Glossary

Terms used across these notes, in the sense I use them. Woodworking proper sometimes means something narrower.

Box beam

A hollow beam built as four walls rather than a solid bundle. Much stiffer for the same weight because the material sits further from the centre line.

Chord

The long top or bottom member of a truss. Usually the piece most worth laminating or building as a box beam.

Dry fit

Assembling without glue to check fit. The step that gets skipped and the one that catches jig drift.

Former

A temporary shape that parts are built around or clamped to, then removed. Wax or tape it so glue does not grab.

Gusset

A flat plate glued across a joint to stiffen it. Cut from splint. Also, quietly, how you rescue an imperfect corner.

Jig

Any fixture that makes a repeated operation identical. In this hobby, usually the cutting jig, and usually the reason a batch of parts is wrong.

Kerf

A saw or blade cut that does not go all the way through, used in a row to let a stick bend. Weak at the kerfs; laminate over them.

Lamination

Gluing two or more pieces face to face to make one stiffer piece. Alternate the bows so they cancel.

Lozenge

What a square section does when it collapses into a parallelogram. Cap the ends of a box beam before removing the former.

Racking

A rectangular frame leaning over into a parallelogram. Prevented by triangulation, not by stronger glue.

Splint

A flat craft stick, roughly 100 × 10 × 2 mm. Not a matchstick, but the right material for decks and gussets.

Squeeze-out

Glue pushed out of a joint under clamping. A sign of too much glue, not of a strong joint.

Truss

A frame of triangles carrying load between two chords. The reason bridges are mostly triangles.