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A History of the Amateur Woodworking Movement
A Decade-by-Decade Narrative of Amateur Woodworking in America From 1900 to 2000
An Online Book -- Raymond McInnis -- Amateur Woodworker
Home Contents Appendices Authors Documents
Glossary Intro and Glossary Annexes
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Narrative Chapters
Chap 1 Chap 2 Chap 3 Chap 4 Chap 5 Chap 6 Chap 7 Chap 8 Chap 9 Chap 10 Chap 11 Chap 12
Headnote for Manuals Manuals by Decade
1900-before 1901-1910 1911-1920 1921-1930 1931-1940 1941-1950 1951-1960 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-later
Email me at rgmc36@comcast.net
-- If you would like to enter into a discussion about anything you've read on my website, please click here
under construction 4-4-08
Glossary R
:
Rabbet, or earlier Rebate: See Dado.
Rack-and-Pinion
Radial Arm Saw (RAS): click here for an extended entry on "Radial Arm Saw"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.
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 of the sander produces a smooth finish on most woods.
Resawing:
Until I have time to write my own entry on resawing, use this 2001 account from Highland Hardware.
For more examples of resawing, click here.
For an extended account of the bandsaw, including its unique resawing capacity, click here
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.
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.
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.]
Source
: Herman Hjorth, “The Router”, Home Craftsman 18 1949, pages 56-57;
[This is a fragment from Campbell and Mager, for a woodworker's manual commissioned by Stanley Tools, and where Stanley Tools are featured exclusively]
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.
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. [image needed]
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).
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.
It is no use having a perfectly formed drill point if the drill itself is not held both firmly and true.Source: Tubal Cain. Drill, Taps and Dies. Birmingham, England: Argus Books, 1976, page 38.
