'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [4])

But even running it without a blade produced the same noise, so there was nothing for it but to remove the top and have a look at the guts. It's a pretty simple construction, nothing much to go wrong. The wooden bar running from the motor to the front panel is the clutch - pushing that down lifts the handle on the motor, engaging the drive pulley.

The power is transferred to the main arbor by this v-belt ...

And there's the source of the trouble - the pulley on the arbor is not steel, but wood. I guess when I built this saw around 25 years ago, I couldn't find a pulley of the size I wanted, so made one myself. And it has finally decided to develop a 'Shake, Rattle 'n Roll' ...

I got online to try and find a replacement, but couldn't turn anything up, and it looks like I might have to make another one ...

But although I couldn't continue with work on the cases yesterday, I certainly didn't waste my time. Look back up at the first photo again ... what do you see sitting on the table?

Here's a proper shot ...

You know what these are, don't you!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [4]

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [2])

Here's a zoom-up on a couple of them:

But as you can see, although the lettering is clear, the wood is quite heavily burned and scarred. (What do you expect after firing a laser at it!). I wasn't initially worried about this, because my plan was to take the engraved handles and fill the lasered area with some material that would contrast with the colour of the handle itself, perhaps darker, perhaps lighter.

Here's the result of the first such test, made on one of his samples:

Boring. You can't even tell that anything was engraved, and it just looks like (slightly pixellated) printing. It won't rub off, that's for sure, but it's just not interesting or attractive enough.

So for a next test, I'm going to consider leaving the lettering in the un-filled state. But to do that, I'd like it to be lasered somewhat more cleanly than the original samples. Perhaps this could be done with a lower power, or perhaps by lasering not so deeply. I'll have to see what he suggests ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [2]

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [9])

In any case, as I said, after much back and forthing, they have now produced a set of blades that match our requirements. I received the first shipment a few days ago, and took some time the other day to fit one set to some of the sample handles (and the most recent prototype case).

We still have quite some ways to go before we get this all figured out - the box is certainly not ready yet - but this is pretty much what the tools themselves will look like (these are not yet tied, of course; you'll have to imagine them with a yellow shamisen cord wrapped in that slot).

 

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [9]

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [1])

We then sat down in the office to talk turkey. I was mostly concerned about the provenance of the stuff - locally grown, or imported from you-know-where, and it seems to be local. He wasn't actually sure how best to answer me at first, because it seems that he has had inquiries from people who are trying to avoid Japanese woods these days, for reasons you can probably guess ...

I'm not really concerned about that at this stage. Spinach from one kilometre north of the Fukushima reactors I wouldn't want to eat, but - of course - such things are not on the market. Well-aged wood from the Aizu-Wakamatsu area, well inland from the problem zone? I have no trouble with that ...

Over the past few weeks, Sato-san and I have learned a lot about paulownia wood, and about how it has to be treated differently from other woods during the drying/curing process. Most woods are typically resawn from the log, and then stacked (with air spaces) until they are dried. Kiln drying is of course common as well, but in both cases the main idea is to get the natural moisture out of the cells, and get the wood into a stable condition.

Kiri (paulownia) is different. After resawing, it is arranged vertically in individual planks ... outdoors. In the rain. This is because the wood can't be used until the 'aku' - a kind of black substance inside the cells - has been allowed to work its way out. If the wood is simply dried in the normal fashion and then used, these black marks will become visible as time goes by, spoiling the finished product.

This is not a theoretical concern for me - a number of the cases I had made for my Mystique series have become discoloured in this fashion, and it seems that some lower-grade timber made its way into the batch that was used. Luckily, it seems to have been a fairly small amount, and only some of the cases were affected.

Paulownia imported from China is very white in tone, and has been treated/bleached with chemicals. I have no idea whether or not this is effective in eliminating the problem, but I do not intend to make the experiment. We're going to go with the local stuff, aged out in the rain in the traditional manner.

It is - what did you expect? - more than double the price of the imported wood. And worse, rather than being in easy-to-use laid-up smooth sheets like the imported stuff:

... it looks like this:

It's in the same condition as it came from the band saws, and of course needs to be planed and dressed before then being ripped to width etc. I brought home a few sample pieces of various thicknesses, to inspect before making my purchase decision:

How much time are we going to have to spend on this stuff before we can get it ready to work? And it's more than double the price? (Did I already mention that ... :-(

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [1]

Working out the layout for the inner booklet and label ...

