Planing weekend
Hmm, doesn’t sound exciting does it? But you’d be surprised if you came to this event. I must admit that in the beginning I didn’t know what to expect, and one I was there, I could clearly say that this has been probably the most culturally and historically (in a being in Japan sense) interesting thing I’ve done since I’ve been here in Japan. A competition between carpenters and woodworkers, to see how refined they are with their planes. The main competition is to see how thin and long of a wood shaving you could create. I can’t remember the exact length of the wood, but each wood shaving is on average over 1.5 meters, possibly even 2 meters. And the top level planners can get their wood shaving as thin as 4/1000mm. That’s frick’n thin. So thin that you can pretty much see through’em and the whole thing feels like silk. And if you pull it parallel to the grain, it’s still pretty tough.
It was pretty amazing to see the carpenters at work. I must admit that pretty much everybody was a bloke. There was a small American contingent of students from
making sure that the plane flat. Yup, you even shave the actual plane once in a while to keep it flat and smooth. The important piece is the blade. You can always make a new block.
Old method: Used after an adze for more details
Difference kind of woodshavings created by the spear plane. 槍鉋(yari-kanna)Making a flower out of the wood shavings
Using an adze to shape lumber
The blade is an important aspect of a carpenter
You can only shapen a blade up to how good your natural whetstone isMost planes are smal, but there are pretty funky big ones as well
I also had the opportunity to make my own traditional Japanese nail 和釘(wakugi)
Decorations created by an adze
Labels: Kezuro, Kezuro-kai, Kezurou, Kezurou-kai, Sanjo, 削ろう会
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