Gary’s Tool Cabinet

Figure 1: The Chest front view

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…

Lord Byron

Gary, a truly Beloved Customer, has produced a well-designed and beautifully-executed chest of drawers to be the base of a future larger tool cabinet. The joinery is amazing, and his solutions to the challenges tool cabinets and chests all face are excellent. He was kind enough to put together this guest post for the edification of our Gentle Readers. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

YMHOS

Introduction

I’ve been avidly following Stan’s series of posts about tool storage because I’m deep into making my own tool cabinet. After some back and forth with Stan to get his input on some design and hardware options, he asked if I would write a guest post to describe my efforts. I now have completed the chest of drawers, which will be the base for a future upper cabinet. In this post I’ll describe my design decisions and the chest’s unusual construction.

If anyone would like more details, I have a lengthy thread describing the build in even more detail at the Woodworking forum at OWWM.org. (Free registration is required. It is a wonderful site if you are interested in restoring and using vintage woodworking machinery). 

Design Criteria: Functionality

Overall Dimensions

I wanted my tool cabinet to hold the hand tools and other items I use frequently at the bench. It had to fit behind my workbench and in front of a dust collector bin, restrictions that defined the cabinet’s dimensions, which for the chest discussed in this article are roughly 37 inches tall (including the casters) by 18 inches deep, by 32” wide. The upper cabinet will be about 48 inches tall, 60 inches wide with the doors open, and 12 inches deep.

Mobility

This chest had to be mobile because I occasionally need to empty the dust collector bin behind it and access both some closet storage near it and a hatch to the garage attic above it.

Durability & Tool Protection

It also had to be sturdy, durable, modifiable, and repairable. I made modest efforts to protect against dust. I was not concerned about protecting my tools from humidity swings or security since the cabinet will stay in a secure, conditioned space where the relative humidity is between 40% and 60% year round. 

Figure 2: A conceptual sketch of the entire cabinet as it will appear when completed, including the chest of drawers supporting a cabinet with doors, shown where it will reside in my shop,
Figure 3: The completed chest of drawers in its native environment.

Research & Planning

Visually, I wanted the chest to appear, in Stan’s words, “Workmanlike…with some subtle decorative details.” I also wanted it to have a Japanese aesthetic without being a reproduction of a Japanese tansu.

After researching different tool cabinet designs that might fit my criteria — Jim Tolpin’s Toolbox Book was particularly helpful — I started sketching a preliminary design. I decided to combine two kinds of storage: a chest of drawers for smaller items below, and a cabinet with doors above for longer and larger tools.

Initially I drew the chest with full-width drawers to hold larger items, but potential sagging became a concern and I didn’t much like their appearance in my planning sketches. I compromised by having one wide drawer on top and two banks of narrower drawers below supported in the center by a stile.

The upper cabinet design is still in progress. The sketch in Figure 2 above shows planes resting on a slanted surface, but I have decided to store them horizontally to maximize space instead.

One goal I had for the chest was to use mostly interlocking mechanical joints rather than conventional glued/screwed case construction. Joining it mechanically was both an intellectual and design challenge as well as an opportunity to learn new joinery skills. My “tutor” in this effort was Chris Hall, who explored and described this kind of construction in his blog The Carpentry Way, and in several self-published monographs and tutorials. Sadly, Chris passed away in April of 2020. While I am not the craftsman he was, I’m pleased to have a made piece that reflects his approach to woodworking.

 I quickly realized that the build would be complicated enough that using a CAD program would help me draw and visualize the interlocking joints. I took a few weeks to learn enough Sketchup to ensure I didn’t miss any critical dimensions.

Wood Selection

I chose to build the chest from black cherry (Prunus serotina) because this wood is readily available at a reasonable price in my area, is excellent for joinery, and ages nicely.

For the interior I used quarter-sawn sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) because it is relatively hard and stable—and I had recently purchased 100 board feet of it for almost nothing.

I used quarter-sawn Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) for the drawer sides because it is hard, abrasion resistant, and I can get it locally from a friend whose family runs a sustainable forest and sawmill.

Mobile Base & Joinery

Casters

I considered wheels made from plain iron and with rubber, neoprene, or urethane treads, but selected cast iron, industrial-quality casters for their durability and for the look of iron. I also wanted them to swivel.

I spec’d them to accommodate at least twice the combined weight of the lower chest and upper cabinet when fully loaded.

I decided to use vintage hardware, and I eventually found a set of used Bassick brand cast iron swivel casters with hardened steel carriages, needle roller bearings, and grease fittings. Bassick has been making industrial casters since the late 1800’s. These are probably from the early to mid-1900’s but are still in good shape. I could not find their load rating but similar modern casters have load ratings several times the ultimate weight of the cabinet. They should last a long time. I cleaned them up and attached them with stainless steel screws.

Figure 4: Vintage Bassick model 361 casters

These old casters are noisy rolling over my concrete shop floor, but it’s a noise I like. 

Mobile Base Joinery

I began the construction process with the mobile base. Its key feature is the three-way corner joint shown below. Chris Hall called it a sanpō-zashi Tsugi no Henka (三方差し継手の変化). I followed his step-by-step construction tutorial. 

Figure 5: Sketchup drawing of the mobile base corner joint

This joint has a mitered corner to hide end grain, an internal sliding dovetail, a half dovetail, a stub tenon, and two locking keys. The larger through mortise is to receive a tenon in the corner post of the chest of drawers that also passes through the chest sill.

The grooves in the upper surface of the mobile base seen in Figures 5 and 8 are to receive loose splines to connect the base to the chest of drawers, and to reduce stresses on the tenons when moving the assembly around the shop. 

Figure 5: The two halves of the three way corner joint

The two keys shown in Figure 8 lock the joint together strongly without glue. The keys cannot work themselves out because they are restrained from above by the corner posts of the the chest of drawers. 

Figure 7: The mobile base corner joint partly assembled
Figure 8: The corner joint with keys inserted but not yet cut flush

The Chest’s Frame

The sill and header are constructed with the same joinery as the mobile base but with slightly different dimensions and other small differences. The sill has grooves cut to accept two plywood dust panels. The header is grooved to accept a solid wood top panel.

Figure 9: Corner post connection to sill showing through tenon with flanking stub tenons.

Center posts help support the drawers. The top drawer is full width. I mortised the posts and stiles to receive tenons on the drawer rails and drawer frames. 

Figure 10: Mobile base, sill, posts, and header.

Drawer Frames and Guides

Figure 11: Quarter-sawn sycamore for rails and drawer guides

The drawer frame sides and guides are quarter-sawn sycamore. Gorgeous, but since these are internal parts, no one will ever see the ray fleck figure unless they remove the drawers and peer inside the chest. I like that. 

The drawer frames that support the drawers have cherry front and back rails and sycamore sides. Front rails for the drawer frames are tenoned into the posts with mitered spear points on the show surface. The spear point is partly structural in that it has a larger bearing surface to resist racking better than a typical plain shoulder. It is also a subtle decorative detail that I  like a lot. It was challenging to get them all to fit. I was more or less successful but not perfect. I included dust panels of ¼ inch birch plywood in the drawer frames to help limit dust in the drawers. This picture is of a test fit before assembly. The blue tape covers drawer stops that are detailed below. 

Fig 12: Chest frame and drawer frames assembly test fit

I tenoned the side rails of the drawer frames into the front rails and also tongue and grooved the side rails into the side guides for extra support for the drawers. Further, the tenons on the front rails also intersect and pass through the tenons on the side guides, locking the side guides in place. The post and side guide “ladder” is extremely rigid to resist racking front to back. 

This complicated joinery is difficult to describe and photograph. Here is a Sketchup view of what the drawer rail and side guides to post connection looks like inside the post. A similar joinery locks the drawer rails and drawer guides at the center posts.

Figure 13: Sketchup X-ray view of rail and side guide to post joinery
Figure 14: Joinery of back drawer frame to center drawer guide and back post
Figure 15: Assembled view of joinery of back drawer frame to center drawer guide and back post.

Drawer Stops

I wanted both cushioned pull-out stops and cushioned push-in stops to prevent accidentally dumping a drawer full of heavy and sharp tools onto the floor or my feet. I also wanted the stops to be replaceable and adjustable for wear over the years.

For the pull-out stops I found a compact design by Australian woodworker Neil Erasmus that I like. These fit into the underside of the front rail and fall into place by gravity when the drawer is pushed in. When you pull the drawer out, the inside of the drawer back hits the leather padded face of the stop. They lift out of the way with a finger if you want to remove the drawer.

I secured these in-place with hide glue so that they can be replaced if they break after a few decades of banging. The leather cushion is from an old belt of mine that has mysteriously shrunk in length over the years.. 

Figure 16: Pull-out stop.
Figure 17: The pull-out stop mortised into a rail

The back stops are my own design. They are dovetailed into the lower surface of the back drawer frame rail. They can be adjusted by adding or removing slivers from the back of the stop, and are easily  replaceable.

I will have to use them for a while to determine if these are a good idea or not. A friend suggested that stops that hit the end grain of the sides would be better than one that hits the center of the more flexible back. I suspect he is right but this is what I have for now and I can re-do the back stop later if I need to. 

Figure 18: Back stop

Side Panels

The chest’s side panels are book matched, hammer veneered cherry on birch plywood cores, friction fit into grooves on the posts to further help resist racking front to back. I added the small, spear pointed rail there to carry the theme seen on the front drawer rails around to the sides and also help resist racking. 

Figure 19: Side panels

The Frame & Panel Back

The back of the chest is frame & panel construction with mitered and through-tenoned corners. The panels are cherry veneer, hammer-veneered with hide glue onto birch plywood cores.

I friction fit the panels into the frames, and friction fit the back into rabbets in the posts to help resist racking from side to side. These veneered panels give the chest a finished look from the back as well as the other three sides.

The weight of the back helps counterbalances the weight of an open drawer.

The eight odd white bits seen in Figure 20 are loose, removable sycamore tenons that pass through mortises in the back frame and down into mortises in the sill, laterally into the posts, and up into the header, attaching the back. One might use screws to accomplish the same thing, but I liked this idea, again from Chris Hall, who adopted it from a Chinese Ming Dynasty cabinet. 

Figure 20: View of Frame & Panel back showing 8 sycamore wood tenons that secure the back panel.

Header

The header frame is grooved to accept a solid wood panel fitted tightly at the front and sides to eliminate any gaps that would collect dust and grit. To accommodate seasonal movement I glued the panel’s front edge into the groove and left a gap at the back, which will be covered by the upper cabinet, so the panel can float.

Figure 21: Header with solid wood panel inset in-place

The odd looking projections seen in Figure 21 are twin sliding dovetail keys that will anchor the future upper cabinet. There will be mating mortises on the underside of the top cabinet. The cabinet will drop onto the keys and slide forward, locking the two pieces together. The upper cabinet will be approximately 12 inches deep, leaving 6 inches of the chest top free. 

Drawers

I put extra work into the drawers since they will actually hold the tools. The rest of the chest is just there to keep the drawers off the floor.

I decided early to avoid metal drawer slides because I find side-mounted slides ugly and believe under-mounted slides sacrifice too much drawer depth. 

Figure 22: A drawer

Drawers fronts are attached with half-blind dovetails, and backs with through- dovetail joints. The cherry drawer fronts are cut from a single clear and straight grained 12/4 board that I resawed to match figure and color vertically and horizontally. 