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [3])

While having lunch today after a morning of tracing work on my upcoming print, I snuck some 'Mokuhankan time', and made some samples of the little booklet of maintenance information, as well as the label for inside of the box.

They would appear like this:

If you click for the enlargement of this one, you can see the rough finishing work on my prototype box - you can bet that our finished ones won't have that kind of messy finish!

The booklet is a 12-page affair (no 'design' yet; this is just for layout and planning):

Some of the information will repeat what will be on the website I guess, but it will be important to have it 'saved' as a permanent part of the set I think.

The inner 6 pages will be a detailed description of each tool type, along with specific sharpening information:

One other thing to mention ... I have begun work on the new tool section of the web site. No order form yet (!), but if you follow the 'Tools' link at the bottom of this page, you'll find the initial intro page there, as well as links to some of the background of this project ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]

Mark II of the storage boxes for the new tool set is ready for inspection ...

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [3])

After getting the tools 'improved' the other day, with the new feather boards, etc., I spent the day yesterday making another prototype for the box for the knife/chisel set. The first model, a few weeks ago, was kind of prosaic and nothing special, not to mention that the method of storing the booklet that I want to include was kind of clunky.

So - taking that initial box as a starting point - I built Mark II this time:

It uses the same wooden pin hinge system, but this time the hinge is brought forward partway along the top:

So when you open it up, the top rests against the support ...

... and stands at a convenient angle. (Tools inside are still a random selection of my own stuff ...)

The top is thinned down from the previous bulky model, and now has a more smoothly integrated slim-line pocket for the explanatory booklet:

Which slides in/out easily. No chance to lose it, really. (I've started to write the booklet contents; it will have an overview of the what/why/how of these tools, a more detailed description of each one, and of course information on how to care for the set, including specific sharpening instructions for each type.)

Here's the growing collection of samples. I made two of this model (not much extra work to make two rather than one ...) so that I could send one to Sato-san for inspection and comment. Next to that is the previous Mark I, now beginning to become a bit toned - this paulownia wood is very bare when freshly cut ...

Behind that is the sample box we picked up from the box making company in Asakusa the other day, on our way back into town from the visit to the lumber market. I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I visited them last month and asked them to run up a sample for us. It took suspiciously long - over three weeks. I say 'suspicious' because it makes me suspect that instead of making it in their own workshop they had it done by a partner company in China ...

It has a simple sliding top ...

They haven't been too careful with the design - the slots in the sides in which the top runs have been run straight out the back, and then plugged with a chip of wood. This is another tell-tale sign of Chinese work - sloppy design made up for by the extra application of (cheap) labour.

And if we needed it, here's the final proof of the provenance of this thing - look at the finger notch for opening it:

And this from a company that proudly proclaims on their storefront - "Making boxes for the people of Tokyo for more than a hundred years ..." etc. etc.

Anyway, we've already pretty much decided to make these ourselves, so none of that matters much ...

But now that I have this Mark II in my hands, I can see an obvious way that it can be greatly improved, with only minimal extra effort, and no extra materials cost. (Why is it so difficult to jump directly to the final design, no matter how carefully you think and plan?) But that will have to wait for a couple of days, because I'm going to sign off here on Mokuhankan Conversations for the weekend. If all goes well, we'll see a post over on the Woodblock RoundTable showing the start of work on the first print of the new 'Arts of Japan' series ...

(And speaking of the Arts series reminds me that I received a kind of disturbing email yesterday, from a Mystique series collector who was trying to sign up for the new set, but who couldn't, because her browser wouldn't display the new website properly. After we investigated a bit, it turned out that she was running a pretty old system, and my 'latest technology' HTML coding wasn't working for her. So I added another set of visible links to the front page, she was thus able to find the subscription page, and she's now a happy subscriber. But I wonder how many other people ran into a similar problem, but just shrugged and wandered off, instead of writing to me ...?!)

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]

Work on the paulownia boxes for the knife set gets under way ...

