Weird Woodworking Words

Last week I used the term bodger, which is someone who turned wooden legs — typically for Windsor chairs and most often out in the forest. A friend of mine told me it was a new word for her, which got me thinking. Our craft has some odd terms that most of us take for granted. Dado comes to mind as well as rabbet (that’s rebate to our Brit friends).

Actually, bodgers were one of three craftspeople who built chairs, with benchmen and framers completing the trio (this was news to me). As I poked around for other archaic woodworking terms, I found another trio of note: nave, spokes and felloes. As I have never made a wooden cartwheel, the terms nave and felloes were new to me. Some terms that I have used but also forgotten are arris, fleam, in the white, mullion and joyner. Seems I am a bit of a word nerd.

What woodworking terms do you find interesting or odd? Please share them and we will all have our lives enriched.

Rob Johnstone, Woodworker’s Journal

Installing Torsion Hinges

Chris Marshall demonstrates how to install lid support torsion hinges in a chest project. Similar to hinges in laptop computers, these heavy-duty cast-zinc hinges allow virtually any size lid to open smoothly, hold its position (when opened to 90 degrees – beyond that, the lid will swing open), and then easily close – all with little effort and no additional hardware!

Perfect Bit Storage

From the range to the workshop, this reader found a great storage solution for keeping his router bits organized.

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