For the sides I resawed 4/4 oak stock and hand planed it to  ⅜” thick. I chose relatively thin sides both to save material and weight and because I like the look of thinner sides. But they don’t leave much room for a typical ¼” groove for the drawer bottom. To correct for that thinness, I glued on drawer slips of quarter sawn sycamore. Oak would have worked, too.

Drawer slips are, from what I have read, probably a French invention, adopted and most widely used by the British in the 1700’s and 1800’s for finer work but not commonly used in America. Besides providing more “meat” for supporting a groove for the bottom, the slip adds more bearing surface for the drawer. Distributing the drawer weight helps slow the drawer sides from wearing grooves in the runners.

I made the drawer bottoms of sycamore. I slotted the back end of the bottom and screwed to the drawer back to allow seasonal movement.

I’ve also since covered each bottom with a thin sheet of rubberized cork to protect the bottoms from sharp tools and to protect sharp tools from the bottoms. 

Figure 23: A drawer slip

The design of the half-blind dovetail joints was for my own amusement. I wanted a Japanese look for the drawers if possible. A friend sent me a poster of Japanese dovetail styles for inspiration, shown below.

Figure 24: Japanese dovetail poster

I chose the design in the middle at the top with the split pins. They remind me somewhat of Torii gates. 

Torii gates mark sacred ground at Japan's holy sites | MNN - Mother Nature Network
Figure 25: Torii Gate in the sea at Itsukushima Shrine near Hiroshima
Figure 26: Half-lapped dovetails with split pins

This is one of those “subtle decorative details” that is also structurally sound. It actually adds some extra glue surface compared with a standard dovetail, without looking like I was trying too hard just to be different. It also is not visible until the drawer is opened, another hidden feature of the chest that I like. 

Drawer Pulls

The only hardware parts on the chest beside the casters are the drawer pulls. I wanted these to be both durable and aesthetically compatible with the design. 

There are thousands of commercial drawer pull designs and an infinite number if you make your own. To narrow the field, I started by thinking of Japanese tansu hardware. Chris Hall’s website came through with a compendium of styles.

Thinking these had possibilities I started looking for vendors. In the USA, I found three: Hida Tool, which sells iron pulls hand forged in Japan. Eastern Classics, which sells antique iron pulls I think are recycled from defunct tansu. I bought a sample from both suppliers. And Whitechapel, who is superb for European hardware and also had a few tansu pulls but not a large selection of styles and sizes.

Stan recommended I consider pulls made by Nishikawa-Shouten in Japan, which has two large catalogs of traditional and modern tansu hardware. They offer dozens of styles, a few in iron, most in brass, and some in zinc pot metal, with various finishes. It is delightful to look through the catalogs to see what is there. But they are a manufacturer and wholesaler, and their catalog text is in Japanese. After a bit of searching for a retailer I found Morikuni Cabinet Hardware, a Japanese retailer that sells retail — in English — to the US market. Their web store has only a tiny portion of the Nishikawa-Shouten items but they can get others if you ask. 

I settled on a simple traditional Japanese warabi style pull, and also bought samples in iron from Hida Tool and Eastern Classics.  

Figure 27: Eastern Classic’s recycled warabi-style pull

And this more refined contemporary version from Hida Tool, which I liked much better.

Figure 28: Hida Tool’s modern hand forged warabi-style pull

But I needed 14 of them, and neither was available in that quantity. Also, both the Hida Tools and Eastern Classic’s pulls attach with cotter pins, and after consulting with Stan I agreed that the modern pulls with screw-post attachment available from Nishikawa Shouten would be more secure long-term. They also were available in quantity so I purchased a set.

This hardware came with beige/ivory-colored plastic covers to hide the threaded post and its nut inside of the drawer. I liked the low profile and finished look but neither the color nor that it was plastic. I wanted something more durable in metal with a black finish to match the outside. Stan suggested a mirror screw cap, and I found one in brass and stainless steel. I spray painted the caps with a satin black enamel.

Fig 29: Nishikawa-Shouten’s Warabi-style pull with substituted post caps

Finishing Touches

I hate finishing. The scraping, the sanding, the multiple thin coats, the waiting for drying times is maddening. I’m not going to invest in sprayers, either. Not for me. I especially hate sanding. So I go minimalist. I have settled on a couple of simple to apply finishes that are also readily renewable. For my laziness and impatience I sacrifice hardness and durability, but I’m OK with that. 

I hand-planed the exterior surfaces of the chest, then finished it with two coats of 1 pound cut shellac to seal the surface and reduce blotching and then lightly sanded to remove nubs. Then I applied three coats of Waterlox satin, which is an old school tung oil/linseed oil/resin that you wipe on and wipe off. It dries in two or three hours and fully cures in a few days. Refreshing coats can be applied at any time. 

I also hand-planed the drawer frames and guides, lightly sanded them 400 grit, and then just finished them with wax. Before assembly I pre-finished he interior surfaces of the drawers with two coats of shellac and wax. After assembly, I shellacked the outside surfaces. The outside bearing surfaces I then sanded lightly to 400 grit and waxed for smooth running. The drawer fronts also got two coats of Waterlox to match the rest of the outside of the chest. 

Final Comments

Fig 30: Completed chest with drawers open
Fig 31: Drawer with rubberized cork mat and two planes

The chest took me about 2 months to design and about 1000 hours (guessing) for construction. Now I have a proper place to put my tools for the work ahead. 

Gary

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, incompetent facebook, or crooked twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

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Japanese Saws: The Dozuki Saw

Christ in the House of His Parents by John Everett Millais

It is the accuracy and detail inherent in crafted goods that endows them with lasting value. It is the time and attention paid by the carpenter, the seamstress and the tailor that makes this detail possible.

Tim Jackson

This post is about a variety of handsaw unique to Japan called the “Dozuki Nokogiri.”

Description

The name of this saw is pronounced doh/zoo/kee – noh/koh/gee/ri and is written 胴付鋸 in Chinese characters. The first character means “trunk,” or “torso.” The second character means to “attach” something. The third character means “saw.” It’s a thin-bladed, fine-toothed, single-edged crosscut saw with a folded steel back specialized for making precise, shallow cuts in wood, especially tenon shoulders. Dozuki are not intended for ripping tenons or cutting dovetails, although they can do both fairly well.

Along with the Hozohiki saw, this is the thinnest and most precise variety of Japanese saw, and some, including your humble servant, would say it is the most precise type of saw made anywhere in the world. Certainly, it is the most difficult to make properly.

The Dozuki was the first Japanese saw that became well-known outside of Japan. As many thousands of woodworkers around the world can attest, if you need to make clean, precise, shallow crosscuts, then the Dozuki is a must-have tool.

A variant of the Dozuki is the “Handozuki” meaning “half dozuki.” Handozuki do not have a back steel, but have a slightly thicker and stiffer blade than a normal dozuki, but even then, they are flimsy and more difficult to use than a standard Dozuki. The lack of a back steel, however, allows them to make very precise crosscuts in material where the back steel of a standard dozuki would get in the way. Handozuki were once in common use by joiners, but are seldom seen nowadays.

I have previously written about another variety of Japanese saw with a back steel called the “hozohiki” or “tenon cutter saw.” This type of saw is nearly identical to a Dozuki, although sometimes the blade is shaped slightly different. In any case, it always has rip teeth and excels at cutting precision joints with the grain.

If the Dozuki has a shortcoming, it is the delicate nature of their teeth, which can break when used to cut harder woods in a ham-handed manner. Bigger teeth have a larger cross section of steel and are more resistant to breaking than smaller teeth, of course, so it is wise to match the thickness of the Dozuki’s plate and size of its teeth to the hardness and thickness of the wood and the user’s sawing skills. In this regard, Western saws with their thicker plates and relatively blunter teeth are much tougher, and in many cases, better suited to cutting harder woods. It’s too bad their precision is often terribly poor.

Using the Dozuki Saw

The proper technique for using a dozuki is to mark the cut with a sharp marking knife and to cut to the line. Goes without saying, right? Perhaps not, because many woodworking gurus in the West advocate first making sawcuts offset from the layout lines and then paring to the layout line using a chisel or a shoulder plane.

While such obviously inefficient techniques may be necessary when using Western backsaws with their thick plates, dull teeth, and excessive set, they are seen by Japanese woodworkers, accustomed to using Dozuki saws, as slow and amateurish.

I strongly encourage Gentle Readers to tune and sharpen their saws and train themselves to cut precisely to the layout line first time, every time.

There are easily-made, simple wooden guides one can use to make this process quicker, but the ultimate guide is a good saw combined with eyes and hands working together confidently. Perhaps I can address the subject of cutting guides and jigs in another article.

As your humble servant mentioned above, the tiny teeth of Dozuki saws are fragile and do not endure ham-handed abuse well. It is recommended that Gentle readers new to the Dozuki saw become accustomed to using it in soft woods such as White Pine before attempting to use one to make a piano from ebony.

Sawteeth are too often damaged by inadvertently banging them against hard objects like a chisel, another saw, or a concrete floor. Dirt and grit embedded in the wood being cut will also dull the teeth terribly. Please be careful.

Other common causes of damaged sawteeth are forcing the saw too hard, a brutish habit the gods of handsaws frown upon mightily, or swinging the saw left and right in the cut causing the small teeth to snag on the entrance and exit to the kerf, bending and even breaking them. This last cause of damage is perhaps understandable but still about as intelligent as eating boogers. If you are afflicted with any of these unfortunate habits (especially gnoshing on “nose ‘taters”), please make a conscious effort to train them out of your life.

The first bad habit of using excessive force can be easily remedied by simply not pressing down on the saw. Back saws, including both the Dozuki and Western varieties have a steel back that applies downward pressure automatically. You cannot improve on this, so don’t even try.

Using the proper grip can help too. A good rule when using a Dozuki or Hozohiki saws to make precise cuts is to extend the pinkie finger so it’s not touching the handle. This makes it much easier to control the downward force your hand puts into the saw. Don’t worry, this grip will not cause anyone mistake you for a lady of refinement, unless you are wearing a pretty pink woodworking apron with Chantilly lace accents, that is. (ツ)

I like to extend my index finger along the top of the handle because I find this helps me feel the direction of the cut. Different strokes for different folks.

I also like to pinch the saw lightly between the first knuckle of my middle finger and the pad of the thumb forming a single pivot point which helps to keep the saw in proper alignment.

While perhaps a tad anthropomorphic, understanding the following two points about handsaw psychology is absolutely helpful when making precise cuts with any handsaw, or at least that’s what my saws tell me:

  1. A saw cuts well because it’s plate is true, its teeth sharp, and it wants to cut (not because you are strong or clever);
  2. It will cut most precisely if you get out if it’s way (because you’re neither as strong nor as clever as you imagine).

The first point is a simple acknowledgment of the nature of the saw, it’s motivations, and your relationship with it. Perfection is unattainable.

The second is a conscious acknowledgement of one’s human limitations, a step towards developing proportional humility, and to forging a relationship with the handsaw.

Most problems with handsaws can be resolved by truing the plate (an extremely common problem among neglected and/or abused handsaws) and sharpening the teeth. If you fail in this basic duty, your saw will neither be happy nor will it serve you well. Would that humans were as easy to fix.