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [4])

Time to get moving on the design/production of the paulownia boxes. I am very quickly running out of time for this, as I have to get started on my real work, getting some prints made!

Sato-san and I have been talking to different suppliers of paulownia wood, trying to find a good source, and the first couple of sample pieces arrived the other day.

They don't look good actually. One of them is white and clean, but has clearly been bleached (or some such treatment), and has a terrible texture and feel. The other one has been poorly jointed and would make very unattractive cases. So scratching this supplier off the list was an easy decision, but anyway, this wood will serve another purpose, for helping me get the tooling and jigs ready for the project.

And that means wrestling with these junk tools ... They are worse than I expected - far worse.

The sander is already broken; I was using it (properly) when a piece of the plastic housing came a bit loose. I shrugged and ignored it for the moment, and that was a mistake because a minute later the vibration shook it free, and it dropped down onto the belt and exploded in a shower of plastic fragments. Looking on the bright side, I can now clearly see the pulley and drive belt, so will have advance warning when that starts to fail ...

The band saw turned out to have an off-center guide wheel (which is of course non-adjustable), so the blade wavers from side to side each time that wheel makes a revolution. I have brought the blade guides in as close as possible, but the blade then rubs alternately against them, left right left right ...

The table saw has a couple of major problems. First is that the motor is mounted in a permanent and non-adjustable way under the table, but is not 'quite' aligned with the table - it's at a slight angle to the guide slots. And the error is the 'wrong' way - wood coming out the back of the cut is pinched between the blade and the fence, resulting in burn marks on all the finished pieces.

Second is that when I removed the blade, measured it for dimensions, and then went to the hardware store for some more (of a different type) I learned that the 15.9 mm arbor (this is supposed to be 5/8" I guess) is unknown in Japan, and there are no blades available here, period. Japanese saws are all on a 20mm arbor. The guy in the hardware store obviously knew where I had purchased the saw (it seems he gets this all the time), and just shrugged. Thanks for the 'heads up' on this before I purchased, Amazon!

The drill press is fine. I mean, what can you do to screw up a drill press?

So I really am not sure how to take it from here. To get pro tools - even used ones - is simply not possible right now. All I can do is struggle with these to get my projects moving, and then try and replace them one by one with better ones. We'll keep a look-out on the auctions, and at some point, we should find what we need ...

In the meantime, let's press on and see if we can actually make any of this work ...

I'm going to need some fairly small parts, and this table saw has a huge space on either side of the blade.

There is obviously no way that I can buy a different throat plate for this saw. I'm going to have to make one myself ...

And a few 'wasted' hours later, we now have a zero clearance (almost) plate, and a table on which we can cut small parts:

Next up is a method for ripping the paulownia planks into the correct dimension, and then for rabbeting them to fit together. The built-in fence is useless, because of the mis-aligned motor, so I've built my own:

 

The riser section has a couple of nuts embedded, and on this I have mounted a nice fat feather board made from 1" ply (don't complain about the 'wavery' slots, cut quickly on the band saw ...)

It has a horizontal mate that clamps down on the table.

With these in place, we should be able to rip stock accurately, and cut even the smallest rabbets. I of course tested it out right away on a piece of the bleached paulownia. For ripping wider pieces, the featherboard can't push against the saw directly, as the wood would be squeezed there after the cut is 'released'.

The feathers work best for 'internal' cuts on the wood - making the rabbet. She goes in easily:

... passes through smoothly:

... and I can either push it through with a stick, or draw it out carefully from the back end.

Rabbets! Rabbets! Year of the rabbet!

I have of course heard about feather boards before, but never actually got around to making any until now. But now that I have felt the way that this wood slides so smoothly and accurately through this saw, I'm never going back to working without them! Sometimes we get 'so smart so late' ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [4]

The first 'plump' prototype of the hangi-toh handle.

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [4])

Now that the process for manufacturing the chisel handles is (basically) organized, it's time to figure out how to make the round handles for the hangi-toh, the main carving knife.

There really isn't a whole lot of mystery about how these are going to be made. I need a lathe.

Sato-san and I have been watching the auctions, and he called on Wednesday with the news that he had found one on Yahoo Auctions, but that I should check on it quickly, because it was finishing very shortly. I checked the page, and it looked like just what we needed - a small desktop lathe, apparently in good condition, and reasonably priced.

