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A Square Deal (4)
This is a series of posts describing the design and build of a coffee table and possibly more. Click here for Post 1, with subsequent posts links to be found at the bottom of each entry.In the previous...
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A Square Deal (5)
This is the fifth post in a series describing the design and build of a coffee table and a side table. Post 1 in this series can be found here, with subsequent posts linked at the bottom of each...
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Riddle of the Shinx
One piece of equipment I have been lusting after for some time now is a chō-shi-a-ge-kanna-ban, a term which translates to 'super finishing planer', or, among those familiar with the machines, 'super...
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A Roundtable Discussion
A little video to start off - really quite a boring one, but it does bring me around to the topic at hand, in a roundabout sorta way:The above machine is a sort of relative of the super surfacer...
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Gateway (IV)
The Port Orford Cedar for the Museum of Fine Art (Boston) Japanese gate project arrived at long last this morning. I had the wood shipped directly to the drying facility, where it will sit in...
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Just Like an Erector Set
Erector set, for those unfamiliar with the reference - a building toy similar to the English Meccano, sold in the US. It's not Lego:While both Meccano and Erector Set (I had various sets and parts from...
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A Square Deal (6)
Sixth post in a series describing the design and build of a couple of tables, and maybe more. If you're a first time visitor, post 1 in this thread can be found here.After a few days of delays in...
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Gateway (V)
Post 5 in a series describing the design and construction of a Japanese garden entry gate for the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. Post 1 can be found here, with subsequent posts linked at the bottom of...
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I came across a series of intriguing short silent films showing the Packard Motor Car Company logging timber (film 1), milling wood (film 2), and crafting car bodies (film 3). Yes, they used to make...
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A New Light in Japanese Carpentry
Regular readers have likely noticed the drawing to the top right corner of this page, indicating the current study group project, a Japanese andon. Andon (行灯) are a type of portable floor lantern once...
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Riddle of the Shinx (II)
Well, I pulled the trigger and have purchased a used Shinx 3XV-360 Super Surfacer in Japan. Here are some pictures of the exact machine I bought:The machine comes with the factory side tables and tool...
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Kanna help you, perhaps?
Here in Massachusetts, the seasonal swing in relative humidity is fairly extreme, typically ranging from 34% (comfortable) to 98% (very humid) over the course of the year, rarely dropping below 16%...
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Kanna help you, perhaps? (II)
鉋Kanna: n. A Japanese hand plane - the greatest tool ever invented for slicing wood to the finest imaginable levels, capable producing glassy polished surfaces with nary a tool mark. Many nuances is...
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Kanna help you, perhaps? (III)
鉋 kanna. n.: a simple carpenter's tool consisting of a wooden block, a metal pin, a main blade and, usually, a sub-blade or chipbreaker. A kit of parts which can be set up to take extraordinarily fine...
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Kanna help you, perhaps? (IV)
鉋: Kanna. n.: A vehicle for learning about wood. A means of learning patience.Step 6: Osae, can you see?With work on the main blade, kannami, out of the way for the most part, we next turn our...
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Gateway (VI)
Yesterday was the day for the removal of the old kabukimon at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. This is post six in an ongoing thread concerning the design, construction and installation of a gate to...
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A Square Deal (7)
We return now to the furniture projects I'm doing for a client out in California. The first two pieces are a coffee table and side table, and I'm making them from a rare and costly slab of bubinga that...
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Gateway (VII)
I've been spending most of the past week slicing and dicing up the remains of the old gate to see what I could reclaim of the hinoki. It's not much. There is one longish 4"x6" timber, but it has bolt...
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Kanna help you, perhaps? (V)
So far in this series we have covered the processes of assessing the condition of the main blade, dealing with twist and cup through the techniques of ura-age and ura-dashi. We then repeated the...
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A Square Deal (8)
If you are new to this blog and/or post series, you may wish to start at the beginning of this thread:A Square Deal ------For the past few weeks I've been doing nothing on this project other than...
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