It all comes together in the second point because, once we understand the nature and truth of the handsaw, and have dutifully made it’s bright blade true and its vicious little teeth sharp, then we must forget how strong and clever we are, get out of its way, and let our skinny little buddy do its job.

And just how do we get out of a saw’s way? I just knew you were going to ask:

  1. Keep the saw moving in the right direction. Not as easy as it sounds. But remember, a well-made handsaw is a simple-minded beastie that wants to move in a straight line, so if it doesn’t, it’s your fault;
  2. Rely on the weight of the blade and its back alone to apply adequate pressure (not thy mighty arm, Oh God of Thunder);
  3. Keep your wrist loose and actively rotate it (this is important) so the sawblade moves to and fro only, not side to side. If you lock your wrist, the blade will unavoidably swing right and left and up and down in the cut, hindering the faithful saw, and buggering the precision of the cut it wants to make. This technique requires practice to learn. Do it.
  4. Focus on the sawkerf; Encourage your sharp little buddy to cut true. Banish all distractions, including that bench cat swanning around demanding its lazy servant (that’s you) provide it savory snacks and ear rubs. Using a Dozuki saw is a meditative process. Indeed, an occasional prayer to the gods of handsaws can never go amiss.

The C&S Dozuki Saw

We have a special Dozuki hand-made to meet the severe demands of our professional Beloved Customers. Like our Hozohiki saws, it too is hand-forged from Hitachi Metal’s Yasugi Shirogami No.2 high-carbon steel by Nakaya Takijiro, an extremely skilled craftsman, and one of the very few traditional sawsmiths left in Japan.

Takijiro hand-scrapes the plate to the proper double-taper to prevent binding, hammer tensions the blade to stiffen it and to prevent it from warping and binding as it heats up in-use, and hand-cuts, hand-files and hammer-sets the teeth.

Very few saws are still being produced to this level of quality and with these performance characteristics.

If you need a professional-grade high-precision saw that prioritizes performance over appearance, one that will not get in your way but will help you do better work, then these will be available in limited quantities for a limited time. Unlike me and thee, Takijiro is not getting younger everyday.

You can view our latest pricelist at this LINK.

YMHOS

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Georges_de_La_Tour._St._Joseph%2C_the_Carpenter.JPG
Joseph the Carpenter by Georges de La Tour

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Related Articles

The Ogre and the Blacksmith

The Blacksmith and his daughter

The following is an old tale from Japan’s Toyama Prefecture. It’s not exactly a Christmas story, but includes all the classical elements a story shared on a cold winter’s eve must have: A beautiful maiden, a cranky blacksmith, an elemental creature, magic, weapons of death and destruction, an impossible challenge, and of course…, chickens. I hope you enjoy it.

Long long ago and far far away in a country in Japan called Etchu (modern day Toyama Prefecture) there was a large blacksmith’s shop.

The owner of the smithy, called “Master Blacksmith,” was well-to-do with many craftsmen working for him. He lived in a big house called a chouja.

The Hagiwara Chouja

Master Blacksmith had a single daughter of marriageable age, a rare beauty with almond eyes and long black hair shiny as a raven’s wing.

One day he announced to all the craftsmen in the area that he would give the hand of this daughter to the first suitor to forge 1,000 spearheads in a single night.

A classical Japanese “straight spear” (直槍) spearhead, distinctly different from most Western spears.
A “Cross” spearhead (十文字槍) used to thrust, parry blows and pull horsemen to the ground, a difficult piece of work for the blacksmith to forge, and infamous for turning the fingers of professional sharpeners sticky red (seriously).　

But no matter how skilled, every weapons blacksmith knows that it’s impossible to forge 1,000 spearheads in a single night, so his challenge went unanswered.

Master Blacksmith decided he needed to expand his offer and so put up a notice board describing his challenge alongside the main road for passersby to see, and waited for skilled craftsmen to appear.

おぉセクシーすぎるぞ！海洋堂も参加、鬼北町に誕生した巨大な女鬼のモニュメントのインパクトったらない

Lo and behold an ogre that lived on a nearby mountain meandered by late one night and saw the notice. It did a little jig the way happy ogres do and gleefully exclaimed “Ha ha hee heee! A thousand spearheads is easy for meee!

The next morning, using the elemental magic that many ogres have, it changed his appearance to that of a young man and went down the mountain to Master Blacksmith’s house.

The Master looked doubtfully at the ogre in the shape of a young man and disdainfully said “What makes a young fella like you think he can make a thousand spearheads in one night?”

The ogre responded, “I can do it. I will surely make them before the cock crows in the morning.”

Thinking he had nothing to loose, the Master responded: “Then make them if you can.”

As the sun went down, the ogre in the shape of a young man went into the smithy, closed the doors, and began working.

Master Blacksmith heard sounds like the wind blowing from inside his smithy, but nary the sound of  a hammer striking metal or the ringing of an anvil. Perplexed, he said to himself “What can he be doing in there?”

Slipping quietly around to the back of his smithy and peeking through a crack in the siding boards, Master Blacksmith was shocked as he had never been shocked before because he saw fire spewing from the young man’s mouth as he bent and folded and shaped yellow-hot steel in his bare hands like it was warm taffy!

Before his eyes a smoking stack of completed spearheads quickly grew. It became obvious to Master Blacksmith that all 1,000 spearheads would be finished well before dawn.

Fearful for his tender daughter, Master Blacksmith realized he had to do something to stop the strange young man from successfully completing the challenge, so he thought and thought and thought until his thinker overheated.

“The only way out of this mess I have made is for the cock to crow before all 1,000 spearheads are completed,” he eventually reasoned. Following this logic to it’s natural conclusion, he took a jar of hot water into the chicken coop where the chickens were all fast asleep dreaming of stretchy worms and crunchy beetles.

Desperate to make even a single chicken crow, he poured the hot water on the roost where the chickens slept soundly. The surprised chickens all woke at once in a panic with the hens squacking, cackling, and screaming while the roosters all crowed out “Cock-a-doodly dooooo!”

Hearing this racket from the chicken coop the ogre in the form of a young man became frightened, wailing out “I have been discovered!”

Instantly, the magic that had changed its appearance popped like a soap bubble revealing the ogre’s supernatural red skin, yellow horns, and shiny white fangs again. The ogre ran out of the smithy like ten stampeding bulls raising a cloud of smoke all the way back to the mountain where it came from never to be seen again. 

With this, the blacksmith rubbed his chest and exclaimed in relief “I see, he was an ogre after all!” 

“And just what is this?” he said as he walked fearfully over the shattered remains of the front door to his smithy and peered inside in amazement at the stack of smoking-hot, sparkling spearheads left behind by the ogre. Indeed, it turned out the red ogre had left behind exactly 999 completed spearheads, each wonderfully made.

From that day forward the blacksmith’s shop was famous for the quality of its spearheads, which are still known as “ogre-spears.”

And the blacksmith became wealthier than ever.

The End

Even ogres need love

YMHOS

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with all Gentle Readers by using the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, incompetent facebook, criminal Twitter, or the Chinese girlfriend/fundraiser of a Congressman, and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

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The Japanese Gennou & Handle Part 15 – The Drawing Part 4/6

Statue of Filippo Brunelleschi, the father of technical drawing and linear perspective, and both architect and builder of one of the largest and most magnificent domes in the world. Thanks, Maestro Brunelleschi, for teaching us how to draw! But what’s up with pokin holes in pizza dough…?

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.

Grace Hopper

As your humble servant mentioned in a previous post, and contrary to what corporate product development departments appear to assume, it is the nature of the human body for the hand to precede the hammer head during the arc of travel, with the result that, if the handle is affixed perpendicular to the axis of the head, the hammer’s face will hit the nail or chisel handle off-center and at an angle. 

In this post we will discuss this eccentric phenomenon in more detail and suggest how to compensate for it in Gentle Reader’s drawing.

The Angle of the Dangle

In evidence of your humble servant’s counter-intuitive assertions above, let us view some stop-motion high-speed photography of a shockingly ugly hammer (‘Nando is simply clucking with disapproval at the sight). 

Although the wood-butcher in this photo is using the inefficent Hobbit-basher grip, please notice the location of his pinkie finger with respect to the hammer’s face shown in this photo, as well as the angle between the hammer’s face and the nail’s axis at the point of impact seen in the last frame.

Now riddle me this, Oh Enigmatic Sphinx:

  1. In this series of photos did the impact between hammer face and nail head occur in the center of the claw hammer’s face, or in the lower half of the face?
  2. Was the center of mass of the hammer head in-line with the axis of the nail at the instant of impact, or was it offset? If offset, does the impact force of the hammer tend to drive the nail straight, or to bend it?
  3. Was the striking face oriented perpendicular to the axis of the nail at the instant of impact, or cocked? If cocked, does the impact force of the hammer tend to drive the nail straight, or to bend it? Does it tend to conserve or waste energy?

Gentle Readers who answer all three questions correctly will win one-half of a day-old Crispy Creme glazed donut the next time they are in Tokyo (I get the first bite of course (ツ)). But rather than just giving out the correct answers (and risk losing half a donut!), Gentle Readers should perform the following tests themselves to gain irrefutable personal knowledge.

The Experiment & Analysis of the Results

Color the face of your hammer or gennou with a marking pen, or Dykem, then use it with a chisel to cut a mortise, without giving the hammer special attention. Perhaps a dozen blows to the chisel while it is held vertical. Then examine the hammer’s striking face and chisel handle.

Now that’s done, please examine the chisel handle. What Rosetta Stone should we use to decipher these mysterious marks?

If the ink has transferred from the hammer face to the chisel mostly dead-center, then all is well. But if it is off-center, it usually indicates two things. First, the hammer handle is either too long, too short, or your grip is goofy. Second, it may indicate that the hammer’s head is cocked at the instant of impact. More on that next. In any case, a clean impact on the end of the chisel must be our goal if we are to work efficiently (“A little nod to the gods,” as Roy McAvoy would say, “for we are fallible, and perfection is unattainable”). Therefore an adjustment to either the hammer, or the way we grip it may be called for.

Let’s take a gander at the hammer’s face next. Most people discover that the ink has been scrubbed off the bottom half of the hammer’s or gennou’s face (closest to the hand), and that the ink marks transferred to the chisel are off-center. 

If the bare spots (where the ink was scrubbed off) are not centered on the hammer’s striking face, two things are indicated: First, as seen in the photo above, the hammer’s face is probably not striking the chisel’s handle squarely, but is angled at the time of impact instead of being perpendicular. Not good.

The Consequences

Why should we be concerned about something as insignificant as an angled impact? How clever of you to ask such a intelligent question!

Vector analysis suggests that an angled impact must cause the hammer to push the chisel away from the intended direction of cut, or the nail away from the intended goal (maybe even bending it). This has consequences we need to be concerned about.

The second thing these uneven marks indicate is more certain, namely that the centerline of the hammer’s head is not in-line with the centerline of the chisel’s handle at the time of impact. Once again, physics and vector analysis tells us this misalignment causes impact energy to be misdirected and wasted instead of being transmitted through the chisel to its cutting edge and into the wood being cut. The resulting feeling is a whack followed by a kick instead of a clean chopping sensation. 

Where does this wasted energy go and what does it do? It forces the chisel out of the ideal alignment and makes it feel squirrely. It beats on the hand holding the chisel. It also converts to friction heat as the blade beats on the wood instead of cutting it cleanly.

