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From: sasaki@harvard.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.rec.wood
Subject: Japanese tools
Message-ID: <190@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 00:55:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.190
Posted: Sat Jun 15 00:55:06 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 07:04:47 EDT
References: <910@mhuxt.UUCP> <181@harvard.ARPA> <2033@iddic.UUCP>
Reply-To: sasaki@harvard.UUCP (Marty sasaki)
Organization: Harvard Science Center
Lines: 29
Summary: 

The reference to Japanese tool makers being decendants of sword makers
is not entirely true. It might be that blacksmiths who once made swords
changed to making tools when swordplay was on the down swing, but tool
makers were revered in Japan as much as sword makers were.

Just as sword makers would pass on the techniques and tradition from
generation to generation, so too would tool makers pass on their lore.
Wood workers and carpenters would (and still do) pass tools on to their
sons (alas, almost all wood workers in Japan are male).

Mahogany Masterpieces sells plane blades and chisels made like Japanese
swords (many hammered laminations). They cost a fortune and are probably
no better at cutting than a regular Japanese tool blade, but they are
beautiful, almost too beautiful to be used.

My great uncle would tell stories about some of his tools (alas he sold
them when he left Japan for Hawaii). Planing is often done on a planing
board that has one long board (where the work is placed for planing) and
two legs attached to the long board, a lop-sided tripod. My great uncle
boasted of a blade so sharp and a plane body so well tuned, that all he
needed to do was place the plane on the piece of wood to plane (this
being attached to a planing board) and let the plane go; gravity would
pull the plane down and a perfect shaving would be cut.
-- 
----------------
  Marty Sasaki				net:   sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
  Havard University Science Center	phone: 617-495-1270
  One Oxford Street
  Cambridge, MA 02138