Articles

The planing competitions put on by Kezuroukai USA are about improving our skills as woodworkers. Competitors are not competing against each other, as much as they are competing against themselves. There are so many small factors that add up to getting a Kanna to perform at it’s best, and it takes dedication to master these skills. Having a way to gage your progress is very helpful. A thin shaving can tell you everything you need to know about the state of your tool. A blade that can cut a clean 10 micron shaving has no scratch in its edge deeper than 10 microns. Even the size of the throat opening and the flatness of the sole can all be judged in a shaving. Read More …

“NO SECRETS, just how much –pay attention…’’ Imai-san The challenge and hope of improvement comes with many tangents. Finding focus helps to establish approachable and appropriate practicality. Connecting the elementary dots of practice creates a working framework, a conceptual platform for performing tasks that lead to solutions-not absolute answers. Read More …

My short talk/demo about URA DASHI [at the Kezurou-kai USA 2017 event in October] was basically showing what was needed to be able to produce more ‘land’ at the front edge of the backside, ura, of plane blades and chisels. This process is not what ‘tapping out’ sounds like, maybe an incorrect translation. This is not done on western single steel blades, so maybe that’s where the confusion comes from. It is not possible to tap out the hollow grind on the ura side of the blade to establish more land near the cutting edge of the blade. This area is worn away by the repeated sharpening of the blade. Read More …

Mori-gii (old Mr. Mori) of Awaji. It was the early 1980’s when a children’s song called ‘A Blacksmith of the Village’, which begins with “Sound of pounding never stops and scattered sparks…”, disappeared gradually from the elementary school textbook. That’s because children can’t imagine the scene anymore. It has been more than 30 years since, so it can’t be helped now. Yet it is unfortunate that the knowledge and the technique were lost without passing them down to today. Read More …

When Makoto Imai came to the U.S.in the early 1970’s, he brought with him the extensive training he had received in Japan. When he arrived, he was part of a crew that was reconstructing a meditation hall in Northern California. He had started his carpentry training in the Gifu Prefecture/Takayama area as a high school student working on the early morning crew. After a few successful years, the moved down the river to Kyoto area where he completed training in the Ura Senke tea construction tradition. Read More …

Blacksmith(s) and Economy: There was a war over a half a century ago, and Japan lost a lot of time by ruining the modernization done after Meiji (Meiji era ended in June 1912). Everything from technologies to natural resources had been spent on the war. It is said that (during the war) there was a period of price control of nokogiri (saws) and nomi (chisels)- regardless of the quality. Any iron available was to be used to make weapons, so that couldn’t be helped at the time. Read More …

Life offers many paths of adventure. Some or most end up as entertaining distractions or worse. Others offer activities opening up new horizons and life-changing challenges – ways to working and experiencing deeper modes of learning- offering challenges that require clearing our awareness with fuller engagements of ones curiosity, with endless opportunities to develop the discipline needed to follow personal insights to their completion. Read More …

What is learned by observing craftsmen more skilled than yourself comes with certain surprises. First is how easy, comfortable and relaxed they seem to be while working. From personal experience of 40 years, this comfort and ease are hard fought challenges to be won. Learning to get out of your own way is not always easy or obvious. Figuring out the intricate steps of procedures and techniques are usually seen as “in the way of getting done” – sharpening a chisel/plane blade when way past due. Read More …

My grandparents’ farmhouse in Stockton had a dirt cellar. In it were many things: jars of pickles, crocks of dried fruit, paint cans – the usual stuff. But what drew me like a magnet was my grandfather’s tool chest. Because he was extremely protective of it and its contents, I learned from my older cousins that the chest was to be treated like a sacred object. I remember sneaking into the cellar to examine the mysterious artifacts in the chest. To my regret, the barriers of language and the generations kept me from learning more. I could only guess what they were and what could be done with them. Yet these were the tools that he packed across the Pacific Ocean to a strange land with the hope that with his hands and tools he could earn enough to live and to send home to his wife and family. Sixty years later grandpa’s tool chest lives with me. Read More …

Kimoriya The basis of the traditional Japanese life style is the desire to co-exist with nature. The workings of nature and of the human relationship with the forest-built house is older and closer due to the agricultural base of Japan. We are interested in the many kinds of trees which make up the traditional home and, as a carpenter, it is my mission to make the “future home of the tree” using the traditional construction methods by-hand with nomi and saw. Everyone knows that the traditional construction methods, combined with knowledge of the careful use of the forest resources, has influenced the way houses were designed and built. If there is support for the continued skills of carpentry and methods allowing direct communication with (woodcutter’s) aimed to foster the forest and create wooden homes, more and better homes will be designed as the result. Read More …