Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood, engineered lumber, or synthetic substitutes, to produce more complex items. Some woodworking joints employ mechanical fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, while others use only wood elements.
Tongue and groove is a method of fitting similar objects together, edge to edge, used mainly with wood, in flooring, parquetry, panelling, and similar constructions. Tongue and groove joints allow two flat pieces to be joined strongly together to make a single flat surface. Before plywood became common, tongue and groove boards were also used for sheathing buildings and to construct concrete formwork.
A mortiseand tenon joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right angles.
A dovetail joint or simply dovetail is a joinery technique most commonly used in woodworking joinery (carpentry), including furniture, cabinets, log buildings, and traditional timber framing. Noted for its resistance to being pulled apart, also known as tensile strength, the dovetail joint is commonly used to join the sides of a drawer to the front. A series of pins cut to extend from the end of one board interlock with a series of 'tails' cut into the end of another board. The pins and tails have a trapezoidal shape. Once glued, a wooden dovetail joint requires no mechanical fasteners.
A log house, or log building, is a structure built with horizontal logs interlocked at the corners by notching. Logs may be round, squared or hewn to other shapes, either handcrafted or milled. The term "log cabin" generally refers to a smaller, more rustic log house, such as a hunting cabin in the woods, that may or may not have electricity or plumbing.
A biscuit joiner or biscuit jointer is a woodworking tool used to join two pieces of wood together. A biscuit joiner uses a small circular saw blade to cut a crescent-shaped hole in the opposite edges of two pieces of wood or wood composite panels. An oval-shaped, highly dried and compressed wooden biscuit is covered with glue, or glue is applied in the slot. The biscuit is immediately placed in the slot, and the two boards are clamped together. The wet glue expands the biscuit, further improving the bond.
A backsaw is any hand saw which has a stiffening rib on the edge opposite the cutting edge, enabling better control and more precise cutting than with other types of saws. Backsaws are normally used in woodworking for precise work, such as cutting dovetails, mitres, or tenons in cabinetry and joinery. Because of the stiffening rib, backsaws are limited in the depth to which they can cut. Backsaws usually have relatively closely spaced teeth, often with little or no set.
A mitre joint is a joint made by cutting each of two parts to be joined, across the main surface, usually at a 45° angle, to form a corner, usually to form a 90° angle, though it can comprise any angle greater than 0 degrees. It is called beveling when the angled cut is done on the side, although the resulting joint is still a mitre joint.
A scarf joint, or scarph joint, is a method of joining two members end to end in woodworking or metalworking. The scarf joint is used when the material being joined is not available in the length required. It is an alternative to other joints such as the butt joint and the splice joint and is often favored over these in joinery because it yields a barely visible glue line.
A finger joint, also known as a comb joint, is a woodworking joint made by cutting a set of complementary, interlocking profiles in two pieces of wood, which are then glued. The cross-section of the joint resembles the interlocking of fingers between two hands, hence the name "finger joint". The sides of each profile increases the surface area for gluing, resulting in a strong bond, stronger than a butt joint but not very visually appealing. Finger joints are regularly confused with box joints, which are used for corners of boxes or box-like constructions.
A mitre box or miter box is a wood working appliance used to guide a hand saw for making precise cuts, usually 45° mitre cuts. Traditional mitre boxes are simple in construction and made of wood, while adjustable mitre boxes are made of metal and can be adjusted for cutting any angle from 45° to 90°.
A bench hook is a workbench appliance used in woodworking to hold a workpiece in place while crosscutting with a hand saw. A bench hook is a simple method used to improve accuracy and safety.
A butt joint is a wood joint in which the end of a piece of material is simply placed against another piece. The butt joint is the simplest joint. An unreinforced butt joint is also the weakest joint, as it provides a limited surface area for gluing and lacks any mechanical interlocking to resist external forces.
A splice joint is a method of joining two members end to end in woodworking. The splice joint is used when the material being joined is not available in the length required. It is an alternative to other joints such as the butt joint and the scarf joint. Splice joints are stronger than unreinenforced butt joints and have the potential to be stronger than a scarf joint.
Segmented turning, also known as polychromatic turning, is a form of woodturning on a lathe where the initial workpiece is composed of multiple parts glued together. The process involves gluing several pieces of wood to create patterns and visual effects in turned projects.
The neck is the part of certain string instruments that projects from the main body and is the base of the fingerboard, where the fingers are placed to stop the strings at different pitches. Guitars, banjos, ukuleles, lutes, the violin family, and the mandolin family are examples of instruments which have necks. Necks are also an integral part of certain woodwind instruments, such as the saxophone.
Pocket-hole joinery, or pocket-screw joinery, involves drilling a hole at an angle — usually 15 degrees — into one work piece, and then joining it to a second work piece with a self-tapping screw.
This glossary of woodworking lists a number of specialized terms and concepts used in woodworking, carpentry, and related disciplines.
A staircase jig is a woodworking tool that incorporates both a right angle and an acute angle in its design. The jig is easily transported due to its small size and light weight. Precise measurements are required to layout the diagonal locations.
Notching is a metal-cutting process used on sheet-metal or thin bar-stock, sometimes on angle sections or tube. A shearing or punching process is used in a press, so as to cut vertically down and perpendicular to the surface, working from the edge of a work-piece. Sometimes the goal is merely the notch itself, but usually this is a precursor to some other process: such as bending a corner in sheet or joining two tubes at a tee joint, notching one to fit closely to the other.