Looking up the model online, I found that it had good specs ... plenty of torque at low revs, which I think (I have no lathe experience myself) is what we need for small-scale woodworking on hard woods. It didn't come with any attachments, but it was cheap - 10,000 yen - so I put in a bid. Nobody else was interested, a few minutes later it was 'mine', and it arrived early this afternoon:

'Mide in Taiwan' indeed ... a Cockney lathe!

There is just a raw spindle, as it came without even a simple spur center. I'll head over to the hardware store on my bike tomorrow to pick one up, along with some basic turning tools, but for tonight, there must be a way to get this thing working ...

Here's a piece of recycled crib (see yesterday's post!) after a few seconds on the belt sander:

... and then a few passes with a hand plane; this should set us up I think.

Yes, indeed! Whee!

I don't have any proper lathe tools, so used a (very) old, retired chisel. It seemed to work well ... and no more than a few minutes later, we have our first miniature Louisville Slugger!

This one is actually a bit too 'plump'. I was just trying to eyeball the thickness, and erred a bit on the fat side. I'll look for some calipers at the hardware shop tomorrow ...

So the basic cutting of the knife handles seems not to be a problem. With a spur center on the lathe, some proper cutting tools, a pile of 'blanks' prepared, and some kind of template to refer to as I work, I think these won't take more than a few minutes each.

But this is the easy part. Making the brass sleeves is going to be a bit more complicated, as will be cutting the long groove down the body of each handle. Cross those bridges when we get to them!

[Update: later in the day] I had another go at this, using a piece sliced from the same cherry block I used for the other handles yesterday. I also tried fitting a small brass ferrule - one that I found in the back of the tool drawer ... no idea where it came from.

This particular ferrule doesn't have a smooth taper, but has a bump part way along where the metal has been stretched (this is presumably why it was tossed aside long ago). But it'll do for this test. I turned the handle to a close approximation of the size, then removed it from the lathe, slipped the ferrule over the end (testing the fit a number of times), and then put the whole thing back into the lathe and finished up with the ferrule in place, shaving the wood down to the same dimension. I want to get that joint between the brass and the wood as seamless as possible!

We can see in that closeup that the finishing certainly leaves something to be desired, but we're getting closer!

After I finished making that sample, I sent off an email to Sato-san letting him know about it, and he wrote back, "I can't wait to see it up close!"

Well, OK ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [4]

The final segment of the photo set showing the handles being made ...

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [14])

Still working through the first sample run of handles ... It's going so slowly because I'm still building some of these jigs as I go along. It will be very interesting to run a test batch once I'm done, and see just how long it takes to make these things. And indeed, I'll have to get that information before I'll be able to set the final prices ...

Anyway, at the point we left off yesterday, the handles had been resawn and the parts needed to be sanded. Here's the setup (coffee cup optional ...):

I'll do the thicker of the two pieces flat on a sanding stick. No way will this go on the belt sander, as that would rip off way too much wood, and it would be very difficult to control for flatness. (Tape is for protection ...)

But I can't do the thin strip this way; it is too difficult to hold, and it would be very easy to lose the flatness - getting it 'dipped' at one corner, etc.

So it goes into this jig.

The base is nothing but a flat piece of wood with a strip of sandpaper glued on. The stock goes on top of the sandpaper. The other piece is a cover, to do the rubbing, which has a recess in the wood with a strip of sticky rubber glued into the bottom of it. The dimensions are arranged so that the wood to be sanded fits into that recess and is held in place by the rubber during the sanding motion ...

Flatness is guaranteed, as the two pieces of the jig mate perfectly, and slide back and forth with no wobbling or dipping. The little piece comes out perfectly flat, and presto - we have our two-part handles!

Now we get to a tough one ... cutting the grooves for the blades. I can't actually go through with that today, because (as I mentioned earlier) I don't have any of the 'hardware' here at present. But I can get the basic jigs ready, and them adjust them once I can measure the blades.

Here's what I plan to use - the same router jig we saw yesterday for cutting the string slots. Before reading on, can you guess what the skateboard ramp is for?

Putting the main body of the jig in place should give a pretty big hint!

