Including the rebate...

Bill Burk

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I’ll have to check if my Stanley plane is a rabbit-type or rebate-type. I keep it to cut picture frame notch. Seems like it’s the right tool for the job. I always forget to cut deep enough to allow for everything… glass, mat, backing and tacking, so usually have to leave something out.

My motto about black borders. “Save yourselves it’s too late for me.”
 

DREW WILEY

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On a print, it's just called a margin normally. Maybe alt UV printers have picked up arcane terminology. But if that perimeter were covered by the rabbet or rebate portion of a printing frame, it's easy to understand the derivative application to the print margin itself. Gosh. We're talking about antique prints and equipment as the background, over a century before scanning existed, or before any misinformed dictionary definition by someone who obviously never put a window together. Even the grandparents of your acquaintances on both sides of the Atlantic probably weren't born yet. Enlargers and negative carriers didn't exist yet. And a rabbet or rebate does NOT imply a groove, but a right angle cutout. That's the difference between an antique dado or groover plane and a rabbet plane. So a "recess" would be an acceptable synonym for a rabbet.

How the hell ya gonna retrofit a piece of glass into a 4-sided "groove" in a window or picture frame? Traditionally, the glass is placed into position in the rabbetted area, secured using glazing points or small nails, then puttied in. I do have my own special system for using a grooved picture frame requiring one side to be removable in order to do that, and special power equipment to make those mouldings (Brit) or moldings (US); but that's certainly not anything traditional.

I'm more a power plane guy myself (Festool of course). But I do have both a lovely old inherited Stanley US shoulder plane in my kit (the common term for a deluxe oversized rabbet plane), as well as a Brit Stanley plane of the variety popular for wooden casement window tuneups, and I think also a small Kunz German rabbet plane - they had the best iron castings ever. But all kinds of rabbet planes and still are made. There are no neo-US Stanley ones, that is, compressed chewing gum wrapper types. The Brit and formely US divisions split apart a long time ago. Now the US side is incorporated in the Cayman Islands to dodge taxes.

I've made my own picture frames for a long time, except the metal Nielsen ones, which I cut down lengths of in my own shop. It's a lot of work making hardwood frames, but rewarding in other ways. My relation to the door and window trade, and architectural restoration, is ten miles deep. At one point we probably had the largest selection of high quality forged brass and bronze window hardware in the world. And if you want a challenge, try installing mortise locks for rabbeted door pairs, or a multi-lock-point system. Nowadays 90% of door and window hardware is just plated pot metal junk, itself made in China.
 
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Don_ih

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I wouldn't screw around with any type of plane to make a picture frame. All rabbets cut on the table saw. All profiles cut with a moulding head (on the table saw). All joints cut on the table saw. All corner keys cut .... on the table saw.
 

Vaughn

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The two words come from the Frech rabais.

Thanks. This means there is no direct connection between a physically cut-out piece of wood of window/picture frames and the blank part of the film around its edges that got no exposure because it was covered by something the might be referred to as a rebate (rabbet) in a film holder (but really isn't).
 
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Dusty Negative

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I agree. Excellent choice. Are these negative holders custom-made? All of mine are relatively exact and allow no space to reveal the rebate.
 

Don_ih

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"Rebate" loosely refers also to any groove around an architectural feature, whether it fully receives the feature or shows some kind of reveal. Rebate and rabbet, however, are synonyms.
 

Bill Burk

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I wouldn't screw around with any type of plane to make a picture frame. All rabbets cut on the table saw. All profiles cut with a moulding head (on the table saw). All joints cut on the table saw. All corner keys cut .... on the table saw.

I was just talking about this with a friend at the electronics store where I was buying a diagonal cutter because I used the old one as a table saw.
 

DREW WILEY

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Don got it right, Vaughn still has it wrong. As for the French derivation, it was just a few years ago that I learned my own first name, based on my Grandmother's family name, was actually an anglicization derived from Dreaux, the prominent Huguenot clan which fled France way back when. The English never pronounce or spell English correctly anyway.

