Tools / Shape and abrade

Shape and abrade

Tools that remove material in shavings, chips or dust to bring a surface to form: planes, rasps, files, scrapers and grinders, sanders, routers, lathes and mills, and the bending and forming tools that shape without removal.

11 tools written

• AdzeA woodworking tool with a blade set across the line of its handle, swung toward the user to take thin chips from timber and to dress surfaces an axe cannot reach. It is among the oldest woodworking tools and has been made in stone, copper, bronze and iron.
• Angle grinderA hand-held power tool whose motor drives a spindle at a right angle to the body, carrying an abrasive or cutting disc, a wire brush or a sanding pad. It is used to grind, cut, clean and polish metal, masonry and other materials.
• Bench grinderAn electric motor mounted on a bench or pedestal with an abrasive wheel on each end of its shaft, used to sharpen tools and to shape and clean metal held against the wheel by hand. Regulations call this use offhand grinding.
• Bench planeA hand tool that holds a sharpened iron at a fixed angle in a flat-soled body, so that pushing it along a board takes off a shaving of controlled thickness. Bench planes are the general-purpose planes used to flatten, straighten and smooth wood, graded by length from the smoothing plane to the jointer.
• Block planeA short hand plane, about six inches long, made to be held in one hand and used across the grain, particularly on the ends of boards. Its iron is bedded with the bevel facing up at a low angle, with no cap iron.
• FileA hardened steel bar with rows of fine cutting teeth across its faces, drawn or pushed over metal, wood or other material to remove it in small amounts. Files are described by length, by cross-section and by the cut and coarseness of the teeth.
• LatheA machine that rotates a workpiece about a horizontal axis while a cutting tool, held in a carriage that moves along and across the work, removes material to make a surface of revolution. The metal-cutting form with a lead screw and a slide rest is the machine on which most other machine tools were first built.
• Milling machineA machine that removes metal with a rotating multi-tooth cutter while the workpiece is fed against it on a table that moves in three directions. It cuts flat, slotted, spiral and angled work, with the work reset as little as possible between cuts.
• RaspA hardened steel bar whose face is covered with separate, individually raised teeth, used to remove wood, horn, hoof or stone in coarse or fine amounts by rubbing. It differs from a file in that its teeth are points rather than continuous ridges.
• RouterA hand-held or table-mounted electric motor that spins a cutting bit at high speed to cut grooves, edge profiles and recesses in wood and similar materials. It is guided by hand against a fence, a template or a bearing on the bit.
• Sharpening stoneA block of natural or manufactured abrasive that a steel edge is rubbed against to remove metal and form a sharper edge. It is graded by the coarseness of its abrasive and is used with water or oil.