This wasted energy destroys your hammering rhythm, dulls your chisels, hurts your hand, bends your nails and makes your chisel-work sloppy. This condition can no more be tolerated than a rabid dog or a corrupt politician with a functional mouth. Or is that a rabid politician and a corrupt dog? I forget, but it’s a difference without a distinction.

In any case, if we want the hammer’s energy to enter the chisel cleanly and motivate it to cut both efficiently and precisely, we need the center of mass of the head to be oriented closely in-line with the central axis of the chisel or nail at the instant of impact. Likewise, we need the gennou’s flat striking face to impact the chisel handle or nail head squarely, not at an angle.

Solutions

Your work with a hammer will be most efficient and precise if you meet the following three conditions:

  1. Grip the hammer’s handle correctly;
  2. Use a hammer with a handle length that fits your body best;
  3. Use a hammer with head alignment and striking face angle that corrects the misalignment and cocking inherent in standard hammers as mentioned above.

The following guidelines should get your handle design in the ballpark.

When gripping the hammer as described in Post 13 in this series, your pinkie should just fit between the front edge of the handle and the plane of the flat striking face. The small circle drawn near the end of the hammer in the drawing is the pinkie, a dimensions that varies from person to person.

This means that if you place the gennou on a flat tabletop as shown in the drawing, and press straight down on the head so the flat striking face is flush with the tabletop, the toe of the handle will float above the tabletop with just enough clearance for your pinkie to fit between handle and table when you grip it properly.

So let’s take some more measurements and add them to our drawing.

Grip Layout

First, measure the diameter of your pinkie. Approximate is fine.

Next, we need to determine where to draw the pinkie in cross section on our drawing, but to do that we first need to measure the size of your grip. To do this, hold a hammer handle or stick in your hand gripping it lightly across your palm as described in the previous post in this series (not in a Hobbit-basher fist) with the heel of your palm and the first segment of your index finger resting on the handle’s back edge (opposite the head’s striking face), and your fingers wrapped around the handle. Use a pencil or pen to following mark 3 points on the handle or stick:

  1. Make the first mark at the point where your palm’s heel ends on the handle’s back edge near the butt. Let’s call this Point 1;
  2. Make another mark at the point where the first joint of your index finger begins to curve around the handle/ Let’s call this Point 2;
  3. Make the third mark where the front and back edges of your pinkie finger touche the handle’s front edge. We’ll call this distance your “pinkie diameter.”

The length of the “grip” is the distance from Point 1 to Point 2.

Going back to our drawing, layout the “grip” length or “forefinger” location as shown in the drawing.

A line drawn from the top of the butt to the intersection of the grip length, as shown by the arc in the drawing below, will give you the grip angle.

Gennou Handle DrawingDownload

Next use your divider to transfer the location and width of your pinkie finger onto the bottom edge of the drawing’s handle touching the horizontal line. Sketch a circle representing your pinkie finger in cross-section.

With the addition of these details to your drawing, it is close to being complete. I’m excited as a puppy on Christmas morning!

In the next post in this saga spanning time and the islands of the seas we will add the handle’s top and bottom edges.

YMHOS

Christmas Cheer Christmas Is Coming GIF - ChristmasCheer ChristmasIsComing Excited GIFs

The following link is to a folder containing pricelists and photos of most of our products. If you have questions or would like to learn more, please use the form located immediately below titled “Contact Us.”

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, thuggish Twitter, or a US Congressman’s Chinese girlfriend and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. May I swallow a thousand needles if I lie.

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Previous Posts in The Japanese Gennou Hammer & Handle Series

Japanese Handsaws: The Ryouba

If you can’t stay young, you can at least stay immature.

Red Green

The Ryoba saw is certainly the best-known woodworking saw in Japan if only because of its unique shape. Indeed, for as long as your humble servant has been making a damned nuisance of himself on the earth, it has been the single tool that most represents the Japanese carpenter in the public mind. It is probably the best-known Japanese saw outside of Japan too, second only to the Dozuki saw.

In this post we will discuss the Ryouba saw in general, and the Ryouba we provide to our Beloved Customers in particular.

Definitions

The full name of this saw is “Ryouba Nokogiri” written 両刃鋸 in Chinese characters, and pronounced “ryoh-/bah/noh/koh/giri.” Ryou means “both,” “Ha” means “blade” or “cutting edge,” and “nokogiri” means “saw.” In other words, a “double-edged saw.”

The word is almost always spelled “Ryoba” in the English-language alphabet, but the “o” in “Ryo,” in this case, is actually pronounced a little longer. When I was young man first learning the Japanese language on Shikoku Island, the convention was to express this longer pronunciation by adding a straight line over the letter “o” to look like “ō”, but with the wide use of computers nowadays, the trend seems to have shifted to adding a “u” after the “o,” which is perfectly consistent with how it’s written phonetically in Japanese (りょうば ). But I digress.

History

Being double-edged, the Ryoba has a set of progressive rip teeth (becoming gradually larger towards the tip) on one edge and cross-cut teeth on the other. It is a relatively recent invention, first appearing around 1897, instantly gaining tremendous popularity throughout Japan.

While the invention of cross-cut teeth is at least several hundred years old, archaeologists and researchers have postulated that they are a recent development, at least in Japan.

Why a Double-Edged Saw?

Because the Ryouba saw combines both a rip-saw and crosscut saw into a single saw, it has the following advantages over single-edge saws:

  1. More efficient use of expensive steel and labor than a two-saw set comprised of a single-edged crosscut saw and single-edged rip saw;
  2. Reduced weight and space requirements, especially important before people generally had automobiles to help carry the load;
  3. Fewer saws to keep track of, and less time spent switching between them.

But all is not blue bunnies and fairy farts because, compared to the single-edged saw, the Ryoba saw has a few disadvantages Gentle Reader should be aware of:

  1. While the blade of a single-edge saw (kataba nokogiri 方刃鋸) is thickest at the teeth, and tapers thinner towards the back of the blade to reduce friction in the cut and to prevent the blade from binding, the Ryouba saw is thickest at both cutting edges and thinnest at the centerline of the plate between the teeth. The result is that, if one makes a cut using a Ryouba saw in a timber or board deeper than the thin centerline of the plate, friction in the saw kerf acting on the blade will increase as the cut approaches the offside teeth. The result is that the Ryouba saw is not ideal for deep cuts;
  2. If one uses a Ryouba saw to cut into a board or timber deep enough that the teeth from the opposite edge fall into the saw kerf, the opposing teeth will tend to score the surface of the wood surfaces inside the kerf. While these scratches may be of no consequence for many types of cuts, the Ryouba saw is still not ideal for some types of cuts.

The Ryouba saw is perfect for many other applications, however, especially when working in the field.

When doing cabinet or joinery installations I always have a Ryouba saw on-hand simply because a single saw that can make shallow rip cuts and crosscuts is simply more time and cost efficient. The one in the photos below is my favorite.

Fine-toothed Ryouba saws like the one above were once common but are difficult to find nowadays.

The C&S Tool’s Seigoro Brand Ryouba Saw 清五郎印両刃鋸

We carry two ryouba saws, a 270mm (teeth length = 255mm) and 240mm (teeth length = 230mm). The longer of the two is well-suited for general carpentry, while the 240mm is better suited to finer work.

C&S Tool’s Seigoro brand 230mm Ryouba saw

Our Seigoro brand saws were made by Azuma Kenichi 東賢一, the third generation Nakaya Choujiro located in Nagaoka City Japan.

I have been using Choujiro brand saws made by Mr. Azuma’s father and grandfather for many years and have been absolutely satisfied with their quality and performance. We are thrilled to be able to offer a limited number of his Ryouba saws to our Beloved Customers.

These saws were a special order Choujiro filled using the last of his stock of Shirogami No.2 steel some years ago. We purchased the remainder of this order from the wholesaler who originally ordered them. There will be no more.

Choujiro no longer makes saws this large, having since shifted his focus to smaller saws used by European luthiers and model makers.

Of course, used Ryouba saws are available on the auction sites. The problem with used Japanese saws, however, is that it is impossible to judge the quality and preservation of a saw from photos alone. The only way to tell if a sawblade is kinked, warped, or oil-canned is to hold the saw up to the light, bend the blade, examine the reflections and feel the teeth. And the teeth of used saws are always dull and often damaged. Caveat emptor, baby.

These are new, high-quality saws made by a well-known blacksmith still working, perfect in every way, and backed by the C&S Tools warranty, so the risk of wasting money on an old saw you cannot examine in-person (assuming you have the expertise to examine Japanese saws to begin with), made by someone who’s name you cannot read, bought from someone that won’t give you back your money if the saw is not as good as it looks in the photos or even damaged before you receive it, is not a problem. (Wow, that was mouthful)

If a saw you purchased from us needs sharpening or repair, simply ship it back and we will arrange for a professional saw sharpener to restore its beautiful smile and revive its voracious appetite for sawdust, or even have Azuma-san repair it, if necessary, for a reasonable fee. Unlike thee and me, he doesn’t work for free. (Ah, poetry!)

Specifications

The specifications of the saws are listed below.

  • Blade Steel: Hitachi Metal’s Yasuki Shirogami (White Label) No.2 (1.05~1.15% carbon content)
  • Tang Steel: SK No.5 (0.80-0.90% carbon content)
  • Tang/blade connection: TIG weld
  • Thickness/taper: Thinnest at blade centerline
  • Finish: Buffer
  • Tension: Hammer tensioned
  • Rip teeth: Standard (increase in size progressively from heel to toe)
  • Crosscut teeth: 3-facet “edome”
Size
Edge LengthBlade
Steel		Tang
Steel		Quench Temper HardRip TeethCrosscut
Teeth
8 sun230mm Shiro 2SK5800°C (1472°F)305°C (581°F)Rc60°3T/cm
7.7T/in		6.5T/cm
16.5T/in
9 sun255mm Shiro 2SK5800°C (1472°F)310°C (590°F)Rc60°2T/cm
5T/in		6.3T/cm
16T/in
Saw Specifications

Ryouba saws are not specialist saws, but excellent general-use saws. If I could have only one saw in my workshop, or could take only one saw to a jobsite, it would be a Ryouba saw.

They are especially handy for general carpentry tasks and ideal for cutting tenons and many other joints in timber framing.

If you are interested in learning more, please check out the folder at this link containing pricelists and photos for most of our products, and drop a note in the contact form below.

The article at this LINK has some guidelines about using handsaws accurately.

YMHOS

Related Articles

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the form located immediately below titled “Contact Us.” Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, incompetent facebook, thuggish Twitter, or an IT manager for the US Congress and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. May I swallow a thousand needles if I lie.

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The Japanese Gennou & Handle Part 14 – The Drawing: Part 3/6

Top: A 100monme (375gm) gennou head by Hiroki mated to a new Osage Orange handle. Bottom: A 60monme (225gm) Kosaburo classic ryouguchi head joined to a mellowed Osage Orange handle. The difference in the size of the eyes and weights of the heads combine to make handles of different dimensions. Therefore the design begins with the head.

“This life’s hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.” 

George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle

In the previous post we started the drawing of our gennou handle using the gennou head as a template. In this post we will determine critical design details including the overall length, butt dimensions, and typical cross sections.