My own dado & rabbet setup involves a deluxe especially solid router table setup with a solid carbide spiral bit and large Festool router with its high level of dust extraction. No mess to clean up afterwards. Lots of built-in safety features too. Fine for limited production, and easily stores away under a work table. But before I retired, I had the grooving work done in one of our big cabinet shops at work, then only had to shape the edges myself afterwards, plus sanding and finishing of course. I also have very specialized German moulding sanders with near total dust extraction.

No, I'm not rich, but did have an inside track which came with a lot of free machinery to both personally use and personally endorse. Same thing applied to Norm Abrams; but he misused a lot of things on his TV show, and never really did understand the importance of integral dust extraction in relation to how the tools themselves were engineered in the first place. So he wasn't welcome to do workshops at our own company; I did all those, along with manufacturer reps and my helpers. The skill level and sheer monetary success of some of the attendees was amazing.

One of the coolest tools I've ever seen was the Makita groover, a handheld worm-gear device from back when they only made true industrial equipment. Those were invented to speed up nailless joinery work characteristic of Japanese temples. UL wouldn't allow the machines themselves to be shipped into the US due to the lack of a retractable guard; but my customers would buy them in person in Japan while apprenticing with temple builders; and I was allowed to at least sell them replacement blades and repair parts here. There was high demand for that kind of architectural look in this area by those who could afford it. Only a few of those guys are still alive; but their stunning projects remain.
 
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MTGseattle

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We need to get a Kodak or Ilford film person in here. "rebate" for these purposes merely refers to part of the film that we typically "hide" with our negative carriers. To accomplish this, we are not milling rabbets into our negative carriers (now I'm forgetting if rabbet and dado are interchangeable)? To me, "margins" are what a typesetter deals with, and borders equate to photographic prints. The little bit of black around your image can help anchor things as mentioned above and it is a pretty strong assertion that one's framing of the scene was/is as good as it could be. It lays to rest any doubt as to cropping in the darkroom.
 

DREW WILEY

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It all goes back before George Eastman ever took a single picture, or the name Kodak ever existed. Using the simple term "border" is perfectly sufficient. But the moment you introduce the term "rebate", you automatically have the term "rabbet" too, because they're synonymous. The authority of some Kodak spokesman doesn't go back that far. It's called etymology. I'm not the only person who instantly recognizes how the dots connect; and I've known it myself for decades. Some forum discussion is fine and fun, but won't change the underlying facts. But no big deal either way. Call it anything you want, as long as it works for you.

But don't go into a US cabinet shop and describe how you want a special contact printing frame made mentioning the term rebate, when you haven't given them any money yet to begin with! They'll think either a nutcase or haggler is speaking to them. Conversely, don't go into a shop in the UK and ask for rabbet work to be done, or they'll direct you down the street to a poultry shop where cooking hares are also sold.
 

MTGseattle

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Drew, I will happily defer to your knowledge of woodworking and cabinetmaking terminology. I was simply wondering if there is some other "proper" term for the parts of the film that do not contain the image. The sprocket holes and the various makers marks.
I googled that Makita groover you mentioned above. Holy cow! I also had the supreme enjoyment of using a shoddy router table sans dust collection the other day. life is good.
 

DREW WILEY

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I really don't care what people call it. This is just a fun thread for me. But film or paper "border" or "margin" is the least confusing. I've also heard it termed the "reveal", which must refer to some kind of arcane terminology I don't know the roots of.
 

Sirius Glass

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I want my money back from my film rebates.
 

MattKing

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I wonder what Bob Shanebrook ( @laser ) would have to say about how people in manufacturing at Eastman Kodak referred to the edge of the film, where the letters, numbers, arrows and sprocket holes are located?
 

snusmumriken

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In carpentry, boat-building and probably other fields, a 'rabbet' is a groove or ledge cut away to receive some other item. 'Rebate' is an alternative spelling of the same thing. I imagine all the other meanings of 'rebate' are developments or mis-uses of the same idea.
 

