutions-per- minute (RPMs) up to over 20,000 RPMs. The "tolerance" of the  devices designed to hold these cutting edges while a tool is operating are critical.

DRILL CHUCKS It is no use having a perfectly formed drill point if the drill itself is not held both firmly and true. In "Production" work, as I have said, a Morse taper shank is almost always used, though for smaller sizes in special machines straight shank drills may be held in collets. Even here special drills may be used, having a straight shank terminating in a tang -- two flats at the end of the shank. The collet directs the drill truly, the drive being transmitted through the two flats so that there is no risk of slipping. (On the Morse taper, however, the tang is there to ease drill extraction, and plays no part in the driving.) The majority of readers will, however, use drill chucks, both in the lathe and in the drilling machine. I cannot emphasise too strongly the need for a good quality chuck. The duty is onerous in the extreme -- the thrust on even a 1/4-in. drill can be 100-lbf (50-kgf) or so and if you work out the torque you will find that this puts a considerable tangential load on the chuck jaws as well. [While Cain does not use "run-out", there is no mistaking that is what he is talking about.] If the grip is not adequate then the drill must slip. Damage to the drill shank may put it out of true and will almost certainly set up burrs, and, of course, wear on drill chuck jaws is just as serious as wear On the jaws of a lathe chuck. Source: Tubal Cain, Drill, Taps and Dies. Birmingham, England: Argus Books, 1976, page 38. (Aside: For serious amateur woodworkers, Cain's manual is invaluable, if one wishes to master the intracacies of working with taps and dies, a skill that is, I think, an absolute necessity for constructing jigs.)