But first, since we are talking about making a tool we must grip in the hand, let’s consider how to hold it. You would be surprised at how many people get this simple action wrong. It matters in the context of this article because we are designing a minimalist tool for which the smallest details matter.

The Grip is the Grip

There are many ways to hold a gennou handle. The hobbit-basher grip in the fist is popular among many hammer wigglers, even those with five fingers, but it provides both low power and poor control, good for Bagginses but not so much for woodworkers.

How to grip a gennou (applicable for five-fingered humans only). Upper left: The handle laying across the palm contacting the heel of the palm and the first and second joints of the index finger. Upper right: The hand closed around the handle ready for rock-n-rolla. Notice that the pad of the thumb is touching the side of the handle, pinching it against the index finger. Lower left: The grip seen from the rounded bottom edge of the handle, facing the striking face. Lower right: The grip seen from above. Notice again how the handle is pinched between thumb and forefinger.

The most efficient grip is to orient the handle diagonally across the open palm, touching the heel of the palm at one end and the pad at the base of the index finger at the other. The index finger and other fingers then wrap around and under the handle on one side, with the thumb gripping the opposite side of the handle so its is pinched between the index finger and thumb. This is similar to the grip recommended by the famous golfer Ben Hogan.

This method of holding the handle provides significant advantages:

  1. The wrist is able to rotate more freely and to a greater degree;
  2. The length of the hand touching and motivating the handle is much longer than the Hobbit-basher fist grip thereby providing more leverage (couple) with less effort and more control;
  3. The touchpoints at the thumb, index finger, and heel of the palm triangulate the handle in the hand and mind so the user always knows exactly where the gennou’s face is located and its angle with respect to the target without looking at or fiddling with the gennou.
  4. The grip on the handle is more secure so the handle wiggles around less in the hand reducing blisters and stresses.

If you find this grip difficult, please stick with it until it becomes a good habit that displaces a bad habit.

Determine Overall Length

The next thing we need to add to our drawing begun in the previous post is the gennou’s overall length (OAL) measured from the handle’s butt (not including the dome) to the Vertical Centerline through the head’s face. This dimension comes from your body with some adjustment for how you grip and swing.

For most people, a good starting length can be measured by bending your hammer arm 90° at the elbow and laying a straightedge or folding ruler across your upward-facing palm and forearm. Touch one end of the straightedge against the tendon at your elbow and measure the distance to the base of your middle finger. In my case this 12 inches, but I’m not a big guy.

A classic Kosaburo gennou head mounted to a 12″ osage orange handle.

You may want to add an extra inch to your first handle. If you later decide the handle is too long, you can whittle it shorter.  Remember, the first handle you make will be experimental, and probably not a keeper. I suggest you plan on making at least three over a period of a few years and after sufficient testing to determine the ideal length for you.

As seen in the photo above, with the head held in a flat palm (not a fist), and the fingers wrapped over the head, the butt just touches my bicep tendon. In my case, by total coincidence, this is 12″. Add ¼” to the length for the domed butt; you will need it. At 5’8″ I am not a big man and have neither long arms nor big hands. Your handle may well be different.

Add this OAL dimension to your drawing.

Download Gennou Handle Drawing 20201010Download

Measure the Butt

So far we have focused on the head and overall length. The next details we need to determine are the dimensions of the butt, most importantly, its height.

The height of the butt is important not only because it determines how large the grip area’s circumference will be, but also because it partially controls the angle of the grip, and therefore the angle of the head and striking face at the time of impact.

Only you can decide what dimensions will work best for you, but since we need to start somewhere, I suggest you make the handle’s butt at least l” (25mm) wide (seen from above), and 1-⅜” (35mm) high. If you have large hands or prefer a large grip, or are using a heavier head, then the flat area should be wider to reduce pressure on the hand.

Reaction Forces

Next let’s consider the forces acting on the handle and the user’s hand, and their influence on the hammer’s performance and user’s comfort and endurance.

Commercial handles typically have a symmetrical oval cross-section that looks good, is easy to manufacture, and is consistent with the one-size-fits-nobody philosophy convenient for mass-production and mass-marketing. Sadly, this oval cross-section ignores the three reaction forces that act on the user’s hand. 

The first reaction force occurs when the user brings the hammer up in preparation for a strike. In this case, a force couple (matched forces) presses the handle into the first joints of the fingers and the heel of the hand (assuming, of course, one is gripping the handle as recommended above and not like a demented mountain troll).

The second reaction occurs when the hammer reaches the top of its swing and the user changes the direction of the hammer head towards nail or chisel. At this point a force couple is produced which presses the handle against the first joint at the base of the user’s index finger, and the tips of the other fingers. The pinkie finger has a major role in retaining the user’s hold on the tool, you will notice.

The third reaction occurs when the speeding hammer head impacts nail or chisel and the handle kicks back at the user’s palm and fingers, just as Sir Isaac Newton predicted.  

If these reactions are balanced to the object being struck/cut by the weight and speed of the hammer, this cycle can be smooth and efficient and the kickback forces minimal. But if the hammer is too heavy, or too light, the forces the user must apply to the hammer and the force and pressure of the resulting reactions can be become tiring and even bruising. A good handle made to fit the head and the user’s body and hammering technique will improve efficiency and reduce wear and tear on the user’s body.

What is this wear and tear you say? All the aforementioned reaction forces cause the handle to kick the muscles, tendons and bones in the user’s hand, and can cause bruising. Even if it doesn’t bruise, after a long day of chiseling the hand wielding the hammer will be more worn and tender than when the day started.

Even if you never grow tired and pain means nothing to you, Oh Master Blaster, these reaction forces tend to push the handle out of alignment in the user’s hand shifting the next hammer stroke slightly off-line, and twisting the hammer’s face slightly out of ideal alignment. Have you ever noticed how your hammer becomes wobbly after two or three of strikes in quick succession? Guess why that happened.

Back-edge/Top Cross-section: Flat

In the case of this Yamakichi gennou by Hiroki, the striking face is is towards the right side of the photo. Please notice the shape of the handle with respect to the striking face.

The solution to these troublesome physics problems is simply to make the top/back edge of the hammer in the grip area more-or-less flat instead of round or oval, a modification that will spread the reaction forces more evenly across your hand, preventing bruising and reducing fatigue. It will also stabilize the handle in your hand improving unconscious alignment and reducing twisting.

You have probably never seen a handle shaped like this much less used one. It may look uncomfortable in your mind’s eye or on paper, but it is comfortable in-use. Try it before you dismiss it.

Another big advantage of the flat on a hammer handle is one you have probably never thought about, but the lack of which has wasted much of your time while using hammers. When doing woodworking especially, we tend to set our hammers down while we change position, move the workpiece, remove chips, or enjoy a refreshing beverage. Often, we don’t recall the angle or direction we set the hammer down, so when we pick it back up we must double check two things by eye: First, where our hand is located on the grip, which distance of course determines how far the center of the striking face is from our hand; and second which face/ claw of the hammer is facing which direction.

I don’t know about you, but I want my hand to learn this information and get the hammer oriented properly without my having to take my eyes or attention away from the work at hand. Anything else is stupid.

The flat and rounded contours on the handle immediately tell your hand which direction the striking face is oriented, and where your hand is located on the handle, all without using your eyes or giving the matter a single thought. It’s a psychic handle, sorta (ツ)

Front-edge Cross-sectional Shape

While the top/back of the handle is more or less flat, as seen in the photo above, the lower/leading edge (surface facing the chisel or nail) should be circular at the butt, gradually transitioning to a flat surface as it nears the eye. Some people like this surface to be egg-shaped. I prefer a simple circular radius. For your first gennou handle, I recommend you begin by making it a simple circular radius and shave and whittle it to fit your hand more precisely later.

The reasons for making this surface rounded are simply to maximize the surface area of contact between hand and handle, and to make the grip comfortable.

Put all this into a simple sketch and transfer it to the drawing. At this point the end view of the butt should be shaped more-or-less like a pregnant letter  “D” with the curved surface oriented downwards towards the bottom of the page of the profile drawing.

Side Surface Cross Section: Flat and Parallel

So far, we have determined the back/top edge will be mostly-sorta-kinda flat, and the front edge will be more-or-less rounded. Next, let’s examine the two side surfaces.

Looking at the butt in cross-section, the handle’s right and left sides should be perpendicular to the flat on the handle’s back/top edge (plan view). These curved-plane surfaces begin at the head’s eyes, and curve down the handle all the way to the butt, with some radiusing and softening along the way, of course.

Please note that, unlike commercial wooden hammer and axe handles that need a goofy flair below the eye to keep steel wedges from splitting the poorly-made handle, this minimalist gennou handle does not. It is an elegant, handmade craftsman’s tool, not a nail-bender or cockroach killer, and simply doesn’t need wedges.

Instead of a cancerous bulge, the handle remains a few shavings thicker than the eye for some distance until it smoothly flairs into the grip area. This design has serious advantages we have discussed in earlier posts in another series about what hammers to use with chisels, which I will briefly summarize.

  1. A minimalist, thin handle experiences less air resistance, and wastes less energy, a serious concern in a tool moved as quickly and as often as a gennou;
  2. A thin handle transits fewer shocks and vibrations to the user’s hand;
  3. A thin handle is easier to pinch between index finger and thumb providing maximum control in the Ben Hogan golf club club grip;
  4. If and when the handles loosens (it’s only wood after all, not eternal Chinese-made plastic-covered bent sheet metal), the user can tap the handle further into the eye quickly tightening the handle without pausing work. Note that this is not necessarily the ideal permanent fix, although it certainly can be.

Some will look at the thin handle and fear it will break. This is always a possibility with any wooden handle, but your humble servant has never broken a properly-made gennou handle, although I have broken plenty of commercial hammer handles. The key is to make your handle from the right wood, with proper grain orientation and minimal runout (we’ll talk more about these details in future posts), and to always use the head, not the handle, to drive nails and wack chisels. Duh.

We will talk about these specifications and details in future posts in this story of crime and passion.

In the next post we will determine the angle between the head and the handle. If you think this angle is unimportant then you’re in for a big surprise.

YMHOS

PS: We will provide a comprehensive document covering all the steps of making a gennou handle to our Beloved Customers (may the hair on their toes never fall out) upon request.

A confused, lost Hobbit basher. And just look at that dried-out skin! Won’t you please help him find his way back to a dark, damp woodworking forum somewhere? A stop-off for a pedicure and a moisturizing treatment would not go amiss.

The following link is to a folder containing pricelists and photos of most of our products. If you have questions or would like to learn more, please use the form located immediately below titled “Contact Us.”

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, thuggish Twitter, or a US Congressman’s Chinese girlfriend and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. May I swallow a thousand needles if I lie.

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Previous Posts in The Japanese Gennou & Handle Series

Tenant Improvement Work in Japan – Part 1: A Work, B Work, C Work

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Toranomon Hills Business Tower (left foreground, under construction), and Toranomon Hills Mori Tower (right background), two Class 1 office buildings in Tokyo, Japan in which my firm is currently managing construction work.

“Any fool can write a book and most of them are doing it; but it takes brains to build a house.” 

Charles Fletcher Lummis

This article is not focused directly on woodworking or woodworking tools per se, but rather on how to go about leasing space in Japan, and contracting for construction in that space. The wood and tools come afterwards.

