Glossary
Wood Patternmaker Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential wood patternmaker terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key wood patternmaker vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in wood patternmaker training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Board foot
- Lumber volume unit.
- Core box
- Mold for cores.
- Draft
- Taper for removal.
- Fillet
- Rounded corner.
- Glue-up
- Laminated wood block.
- Grain
- Wood fiber direction.
- Kerf
- Width of a saw cut.
- Kickback
- Wood thrown back by a saw.
- Loose piece
- Removable part.
- Mahogany
- Common pattern wood.
- Moisture content
- Water in wood.
- Parting line
- Mold split line.
- Pattern
- Shape used to make molds.
- Sealer
- Protective coating.
- Shrink rule
- Ruler with shrinkage.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Wood Patternmaker practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Wood Patternmaker training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.