A rabbet (American English) or rebate (British English) is a recess or groove cut into the edge of a piece of machinable material, usually

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

. When viewed in cross-section, a rabbet is two-sided and open to the edge or end of the surface into which it is cut. An example of the use of a rabbet is in a glazing bar where it makes provision for the insertion of the pane of glass and putty. It may also accommodate the edge of the back panel of a cabinet. It is also used in door and

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

jamb A jamb (from French ''jambe'', "leg"), in architecture, is the side-post or lining of a doorway or other aperture. The jambs of a window outside the frame are called “reveals.” Small shafts to doors and windows with caps and bases are know ...

s, and for

shiplap Shiplap is a type of wooden board used commonly as exterior siding in the construction of residences, barns, sheds, and outbuildings. Exterior walls Shiplap is either rough-sawn or milled pine or similarly inexpensive wood between wide with a ...

planking. A rabbet can be used to form a joint with another piece of wood (often containing a dado). Rabbet joints are easy to construct and have good appeal to them. They are simple to use in carpentry based work but can be doubtful when it comes to the strength of the joint. Nails and screws can be added to help increase the overall strength.

Etymology

The word ''rabbet'' is from

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

''rabbat'', "a recess into a wall", and ''rabattre'' "to beat down". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "In North America the more usual form is ''rabbet''". The form "rebate" is often pronounced the same way as "rabbet".

Methods

* A rabbet router using a straight or rebate bit * Rabbetting or

rebate plane The rebate plane (British English) or rabbet plane (American English) is a hand plane designed for cutting rebates/rabbets in wood. It's a simple tool used in many Western countries with hundreds of years of history. It was in use in England at ...

or a

shoulder plane The shoulder plane (also bullnose plane) is a plane tool with a blade flush with the edges of the plane, allowing trimming right up to the edge of a workpiece. Like a rebate plane, the shoulder plane's blade extends, therefore cuts, to the full w ...

Circular saw A circular saw is a power-saw using a toothed or abrasive disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use a rotary motion but are different from a circular saw. ''Cir ...

with multiple passes (depending on width and depth) *

Dado set A dado set or dado blade is a type of circular saw blade, usually used with a table saw or radial arm saw, which is used to cut dadoes or grooves in woodworking Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet makin ...

in a single pass *

Spindle moulder Spindle may refer to: Textiles and manufacturing * Spindle (textiles), a straight spike to spin fibers into yarn * Spindle (tool), a rotating axis of a machine tool Biology * Common spindle and other species of shrubs and trees in genus ''Euonym ...

Hand saw In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and carve a wooden object. They usually operate by having a ser ...

and

chisel A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, stru ...

Jointer A jointer or in some configurations, a jointer-planer (also known in the UK and Australia as a planer or surface planer, and sometimes also as a buzzer or flat top) is a woodworking machine used to produce a flat surface along a board's length. ...

equipped with a rabbet ledge

References

External links

* Joinery Woodworking {{Woodworking-stub

Etymology

Methods

See also

References

External links