I have never seen the subject of Tenant Improvements (or Tenant Fit-out, as it is called in some countries) addressed in writing outside of real estate dealings and construction projects in Japan, and never on the internet. It will no doubt sound like gibberish to many, but those involved in the real estate or commercial construction industries may find it interesting and maybe even profitable.

You should find it especially interesting if you anticipate leasing space in a building in Japan, or doing construction work in a leased space here. This little bit of basic insider knowledge could make you look like a genius.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Too often I have worked with people and companies, who shall remain nameless, that made planning decisions without the insight described below. The results were sometimes painful.

The most jarring incidents I have seen occurred with people and companies accustomed to real estate leasing and construction projects in their own countries, but who are willfully ignorant of how things are done here in Japan, and insist that the knowledge and experience they possess is applicable without significant adaptation. In response to corporate pressure, and based on a poor understanding of local realities, these lost souls plan the process to fit their abilities confident they will be able to manipulate the Landlord and contractors through a combination of their devastating charm, superhuman negotiation skills, and the leverage afforded by their company’s wealth and fame. In a leasing market of 96% occupancy, such people frequently wake up to find reality kneeling on their neck while carving tasteless limericks into their forehead.

The most pitiful prospective tenants I have seen came to Tokyo from Hong Kong and Singapore. They sent younger employees to handle the leasing, always with good English-language abilities, but no experience outside their own country or mainland China, where they had only dealt with unsophisticated and hungry brokers, consultants, and contractors to whom they could dictate terms and conditions. Absolutely convinced the Hong Kong or Singapore way of doing things is the only way, they waste time, money and goodwill banging their heads against a stone wall never realizing that Japan has an advanced real estate and construction industry with many companies hundreds of years old and possessing technical capabilities few, if any, American or European companies can even think to match.

Delays, budget overruns, embarrassment, pattern baldness, and sudden employment changes ensue.

I prefer to avoid all that drama. How about you?

The Tokyo Office Leasing Market

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A commercial office building under construction. The completed building is of exceptionally high quality.

High unit lease rates and the tricks of the trade described below have made owning and leasing out office/retail space in a Class 1 office building in Tokyo one of the world’s most profitable, risk-free, and steady investments.

You won’t see this fact written about in financial publications, however, because it’s small club that’s difficult to join and with few opportunities for foreign financial consultants to make a profit in the fly’s lifespan time-window they allow for investments to bear fruit. But there are a few savvy real estate investors outside of Japan who know the value of owning the right building in the right place in a Japanese metropolitan area and wish they could get a piece of it.

A handful of foreign companies and investors have succeeded here, especially in the hospitality industry, but it is a long row that few non-Japanese companies have the patience or connections to successfully hoe.

All of the terms mentioned in this post are related to a tenant space (usually office or retail) leased in buildings in one of Japan’s major cities, and constructing the improvements (aka “tenant improvements,” “TI’s,” or “tenant fit-out”) needed to make the space usable.

So let’s dive in and paddle like a duck in an alligator farm.

A Work

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A jobsite in Tokyo with extensive drilled-piling work underway. 12 cranes and 6 drill rigs are working concurrently. 600 trucks entered and left the jobsite daily during this foundation work.

“A Work” (short for “Category A Work”) is a contractual term in Japan which refers to construction work performed directly on the “Base Building” on behalf of a Tenant in the building. This type of construction work does not, however, come into play until the building’s construction is complete and the terms of a tenant lease agreement are being negotiated.

“A Work” typically includes any modifications to the base building’s structure, core & shell, mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, elevators, common areas, etc. If you need to cut holes in the floor slabs for stairs between multiple floors you will lease, or need to add duct space or pipe shafts for your rooftop equipment for instance, it will be A Work.

Owners of high-quality buildings in metropolitan areas are understandably keen to preserve their investment and the income it produces and so will always have their designated contractor perform A Work at their direction but at the Tenant’s expense. This is an important point to keep in mind.

You will have no opportunity to competitively bid A Work, so save yourself the embarrassment of insisting, being rebuffed, and having to explain a strategic error to your board of directors.

Be aware that if you intend to propose to the building Owner or Landlord that the modifications you require will improve or upgrade the base building, and therefore the cost should either be borne or supplemented by them, you will need to conclude those negotiations before you sign the lease, while you have leverage, or the entire cost will be your responsibility.

Please note that it will be your contractual obligation to pay for restoring the building to its original condition, whether the Owner/Landlord actually does it or not, and even if that means downgrading the building. The cost, for instance, of removing/restoring a stairway between floors frequently costs more than the original construction itself. Ouch is right.

We will discuss “Restoration” in a future post in this series.

B Work

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Electrical work underway.

“B Work” is another contractual term you will need to understand. It refers to tenant improvements (aka “tenant fit-out”) “connected” to the base building.

B Work typically includes all mechanical, electrical, lighting, plumbing, HVAC, ductwork, fire life-safety work (fire sprinklers, gas fire suppression systems, fire alarms and emergency lighting, etc), partitions, ceilings, OA floors (raised floors) wall finishes, most floor finishes, blinds and PA systems to be constructed or installed inside the lease space, as well as Tenant-requested BMS systems, emergency generators, chillers and heat exchangers required to service the tenant’s equipment.

Often millwork (cabinets), kitchen, pantries, and sometimes even system furniture to be located within the tenant’s leased space are included in B Work too. The old, bitter joke is that if you turn the building upside down and shake it, everything that doesn’t fall off is either A or B Work. Not a lot left.

B Work too is almost always performed by the Owner/Landlord’s designated contractor(s), often the same ones that constructed the building originally, at highly inflated prices. You won’t see it as line item in the B Work contractor’s cost estimate, but the Owner’s and management company’s hefty cuts are included.

Here is a critical point to grasp: Competitive bidding is not an option for B Work. Your company’s strict procurement rules will therefore be irrelevant, so best to get your procurement department on-board early. But don’t worry, this isn’t the only standard “carved-in-stone” rule your company will need to adapt.

The Tenant normally signs a construction contract directly with the designated B Work contractor(s) but has very little leverage to control construction costs. The Owner/Landlord has no motivation to see these construction costs reduced, you see, and so will not aid you in reducing them. Do you see where this is going?

C Work

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The third type of Work we will discuss in this article is called “C Work.” It includes everything the Tenant wants constructed besides A Work and B Work, including carpet tiles, Audio-visual equipment, IT cabling and servers, Telecom, UPS, security systems (card readers, security sensors and cameras inside tenant spaces) millwork (sometimes), specialty lighting and sound systems, AV systems, and loose furniture. Usually system furniture too, but not always.

Sometimes C Work includes interior partitions, such as glass or metal partitions, that are installed between the OA floor and the ceiling and do not connect directly with the floor slab or overhead structure. This item is often a good opportunity to save costs and is worth negotiating thoroughly before signing any lease. More on this in the “Demarcation Table” section below.

Unlike A and B Work, a Tenant can directly perform C Work using qualified licensed contractors they select. Bidding is entirely possible and construction costs are typically at market prices much less than A Work and B Work, so compared to A Work and B Work, cost savings can be realized.

On the other hand, if you are in a dreadful hurry and/or can’t be bothered to deal with producing drawings and hiring contractors, then asking the B Work contractor to execute your C Work design/build is an excellent, but expensive way to simplify and expedite the process.

You will want to prepare well and plan your lease negotiation schedule to take advantage of the local knowledge your PM team possesses to move as much of A Work and B Work into the C Work column of the Demarcation Table as possible.

The Demarcation Table

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As you probably deduced from my vague definitions of A, B and C Work above, the limits of each type of construction work vary from city to city, landlord to landlord, and from building to building. Sometimes they are negotiable, sometimes not.

The “Demarcation Table,” or more correctly “Construction Work Demarcation Table” 工事区分表 is a document that becomes part of the lease agreement and lists the items of construction work included in A, B, and C Work. As the Tenant, you or your agent must negotiate this document along with the lease.

Careless people sometimes leave this discussion for after the lease agreement, but a wise Tenant will know before beginning negotiations what construction work they will need, what concessions they want, and the likely unit prices they will be charged for construction so that negotiations will go smoothly, the best deal can be obtained, and buyer’s remorse can be avoided.

Having a knowledgeable leasing agent and Project Management team on your side during this critical process will make the process quicker and the results more economical.

Allow me to share a few examples of how to handle the Demarcation Table to your benefit during Lease Agreement negotiations.

For instance, the Landlord may not be willing to discount your lease as much as you like, but if you are prepared in-advance, you may be able to convince him to tweak the demarcation table so some expensive construction items, and/or items you want your contractor to perform, are shifted from B Work to C Work allowing you more control at less cost.

Or perhaps you need to install a backup generator to service your IT system. You will need space to install it, and provisions for a fuel tank, fuel lines, and exhaust and cable shafts/ducts. If you negotiate carefully and early, you may be able to get the space for free, or at a discount. After the lease is signed, however, fat chance.

After they perform their electrical load calculations, some tenants are surprised to learn that, while the building overall has adequate power for their needs as confirmed during due diligence, they will need to install a transformer or three to step the power up or down or change the phasing to meet their power requirements. Labs, cleanrooms, kitchens, and video studios, for example, use a lot of juice.

Transformers often must be mounted outside, perhaps on a balcony or more likely on the building’s roof. Transformers, switchgear and electrical panels are definitely “long-lead items” that take months to fabricate/procure, as are the steel electrical cabinets to house them. If you know you will need this equipment you can adjust your schedule and budget early, and negotiate concessions from the landlord for space, and access. But if you wait until the lease is already signed, your leverage will be gone, baby, gone.

Why does all this matter, you ask? It matters because once you sign the lease, you are committed and have no choice but to pay whatever price the Landlord and his contractor want to charge you for A Work and B Work, and comply with their schedule. There are ways to minimize the pain, but on your own you won’t have the relationships, the data, the local experience, or the language skills to make meaningful headway. Conversely, you most definitely will have the ability to increase the costs of A Work and B Work by creating hard feelings with the Landlord through confrontational Trumpian-style negotiation techniques.

Don’t push or allow your real estate leasing representative to negotiate your lease in a rude, condescending, or pushy manner because, if he does, the Landlord will make you pay for it ten times over later in cashy money.

There are many other details related to A work, B Work and C Work you need to identify through due diligence, engineering consultation, cost estimating, scheduling and negotiations. Experience in the locale and possessing good relations with the Landlord, contractors and consultants are critical. You will need a good Project Manager with local experience to ensure this work gets done quickly and completely, unless, that is, you enjoy explaining budget overruns, schedule delays, and inadequate facilities to your boss or board of directors.

Building Permits

In many countries, the process of obtaining building permits/approvals is a huge uncertainty, and sometimes a crap-shoot that delays schedules and wastes huge amounts of time and money. In Japan’s metropolitan areas, however, building permits are typically not required for tenant inprovements. There typically aren’t even any inspections by the building department.

The one sure exception to this general rule is the Fire Department, who will need to review the fire sprinkler and other fire/life-safety drawings the B Work contractor will prepare and submit to the Fire Department. The Fire Department will also insist on inspecting the building at the completion of construction, but before occupation. This is a “hard stop” to construction that cannot be avoided, and sometimes consumes a week or more. Careful preparation by a respected B Work contractor can accelerate this process.

As the Tenant, you have no role in this process other than to stay out of the way.