Here it is, ready to go, with one of the handles in place, with the 'belly' exposed to the point of the router.

As I push the jig forward, the slot for a blade (in this case, a 3mm wide flat chisel) is cut. Just as the router gets to the place where the back end of the blade will be, the handle hits the ramp, begins to slide upward, and moves out of the way of the router blade ...

... leaving us with a smooth finish to the end of the slot.

Given that I don't actually have any of the hardware on hand now, I'm not going to spend more time getting a full set of 'ramps' ready at this point. I have the router bits prepared for 3 and 6mm 'U' grooves, as well as a 60 degree V-bit for that shape of blade. Once I have the actual blades on hand, I'll finalize this part of the process.

So ... moving right along, let's get these two parts fixed together. We haven't had any success yet in locating good hardwood dowel for this step. We are also considering using bamboo, as that would be very long-wearing we think. But I need something right now, so let's take a peek down at the foundation of the building, next to the stairs heading down to the river. There is a pile of stuff left behind by the previous owner of this house ...

... among which is the remains of a long-ago bashed-up baby crib. A mahogany baby crib.

This will do just fine. I grabbed a piece of it, and back up in the workshop ripped it to thin strips on the table saw, then roughly planed off the corners. (Coffee optional.) And now it's time to meet an old friend ...

... my bench motor. This has been quietly sleeping in a box for quite a few years. I need to figure out how long ... and as near as I can tell, the last time I used this would have been in about 1975 (give or take a year or so). I was working on flute design, and although I never got as far as building one, I did make a number of rough mockups of design concepts. A bench motor like this is the most basic tool that a musical instrument builder (and jewelry maker) needs, and I bought a good one.

After more than 36 years, I was a little hesitant to power it up, but there was no concern. She runs beautifully.

Bracing against some wood on the bench, I used a file to do a quick wood-turning job.

The mahogany cuts very smoothly, and we're down to size in a matter of seconds.

I don't want to jam a slightly oversize peg into the chisel handle, to avoid splitting it, so I polished the dowel with a block of cherry with the same size hole drilled in it, then cut it off and put the handle together.

I forgot to take a snapshot of sanding the dowel ends, but you can figure that one out, I'm sure.

Then, the bench motor comes into play again with a felt pad for buffing.

I don't have any polishing compound on the buff. I have no experience with polishing bare wood, and Sato-san and I have yet to decide how to finish these. We don't really want to varnish them, but are not sure which way to proceed: nothing, wax, oil, ?, ... Cherry will darken naturally, and actually it starts to do so within a few hours of a new surface being exposed; the samples I made last week are already deepening quite nicely. 'Doing nothing' is actually an option here ...

If you have any experience with this sort of wood finishing, and have ideas to share, please do so in the comments below.

So here we are. It's actually not finished, but that's as far as I can get it at present.

I still need to build a jig for tying the shamisen cord accurately and neatly, and there will be one other step inserted into this sequence at some point, and that will be a very important one ...

... I have to come up with an unobtrusive way to put our name on these. Many tools of this type have the brand 'burned' on, but at the small scale that the characters for 木版館 will appear, that would just be a brown mess, so that is off the table.

We actually have a solution worked out, but the outside workshop that we contacted for the job wants 140 yen each to do it, and we can't possibly justify that much, so we're still casting around ...

And now, in an extraordinary example of the famous Japanese 'Just In Time' production systems, a package was delivered to my front door this morning. A very heavy package. I have to get started on the production of the 'other' tool in this set of six - the one that will not use a rectangular handle, but a round one ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [14]

Continuing the production run from yesterday's post ...

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [3])

Picking up where we left off yesterday ...

Here's the batch - still in pairs - with their holes drilled, and the backs properly rounded:

The next jig (plenty more to come!) is for cutting them to length. Because of the way that we offset them - to be able to get two 'stacked up' - we have a bit of extra length to play with at this point. Most such tools on the market these days are 10.5 cm long. Ours will be a tad longer than this at 11.0 cm, but we will be able to stretch this a bit on request. (Although not for all types of chisel: those that require more depth - deep V cutters, etc. - wouldn't fit the longer length ...)

Each one is wedged in place, and then clamped from above to stop it lifting up when the saw hits.

