woodworking Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinetry, furniture making, wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked b ...

float (more rarely used in

silversmithing A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exact synonyms, as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are (or were, at least) largely the same but differed in that t ...

), also called a planemaker's float, is a tapered, flat, single cut file of two types: ''edge float'' and the ''flat sided float'' which are traditional woodworking tools generally used when making a wooden plane. The float is used to cut, flatten, and smooth (or float) key areas of wood by abrasion. Its woodworking uses go well beyond planemaking. Floats are similar to

rasp A rasp is a coarse form of file used for shaping wood, metal, or other material. Typically a hand tool, it consists of a generally tapered rectangular, round, or half-round sectioned bar of case hardened steel with distinct, individually cu ...

s and files. Rasps are generally coarse and cannot be resharpened. Files have angled ridges or teeth and cannot be resharpened. Floats have parallel teeth and they can be resharpened as many times as the thickness of the blade will allow. Edge floats resemble saw blades and are generally used to cut wedge slots in wood. Flat sided floats are more similar to a file or rasp but their cutting edges are a series of parallel teeth. Types of woodworking floats include: joiner's float, bed float, side float.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Float (woodworking) Mechanical hand tools Woodworking hand tools Files (tool)