If your legal beagles get their panties in a knot out of concern about potential non-compliance of the Work with local codes and regulations, tell them to take a handful of Xanax with a cold brew and just chill because the general contractor has full legal responsibility for defective and/or non-compliant work. I have never seen permits or approvals become a problem.

You would be wise, however, to have your Project Management team in Japan perform regular inspections and report to you until the construction is complete and the project receives occupancy permission from the Fire Department.

In the next post in this series we will examine the design process for a tenant fit-out project in Japan.

YMHOS

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If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the form located immediately below titled “Contact Us.” Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, incompetent facebook, thuggish Twitter, or a driver for a US Congressman and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

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The Three Options

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Plum Blossoms and Three Cranes, by Ito Jakuchu (1716~1800). The Japanese crane is a beautiful bird with a red cap. Apparently the birds illustrated in this example of classical Japanese art are looking in three different locations for a mislaid tool, probably a tape measure. No pockets or belts to clip anything to, you know, so they are forever mislaying things!

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

Well done is better than well said.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Purchasing woodworking cutting tools long-distance based only on pictures, what you read online, and retailer’s vague descriptions can be confusing and frustrating. And squawking BS meters are not reassuring.

In this post, with Gentle Reader’s kind indulgence, your most humble and obedient servant will share some insight to help Gentle Reader avoid the most common mistakes.

If the following is obvious please do not be offended. I am confident our discerning and intelligent Gentle Readers will discover somewhere in this post what is called in Japan a “stork in a rubbish dump 掃き溜めに鶴,” which perhaps translates better to a “Jewel in a garbage pile.” I trust there are more jewels than rubbish to be found in this article.

Risks & Psychology

At C&S Tools we understand the risks and stresses inherent in long-distant purchases. After all, not much can be discerned about a cutting-tool’s quality or performance from online photos and retailer’s product descriptions alone. We believe the best way to reduce uncertainty, alleviate customer’s concerns and calm BS alarms is to treat customers the way we want to be treated.

The difficulty faced by the consumer in assessing the quality of woodworking blades based on photos and generic descriptions alone, combined with the curiously short-sighted tendency of many consumers nowadays to demand lowest possible price without considering the consequences to quality and performance, has created a strange psychological syndrome we call “Chinese Logic.”

The mental mathematics those inflicted with this disease feverishly and endlessly reiterate goes something like this: “Product A looks identical to Product B in the photos, but B is 1/3 the price, so B must be better.” Makes perfect sense, right?

In our professional experience, most corporate procurement processes, as well as those of many private individuals, wallow ass-up in this shallow logic, but whether corporate or private, construction or real estate, the results are almost always stinky and embarrassing.

But wait a minute, as Lieutenant Columbo always mumbles, could Chinese Logic be valid? After all, we live in a Wally World where most products readily available to the consumer are labeled “Made in China,” so let’s follow the math a little further. Given a choice between Turd A, sorry, I mean Product A, made in an unnamed automotive bumper factory located in Southern Guangzhou by untrained farmers (not blacksmiths), and Product B, made in a mystery manufactory located just outside Shanghai where untrained farmer’s wives (not blacksmiths) normally sew decorative cushions with embroidered images of darling kittens, puppies, and ducklings, the only discernible differences between the two products will be their outward appearance in photos, and price. Tragically, real physical quality is seldom included in these calculations, leaving the consumer with only perceived quality rattling around noisily inside his head, cushioned by smelly patties of marketing BS, of course.

If the consumer doesn’t care about performance and intends to use, toss and replace said turd, sorry, I mean “product,” in a short time anyway, no big deal. But given time and enough repetition could this experience have a Pavlovian doggie drool effect on consumer’s buying habits and maybe even their psychology? You bet your sweet bippy it could.

Of course I’m safe from such mind conditioning because of my most excellent tinfoil cap with its projecting curly copper wires and red fringe (I’ve added a groovy red ball fringe recently to confuse those pesky alien drones that follow me everywhere), but I worry about thee. >~(ツ)~<

When, however, the desired product is not a pretty polyester pillow embroidered with adorable yellow ducklings, but a decidedly un-cuddly cutting tool such as a chisel or plane blade, the wise man will immediately realize that, if the choice before him is either Turd A or Turd B, he needs to find better options, none of which will involve car bumpers, embroidered pillows or Chicom ordure. The fact that Gentle Reader is bothering to read this article is clear evidence of his superior intelligence and grasp of these principles (ツ)。

BTW, none of our products or their component parts are made in China. Indeed, everything from the steel in the blades to the wood in the handles and blocks, and even the hoops are made in Japan by Japanese craftsmen. Everything. No exceptions.

Assess the Retailer

Sorry to digress. I almost fell off my soapbox and kinked some wires on my most excellent hat! (ツ)

The real-world performance of a woodworking blade depends little on outward appearance, and not at all on cheap talk or even pretty pictures, but almost entirely on the crystalline properties of the steel that makes up the blade, properties resulting directly from the skill of the blacksmith (or factory in the case of most other retailers) in forging the blade and heat-treating the steel, properties that can be confirmed only through actual use. So it’s no wonder people have a hard time telling jewels from rubbish.

A few of the practical difficulties we must overcome when attempting to buy quality woodworking cutting tools long-distance include the following:

  1. It is impossible to judge the crystalline quality of steel and the quality of a blade lamination in tools from photos on websites or in catalogs alone;
  2. It is impossible to judge the crystalline quality of steel by simply holding a tool; One must actually use it hard and sharpen it a few times;
  3. Many marketing claims are unreliable because, even if they are not fantastically optimistic misrepresentations spun to increase profits, they are written by shopkeepers and/or people in marketing departments that have never used a blade except to maybe cut a sandwich or open a box of printer paper. They couldn’t accurately discern the quality of steel in a chisel even if they sat on it… For a long time… And wiggled around. So as a wise consumer we must assess the veracity of the retailer’s claims for ourselves.
  4. Most online retailers offer no real warranty, and even if they do, the customer ends up paying all the costs required to benefit from it, an expensive proposition internationally. When considering any purchase, much less a long-distance one, wisdom urges us to select a retailer willing to repair or replace defective tools. And we need him to pay the shipping costs should his tool prove to be at-fault.

If we can’t reliably assess the quality and/or value of woodworking tools long-distance, the next-best option is to assess the seller and his warranty. Here’s a few common-sense suggestions:

Read the retailer’s product description and information carefully and ask questions. Beware of retailers who provide only sketchy information lacking details and who won’t or can’t answer your pertinent questions, for there’s usually a reason they can’t or won’t beyond being too busy making money to provide proper customer service.

Understand the source of the information being provided. There are exceptions, of course, but most websites selling tools take a blurb from the wholesaler’s or distributor’s marketing people, dress it in a short skirt and high heels, and trot it out curbside. Sometimes they trip on those heels exposing their spotty unmentionables. How embarrassing! Often the information they put out has a peculiar odor you can detect if you pay attention. We recommend you look for first-hand, accurate information from knowledgeable, experienced, responsible people without hairy legs wobbling on high heels, spotted undies, or BO, instead of the clickbait guys on BoobTube bragging in their ignorance.

Understand the retailer’s practical experience with the tools, because this will help you assess the veracity of his claims. Does the fella selling the tools or the person recommending a particular tool or brand of tool to you have personal experience with that tool or brand, or are they just an e-commerce puke parroting claims by a wholesaler or distributor who, like him, has no direct experience beyond marketing, and maybe sitting on, chisels or planes?

Here are some questions you might ask: Have they cut mortises with the chisels they sell? Have they planed beams with the handplanes they sell? Have they cut kumiko panels with the saws they sell? How many times have they sharpened, by hand, the tools they sell? What angle did they sharpen the blade to? How did the tool perform when it struck a knot? What steel was used? Is the blacksmith an individual craftsman or group of craftsmen with direct responsibility for quality, or just a factory? Most stories cobbled together by marketing czars or e-commerce pukes will begin to rattle apart at this point.

Be Knowledgable. If you don’t have it already, you will need to gain some knowledge on the subject yourself to enable you to ask relevant questions, ascertain the retailer’s level of knowledge and experience, the truth of his claims, and the suitability of his tools to your needs. This means finding and studying valid sources of information.

At C&S Tools we provide reliable information, without smoke and mirrors, to help buyers make wise decisions. For free. We reveal who we are and what our experience is. We have used similar tools as a woodworking professional for many years, purchase and physically stock the tools we carry with our own money (no gifts or freebies) and have personally tested them to destruction, so we can share valid, useful opinions. We will provide details and helpful guidance instead of the usual corporate silence or marketing department tripe.

Seek relevant recommendations from experienced people who know what they are talking about. Whenever possible seek the advice and recommendations of friends or people you trust who have direct, hands-on experience with the tools sold by the retailer in question, not just some guy sitting in his Mom’s basement trying to justify his own tool purchase and desperate for company in his misery.

Beware of advice from the guy who claims to have decades of experience, but actually bought his first Japanese tool only 3 years ago and has never been paid a dime for using it. Yes, there are too many of those “experts” out there.

Beware the trolls and orcs on the forums. The amount of truly useful information and advice to be found in those roiling, flyblown cesspits is too little to measure.

The experiences and opinions of our customers recorded in our “Testimonials” page may be helpful.

Make sure the retailer provides a valid guarantee, one that won’t cost you money to benefit from. More on that below.

The Warranty

We do our best to follow the ancient principle Benny Franklin puts forth in his saying quoted above: “Well done is better than well said.”

Before you lay down your money, make sure the seller has a real guarantee, not just hot air, for defective materials and workmanship just in case the tool turns out to be more rubbish than jewel. Honoring a warranty of this type internationally can be expensive, in fact ruinous, if the tools are routinely defective, but a responsible retailer selling quality tools should be able to handle it. We believe it’s only fair that most of the expense of making good on the warranty be borne by the retailer, not the customer, a principle that has been called having “skin in the game.” What do you think?

At C&S Tools we offer a full warranty on materials and labor. If the tool is either defective in materials or workmanship, or not what we represented it to be, and on condition that (i) your expectations for hand-forged tools are realistic (perfection is unattainable); and (ii) you have done your job correctly and not abused the tool or failed to maintain it properly, we will either replace or repair the tool or refund the purchase price. If indeed we or the tool are at fault, we will also refund all pre-approved shipping costs. That’s truly the best international warranty in the business, one we put in writing in all our invoices without weasel words, and one we honor.

If you have a problem, simply let us know by email and we will respond. You will not be told to “take a number” from a dispenser that looks like a hand grenade. You will not be ignored.

Free, Useful Information Without Strings

Knowledge is power.

There’s a lot written in plain, mystery-free language in the many pages in this blog to help you learn what you need to know to make wise decisions about Japanese handtools. We encourage you to plug-in to this power; Batteries are not required.

While we’re on the subject of cords, you may have noticed that this blog is unusual in that it has no advertising, and no sponsors, not even promos for video games, home-security systems, or pickle enhancement cream. It produces zero income by itself. Foolish as it seems, we have no SEO strategy. Patreon is a brand of non-stick frying pan, right?

Please also notice the lack of banners and links to e-commerce pages; We most definitely do not have an “internet platform.” We only sell tools to people who want them enough to directly ask for them instead of just clicking virtual buttons because keeping product in-stock is not easy with the dramatic decrease in active blacksmiths nowadays.

If you ask a question, make a comment, or purchase something from us we will never share or sell your information. We hate data miners for they are greasy sneak-thieves.

