heel

In carpentry, the heel is the trailing edge of any angled cut made across the thickness of material, most commonly wood. When you cut a bevel or chamfer across a board, the heel is the sharp corner or edge formed at the back of that cut, opposite the toe. If you make a 45-degree cut across a board's thickness, the heel is the point or line where the cut intersects the rear surface.

The term matters because heel quality directly affects how joints fit. A dull or chipped heel will leave a gap in a miter joint or prevent a bevel-cut piece from seating flush. The heel is the last surface the saw or plane blade leaves, so it often bears the marks of a dull tool or poor technique. On a router-cut bevel, the heel may show tearout if the grain direction is wrong or the bit speed is too high.

Where the heel lives in your work

Heels appear most visibly in miter joints, where two pieces meet at an angle. Frame makers and trim carpenters watch the heel closely because even a 1mm gap at the heel will be visible on a picture frame or doorway. In dovetails, the heel is the short grain at the back of each tail or pin, the weakest part structurally. Hand plane users learn to read the heel: a fuzzy or ragged heel signals dull iron, while a glassy heel means the plane is sharp enough to cut end-grain cleanly.

The heel also appears in roof framing, where rafter cuts must nest tightly against the top plate. A framer will check that both the toe (front) and heel of a bird's mouth or plumb cut meet the bearing surfaces without gaps. Power tool operators need to understand heel burnishing, the slight melting or compression that occurs when a saw blade or router bit dulls and creates friction rather than a clean cut.

The word comes from its position at the trailing or rear end of a cut, like the heel of the foot. You will also hear carpenters refer to the heel when checking how square a cutting tool is, or when sharpening chisels and plane irons: the heel must be flat and true, or every angled cut will fail.