![Larks tongue](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Larks_tongue.JPG)
A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of
bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces.
Chamfers are frequently used in
machining
Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes ...
,
carpentry
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters tr ...
,
furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...
,
concrete formwork,
mirror
A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...
s, and to facilitate assembly of many
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
designs.
Terminology
In machining the word ''
bevel'' is not used to refer to a chamfer.
Machinists
A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...
use chamfers to "ease" otherwise sharp edges, both for safety and to prevent damage to the edges.
A ''chamfer'' may sometimes be regarded as a type of bevel, and the terms are often used interchangeably.
In furniture-making, a lark's tongue is a chamfer which ends short of a piece in a gradual outward curve, leaving the remainder of the edge as a right angle. Chamfers may be formed in either inside or outside adjoining faces of an object or room.
By comparison, a ''
fillet
Fillet may refer to:
*Annulet (architecture), part of a column capital, also called a fillet
*Fillet (aircraft), a fairing smoothing the airflow at a joint between two components
*Fillet (clothing), a headband
*Fillet (cut), a piece of meat
*Fille ...
'' is the rounding-off of an interior corner, and a ''round'' (or ''radius'') the rounding of an outside one.
Carpentry and furniture
Chamfers are used in furniture such as counters and table tops to ease their edges to keep people from bruising themselves in the otherwise sharp corner. When the edges are rounded instead, they are called
bullnose
Bullnose is a term used in building construction for rounded convex trim, particularly in masonry and ceramic tile.
Uses
Bullnose trim is used to provide a smooth, rounded edge for countertops, staircasesteps, building corners, verandahs, or ...
d. Special tools such as
chamfer mill
A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces.
Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fur ...
s and
chamfer planes are sometimes used.
Architecture
![Saks Fifth Avenue (48155562261)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Saks_Fifth_Avenue_%2848155562261%29.jpg)
Chamfers are commonly used in architecture, both for functional and aesthetic reasons. For example, the base of the
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
is a
cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
with chamfered corners, thereby creating an
octagonal architectural footprint. Its great gate is formed of chamfered base stones and chamfered
corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
s for a balcony or equivalent
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
towards the roof.
Urban planning
Many
city blocks in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
,
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
and various other cities in
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, and street corners (
curbs
A curb (North American English), or kerb (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English except Canada; American and British English spelling differences, see spelling differences), is the edge where a raised sidewalk or road m ...
) in
Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.
Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...
, are chamfered. The chamfering was designed as an embellishment and a modernization of urban space in Barcelona's mid-19th century
Eixample
The Eixample (; ) is a district of Barcelona between the old city ( Ciutat Vella) and what were once surrounding small towns ( Sants, Gràcia, Sant Andreu, etc.), constructed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its population was 262,000 ...
or Expansion District, where the buildings follow the chamfering of the sidewalks and streets. This pioneering design opens up broader perspectives, provides pleasant pedestrian areas and allows for greater visibility while turning. It might also be considered to allow for turning to be somewhat more comfortable as, supposedly, drivers would not need to slow down as much when making a turn as they would have to if the corner were a square 90 degrees, though in Barcelona, most chamfered corners are used as parking spaces or loading-unloading zones, leaving the traffic to run as in normal 90-degree street corners.
File:Ponce Chamfered Street Corner at Calle Mayor and Calle Cristina (looking northwest), Barrio Tercero, Ponce, Puerto Rico.jpg, A chamfered sidewalk
A sidewalk (North American English), pavement (British English), footpath in Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, or footway, is a path along the side of a street, street, highway, terminals. Usually constructed of concrete, pavers, brick ...
street corner in historic Ponce, Puerto Rico
File:Entrance fort.jpg, The Great gate (Darwaza-i rauza) gateway to the Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
, having chamfered tower corners
File:Barcelona_Spain_-_panoramio.jpg, A chamfered building and street corner on Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
's Passeig de Gràcia. Here the building is chamfered but the sidewalk/street has taken on a conventional, 90-degree layout, eliminating the loading zone or parking spaces.
File:Original_design_of_Barcelona's_city_blocks.svg, The original Barcelona Eixample city block design, showing the chamfered corners of buildings and streets.
Mechanical engineering
Chamfers are frequently used to facilitate assembly of parts which are designed for
interference fit
An interference fit, also known as a pressed fit or friction fit is a form of fastening between two ''tight'' fitting mating parts that produces a joint which is held together by friction after the parts are pushed together.
Depending on the am ...
or to aid assembly for parts inserted by hand. Resilient materials such as fluid power seals generally require a shallower angle than 45 degrees, often 20. In assemblies, chamfers are also used to clear an interior
radius
In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...
- perhaps from a cutting tool, or to clear other features, such as a
weld bead, on an adjoining part. This is because it is generally easier to manufacture and much easier to precisely check the dimensions of a chamfer than a radius, and errors in the profile of either radius could otherwise cause interference between the radii before the flat surfaces make contact with one another.
Chamfers are also essential for components which humans will handle, to prevent injuries, and also to prevent damage to other components. This is particularly important for hard materials, like most metals, and for heavy assemblies, like press tools.
Additionally, a chamfered edge is much more resistant than a square edge to being bruised by other edges or corners knocking against it during assembly or disassembly, or maintenance.
Machining
![Chamfers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Chamfers.jpg)
In
machining
Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes ...
a chamfer is a slope cut at any right-angled edge of a
workpiece
A workpiece is a piece, often made of a single material, that is being processed into another desired shape (such as building blocks).
The workpiece is usually a piece of relatively rigid material such as wood, metal, plastic, or stone. After a ...
, e.g. holes; the ends of rods, bolts, and pins; the corners of the long-edges of plates; any other place where two surfaces meet at a sharp angle. Chamfering eases assembly, e.g. the insertion of bolts into holes, or nuts. Chamfering also removes sharp edges which reduces significantly the possibility of cuts, and injuries, to people handling the metal piece.
Glass mirror design
Outside of aesthetics, chamfering is part of the process of hand-crafting a parabolic glass telescope mirror.
Before the surface of the disc can be ground, the edges must first be chamfered to prevent edge chipping. This can be accomplished by placing the disc in a metal bowl containing
silicon carbide
Silicon carbide (SiC), also known as carborundum (), is a hard chemical compound containing silicon and carbon. A semiconductor, it occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite, but has been mass-produced as a powder and crystal sin ...
and rotating the disc with a rocking motion. The grit will thus wear off the sharp edge of the glass.
References
External links
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{{Woodworking, state=collapsed
Electronic design
Electronic engineering
Metalworking terminology
Woodworking