DREW WILEY

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Yes, Don, I'm aware that "reveal" was once related to achitectural mouldings itself, but that expression seemingly never caught on here on the West Coast. Many of the historical restorations I personally worked on actually involved what was originally Old World craftsmen, woodworkers and plasterers of the highest order, brought over by Julia Morgan; some were British, but many were Italian and no doubt had their own special terminology. In any kind of repair or window replacement, or inset moulding work, the term "rabbet" had become at least a generation before me. My more permanent job, a few year later until my retirement, was working for one of the biggest window distributors in the country, which was also a significant local moulding supplier (it was spelled both ways, molding or more often the spiffier moulding). Top-end quality products, 98% pro clientele. My end of it was mainly machinery, coatings, builders hardware, restoration consultation, and if requested, architectural photography. The owner actively encouraged moonlight income, even in an overlapping manner, because it brought in a lot of extra quality business. But I'm quite aware how terminology often differs coast to coast.

We also shipped trans-Pacific, as well as imported across the water. I set up the first Makita store display in the US; but we also offered a huge selection of Japanese hand tools - more of the carpentry variety. The man who had the connections had his own specialty store a mile away if you wanted something like a $400 chisel made by a famous Japanese sword-maker, of a personally signed plane by someone highly recognized over there. I have no idea what their term for rabbet is; all the boxes and packaging were printed in Japanese. He's retired; but the specialty shop is still there, with a wonderful selection if you can afford it. I was cussing at my thirty buck pole saw the other day, pruning limbs. The upscale landscapers go into that Japanese tool shop and spend $360 on one.
 
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NB23

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BTW, the lens is Nikonos 35mm lens. Yes, underwater camera. A fantastically sharp lens used out-of-water.

That’s in fact the Nikkor-S 3.5cm f2.5. Indeed, great lens.
 

faberryman

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I have a $2.00 screwdriver from Home Depot. It seems to strip the screw heads pretty well. Actually, I think the focus should be on the screws. If you buy good screws, they don't strip, and then you don't have to buy those expensive non-stripping screwdrivers.
 
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I think Drew is jumping the gun on April Fools Day.

I've been shooting film for over fifty years. Until this thread, I had never ever heard of a film rebate being called a "rabbet." Don't believe me? Ask Google: Try to find any common usage of "rabbet" as a term referring to the margin of a film strip. I just looked -- the search redirected me to film rebates. (And, more frequently, to movies about rabbits.)

It's a rebate. Rebate and rabbet might share common roots but they are used to mean different things. Prove me wrong: Cite to authorities that support the proposition that a film strip edge is properly called a rabbet.
 

MattKing

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It wouldn't surprise me to learn that film people in the UK use a different term than film people in North America.
But I would be amazing if any film people used rabbet.
 

Don_ih

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Well, Drew brought up something interesting by talking about rabbet - which is synonymous with rebate. The use of the word "rebate" to describe a part of a film strip -- it'd probably be difficult to find out who or why someone first used that word.

Etymologically:

rebate (v.)late 14c., rebaten, "to reduce, diminish;" early 15c., "to deduct, subtract," from Old French rebatre, rabatre, rabattre "beat down, drive back," also "deduct," from re-, "back," or perhaps "repeatedly" (see re-) + abattre "beat down"


One of the old French words, rabattre, is clearly the root of "rabbet".

And the photographic use of "rebate" more closely aligns with the use of the word "rabbet" than any of the archaic uses of "rebate".
 

Vaughn

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So, to create a rabbet, rebate or whatever around the image area on the film, do I use a plane, table saw, or what other carpentry tool?

All pretty fun stuff. Glad nothing important has to be decided here!
 

faberryman

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So, to create a rabbet, rebate or whatever around the image area on the film, do I use a plane, table saw, or what other carpentry tool?

I abandoned woodworking. Too many technical terms. Besides, I couldn't fit all of the tools in my garage.
 
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