And our set again ... moving along!

For the next step - cutting the grooves where the tying thread will live - I screwed a plastic router base to a piece of plywood.

A small 'handy' router goes in:

... and the board gets flipped over and placed where the router can hang down beneath.

On top goes a sliding carrier that will guide the handles over the protruding cutter.

The carrier has openings cut at the correct angles to account for different shape of the four 'sides' of each tool:

Another angle ...

After the grooves are cut, the handles need a quick touch-up on sandpaper to remove the burr.

And our set ...

I'm still not quite sure which way to go on the 'shape' sanding (removing arrises, etc.). That could be done at this point I think, but it might also be best to wait until the handles have been split in two (because the pin will need strong sanding too ...)

For this run, I think I'll do it at this stage; I can always switch the order around next time ...

There is no simple way to jig this up, and as a result, this sanding stage is probably going to be one of the most expensive (in time) parts of the manufacturing process. And because it's freehand, it's very easy to spoil things at this stage. There is no better way to spoil the appearance of a nice piece of woodwork than with careless sanding. I don't mean by leaving scratches, etc., I mean by spoiling the character of the edges and outlines by rounding them too much. I myself am making these test pieces, but once we get going for real, this will be done by somebody else, and it's going to be difficult to get them to understand what I want at this stage, and then to ensure that it gets done that way on all the pieces ...

It's a bit difficult to see in the photo, but the sandpaper is glued into a rounded groove in the wood, one that matches the shape of our handles...

So there's the 'shape' sanding done ... Still quite a long way to go ...

Time to cut it apart! This is a job for the bandsaw; if I used the table saw, we would lose way too much thickness to the cut. I bought the finest blade I could find for the bandsaw, hoping both to minimize wood loss, and to get as clean as possible a surface, to minimize sanding.

First step is to prepare a fence:

Against that, I will place this little jig. I want the wood to go through the blade in as straight a path as possible, so I built this little 'splitter' unit. The piece of metal sticking up will be positioned directly behind the blade, and should serve to keep everything held against the fence and lined up properly.

Here's how it all comes together - ready for the cut:

And done ...

They come out very straight, although not as smooth as I would like. There is a fair amount of offset on the sawblade teeth, and these will definitely need sanding.

Here's our batch ... I should mention that from here on to the end of this photo set, I'll be working on just the smaller handle of each pair. I had to send the blades back to Sato-san yesterday, so that he could get them over to the craftsman to sort out the sharpening issues, and without having them here for reference, I can't cut these larger handles (for fitting the blades).

I mentioned that these would need sanding, and if I put one up to the light, you can see why ...

But that'll have to wait until tomorrow!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]

The first production run of tool handles ...

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [2])

Early this afternoon I 'finished up' the set of jigs for making the chisel handles, so this evening I thought it would be a good idea to test everything out. Let's have a photo set (it might be long!) showing the process from raw wood to finished handle:

I'm going to use one of the cherry pieces I picked up at Shin-Kiba the other day; this one has too many defects to be suitable for a block for a print, but it's going to enjoy a hopefully very long life in smaller pieces.

We start by slicing it into sections of 130 cm length. This needs no special jig, just a setting of the table saw fence.

And here we see the base unit that will carry most of the jigs for shaping the handles. It looks like it has been shot at, but the metal parts are nuts inset into the wood; those are where the jigs will be attached.

Looking at the back side we can see where it rides (very snugly) on two inverted 'T' rails in the table saw slots:

Here's the first of the attachments. This is a combination 'holddown' and a stopper to set the width of the pieces to be cut:

It works in combination with this piece. I want the wood lifted up off the base of the main jig, so that the cut piece can fall away freely:

Different tool sets will need different thicknesses of wood, and that will be controlled by the shim you see inserted between the wood and the jig. This is removed after the two hold-downs are closed, leaving room for the cut piece to fall away from the saw.

Here's the result a few minutes later - all nicely sliced to size. Ten pieces from each 'row', and three rows from the original block, means that we should be able to get 60 tool handles from that piece.

The next jig is a simple one, to allow the pieces to be dressed to the same height, in case the original plank was not perfectly flat (as indeed, this plank was not):

The next one is also simple - putting a bevel on each end of each piece (the wood is flipped end for end for the second cut). The jig is adjustable for slightly different angles, as needed for different tools:

And here are the results so far:

The next jig is one of the more complicated ones. It has its own base plate ...

... on which this jig rides:

The combination of the two allows complete setting of the angle of cut and a right-left adjustment to control the 'balance' between the two pieces that will be formed:

These pairs will travel together through the rest of the process - making a pair of handles: for a 3mm chisel and a slightly wider 6mm one. Each pair of chisels in the final set will have been sliced side by side from the original plank of wood ...

The same jig is now reset - different angle and depth - and used to form the sides of each chisel handle:

Giving us this interesting batch of shapes ...

The next step is easy, but needs to be done carefully, not to splinter the edges of the holes:

This jig was fun to make. It's for putting the rounded shape to the back end of each handle. The jig rides on a horizontal rail in the sander plate:

Each drilled piece drops onto the post, which is formed slightly smaller than the permanent wooden pin which will eventually form the 'hinge' of the two parts of the handle.

The sanding is easy, and the side-to-side movement of the jig means that the sandpaper doesn't wear out in one spot ...

The piece comes out perfectly formed ...

And that's all I have time for this evening ... we'll pick it up tomorrow in Part 2!

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Solving our wood supply issues for the next hundred years!

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It's been five days or so since I posted about the carving tool project, and we've got a lot done in that time. Some of the progress has been smooth, and some has been less so.

We received the first samples of actual blades around a week ago. They are good, but they are 'not ready for prime time'. We have no problems with the steel - they seem to take an edge very well, and we'll give them a good workout over the next little while. It's the sharpening that is not acceptable. They - of course - know how to sharpen their own blades, but what they don't understand well is the requirements of a wood-block cutter. The shape and bevel they have put on these tools is what one might expect in a tool to be used by a carpenter. The bull-nose aisuki chisels need to have the corners knocked off, and a gentle curve shaped on the front edge, but these are perfectly square. Those sharp corners would cause havoc on one of my blocks ...

We had half expected this, and rather than try to explain in words how we want them shaped, we will simply put these on our stones, form them to our requirements, and send them back as models.

In the meantime, I have spent the past few days building jigs for making the handles. Rather than show photos of the chaos in the first basement at this stage, I'll wait until I get the group of jigs finished, and will then shoot a 'step by step' series of photos showing the process from raw plank to finished handle.

And speaking of raw wood! Let's have a few snapshots from a trip I made with Sato-san this afternoon to the massive lumber distribution market at Shin-Kiba. You've all heard of the Tsukiji Fish Market - the place where vast amounts of seafood products are traded early every morning. Well, there is a similar market zone for lumber. It used to be in the Kiba district of Tokyo, an area criss-crossed by small canals (used to transport the logs, of course), but was moved out to an area reclaimed from Tokyo Bay some 50 or so years ago. It's gigantic; it would take all day just to walk around it. Sato-san and I rode his motor-bike around, trying to hunt down the 'best' place for a permanent supply of wood for our tool handles.

It took us a while, following a 'chain' of introductions and recommendations, but just before noon we pulled up in front of this place:

Looks good! And when we saw these planks sitting outside, we got our hopes up even higher:

And then when we got inside, talked to the young man running the place, and had a look around, it was pretty clear that we had found it. This is all cherry! The Mother Lode!

When the next earthquake comes to Tokyo, you'll probably feel it no matter where on the planet you are, because when this pile goes over ....

The young boy - who is part of the family who has been running this place since the year dot - was very friendly, and very willing to cooperate with our requirements, small as they may be. We got some quotes on wood for our handles, and for now, I brought back a few sample slabs that I will use for making more test handles.

And we had a real bonus. There was an elderly gentleman sweeping up at one side of the room, and Sato-san had the thought that this might be 'grandad'. He was right. He is no longer active in the business, but when we did some name-dropping - mentioning the late Shimano-san, the block planer from whom I received all the wood for my ten-year poets' series - he knew exactly who I was talking about. He should remember, because this is the place where all that wood came from!

Once we are ready to place our main order with these guys, Sato-san and I are going to make arrangements to come over here again, bringing a little tape recorder with us. There is a lot of history that needs to be captured here!

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