The Three Options

Let us next directly address the title of this article.

There is an ancient, venerable saying, a version of which goes like this: “You have three options: (1) Beautiful Appearance; (2) High Quality (cutting performance in the case of chisels, planes and saws); and (3) Low Cost. Choose any two.”

The corollary to this saying goes something like this:

  • A wise man may obtain a maximum of two of these three options;
  • Many do well to get one out of three;
  • The careless often get none out of three;
  • The fool believes he got them all.

What are Gentle Reader’ priorities with regard to these three options ?

C&S Tools’ Priorities

Being deeply aware of the importance of these three options in the physical world, we have established priorities and strictly follow measurable standards and specifications for our products, as follows.

We place highest priority on highest-quality materials, skilled hand-forging, and rigorous heat-treatment to ensure the ideal crystalline structures are formed in the blades of our cutting tools and maximum possible performance is always achieved because they are working tools for professional woodworkers. This is absolute.

Reasonable price is a close second priority because they are working tools for professional woodworkers.

Appearance is third because they are working tools for professional woodworkers, not “safe queens” for collectors.

Perfection in anything is unattainable, but the pursuit of it is extremely expensive, I assure you. Indeed, beautiful appearance in hand-forged tools is an attribute your humble servant dearly loves and has spent oodles of cashy money over the years pursuing, but it is a difficult thing to achieve, requiring a well-polished eye, advanced skills, and many hours of expensive handwork with scrapers, files and sandpaper, efforts that contribute nothing to a working tool’s performance and are therefore not critical to the professional woodworker, so we assigned it lowest priority.

To achieve both the target appearance and price, our blacksmiths shape with fire, hammer and grinder and finish with sanders, not scrapers or files. The results look pretty good, but are not up to Ichihiro’s standards of beauty (the chisel at the top of this page is an authentic atsunomi by Ichihiro). Fortunately, the prices are not up to Ichihiro’s standards either, thank goodness.

The wise man will say “two outa three ain’t bad,” but what about the fool?

Let’s next examine a real-world example of someone who thought they were oh so frikin clever.

A Real-world Example

An extremely famous foreign luxury automobile manufacturer built a maintenance facility in Japan 30+ years ago, which they subsequently converted to another, lighter usage.

This building was constructed under the company’s immovable corporate procurement policy of always putting construction projects out to competitive bid, and after bids are formally submitted, but before awarding a contract, relentlessly playing bidder against bidder in negotiations to reduce their bid prices, sometimes even rebidding the project online, effectively negating the concept of competitive bidding, a practice that is patently unfair in the private sector and absolutely illegal in public bidding. As a direct result of this policy, and because producing a bid in Japan can easily cost a bidder $100,000, quality general contractors in Japan now absolutely refuse to bid this company’s projects, leaving only small, 3rd rate contractors with poor capabilities and minimal quality control left as potential bidders.

This automotive company later decided to remodel and modernize their old building, changes placing additional loads on the structural system. Since the building was supposedly originally designed to handle the heavy loads of many moving vehicles on all floors in an area with weak soils and high earthquake forces, it should have had plenty of structural strength in reserve, at least enough to accommodate these minor additional loads, right? Shockingly, a structural check revealed that the building not only had zero reserve strength, but that the original structural design (performed by another lowest bidder) was clearly inadequate. Consequently, what should have been a strong building was actually shockingly weak.

Foolish policies established by dishonest penny pinchers in Europe to unfairly reduce costs forced the company in Japan to hire an incompetent architect and engineer, and a careless contractor 30+ years ago, one with a poor reputation even now, one focused like a laser on getting the job done and receiving final payment with the least possible expenditure of manpower, consequences past the statute of limitations be damned.

The result? Not only were the company’s minor renovation plans frustrated, but the safety of their building in earthquake-prone Japan was revealed to be insufficient, necessitating an expensive and time-consuming structural retrofit ultimately wasting time and money all while placing employees and customers at risk for 30+ years. Talk about unintended consequences.

When originally completed, the building looked beautiful, it seemed high-quality, and the design/construction cost was extremely low, easily satisfying all three of the “options” listed above, or so it seemed.

The moral of the story can be found in the answer to this question: “Was the building’s owner the wise man, the lucky man, or the fool?”

What are your priorities?

YMHOS

https://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/05/a9/a278958c0a4fa7d43e5efe2de64f37c7.jpg
Monkeys and Peach Tree by Ito Jakuchu (1716~1800). In our interpretation, this painting illustrates three potential options: Will sharp-eyed Mother Monkey be able to pull some yummy peaches to within her grasp? Will Father Monkey risk going further out on the limb to help extend her reach? Will hungry Junior Monkey lose patience and leap for the peaches possibly tumbling all three monkeys down the cliff? The “suspense” is killing me. (ツ)

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or thuggish Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie, may there be no graceful storks in my life, only Chinese excreta.

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The Carpenter and the Angel

For a change of pace, I would like to share this charming folktale from Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, of a sort traditionally told to small children.

We originally posted this little story about a year ago, but subsequently some pesky pixies seem to have pulled it down, so we are re-publishing it today for Japan’s Labor Thanksgiving Day holiday and because Tengo was such a great workman (or at least labor producer).

I have included photo extracts from the Kasuga Gongen Genki E (春日権現験記絵) scrolls painted in 1309 on silk using silver and gold paints, showing carpenters working on the Kasuga Shrine jobsite in Nara back in the day.

My children and I enjoyed this story. Perhaps you and yours will too.

The Tale of Tengo and Tenjin

Once upon a time there was a very good carpenter. But he was sad because he lived alone, so he asked the prettiest girl in the village to be his bride.

She did not want to marry, but to put him off without hurting his feelings, she decided to charge him with an impossible task. 

“If you will build me a big house with 60 tatami mats in a single day, then I will marry you.” (60 tatami mats = approx 99 square meters = 1065 sqft based on the standard modern tatami mat) 

The carpenter was shocked by this demand, but because he wanted her for his bride, he boldly accepted the challenge saying: “I will build you this house in one day.” 

His voice rang with confidence as he said this, but he despaired in his heart knowing he could not build such a large and beautiful house in one day. He thought to himself  “ What shall I do, what shall I do?”

But never fear, because as you have probably guessed, our carpenter was no ordinary fellow to give up easily. Before long he came up with a plan.

He made 2,000 dolls out of straw and breathed on each while casting a magical spell transforming them all into human carpenters. 

The carpenter and his 2,000 man crew then went to work.

Images from the “Kasuga Gongen Genki E,” completed in 1309. At the top of this image, the Master Carpenter and his helper use a water trough as a water level for layout. He uses a vertical string of a fixed length with a plumb bob attached to check the high stringline’s height above the water’s surface to adjust the line to be approximately level. At the center-right, A crew of 3 workmen excavate a hole and compact the soil at the intersection of two low stringlines installed by the Master Carpenter in preparation for placing a natural foundation stone, probably intended to support a main post. Notice the shovel: a wooden blade and handle fitted with a joined “T” handle and with a steel or iron cutting edge affixed. Bleeding-edge technology at the time.
The carpenter and his young helper in the drawing’s upper half use a sumitsubo (inkpot) to snap a straight line on a timber in preparation for splitting it into boards. At the lower right, the master carpenter uses his sumitsubo inkline as a plumbline to orient his steel square to vertical against the log’s end. At the same time, he directs his mellow-looking partner at the opposite end to make a matching vertical line using a steel square with a bamboo pen wet with ink from the reservoir of his classic split-tail sumitsubo. Notice how he used an adze to keep the log from rolling away as they fiddle with their squares and inkpots.
The carpenters in the upper right use chisels to split timbers, while the other workers use adzes to dimension and clean split boards. Unusual for ancient Japan, this appears to be an ethnically-diverse crew with one workman apparently being of African persuasion (ツ). Notice the classic carpenter’s toolbox at the far left with a leaf-blade saw secured to the lid and a wooden mallet laying next to it on the ground
At the top of this image you can see two carpenters, one shaping the end of a round column with a spear-plane (yariganna) and another sawing what appears to be a kumimono bracket with a leaf-shaped saw as he jabbers at his buddy a hundred miles an hour. In the center, more carpenters use spear planes to smooth adzed boards and a round column. Notice the wood shavings curling from the curved blades, some being pushed and others pulled. Spear planes were used in Japan long before blade-in-block planes became common. The guy working on the board’s right hand end appears to have his thumb stuck in his eye. I hate it when that happens!
Carpenters erecting a building’s structure in a later century. No ginpoles, hardhats, shoes, or tie-offs are in sight. Probably no hardhats either. And the scaffolding is a death trap! Tisk, tisk! What would OSHA say?
A diagonal view of the coved & coffered ceiling at the family room.
A corner view of the family room coved & coffered ceiling. Notice the coped joints. This work is typically performed by joiners, not carpenters.
Related image
The living room has an even more elegant coved & coffered ceiling with “kumimono” brackets.
The living room’s coved & coffered ceiling in hinoki wood with a carved “rainbow beam” in the foreground. Nice work!

With the assistance of his 2,000 helpers, the the carpenter completed building his bride-to-be’s house before the sun went down that day,

Overjoyed, the carpenter flew to his bride-to-be’s house to tell her of his success. “I have finished the house you asked for. Please marry me now!”

“Truly?” she asked. Upon inspecting the work she found a big, beautiful house with 60 tatami mats, just as she had stipulated. “I will marry you.” she said.

And thus the prettiest girl in the village became the carpenter’s bride.

The carpenter and his bride then moved into their happy new home.

Afterwards, the 2,000 magically-created workers scattered throughout Japan to build houses, temples and bridges and teach many other carpenters how to build beautiful things for many years.

After several happy years had passed, the bride said to her husband “I have been silent up to now, but the time has come to tell you the whole truth. I am not really a human being, but an angel named Tenjin. I came down to earth from the kingdom of heaven. But the time has now come for me to return to heaven.”

The carpenter replied: “Ah, well, now that you mention it, I’m not actually a regular being either, but a carpenter god named Tengo. Let’s both return to heaven together.”

So Tengo and Tenjin rose high into heaven where they still live happily ever after.

The End

YMHOS

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below. Please share your insights and comments with all Gentle Readers by using the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, incompetent facebook, or twitchy Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.

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The Matsui Precision Notched Straightedge

Matsui Precision Bevel-edged Straightedge with notch

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.

Aristophanes

This post is about a tool that looks quite ordinary but is in fact extraordinary in subtle ways.

Why Do Woodworkers Need a Good Straightedge?

When woodworking we need to be able to mark and measure straight lines and examine the precision of edges and surfaces. There are several ways and tools available to accomplish these tasks, but the steel straightedge is efficient and the quickest tool in the case of shorter distances, assuming one’s straightedge is up to the job.

For most woodworking tasks we don’t need a precision straightedge. But for those few activities where it is necessary, nothing can take its place. So what are some of those activities? I can suggest a few from my experience:

  1. I use a precision straightedge as a “Standard” to check that my working straightedges and squares (the ones that are used and abused daily) are truly straight and square. This is necessary because, during use, Murphy governs all operations, while pernicious Iron Pixies dance among the piles of dandruff on his shoulders. Due to their malicious ministrations, measuring and marking tools are easily damaged, wear-out, and lose tolerance so I need a reliable “Standard” to check them against regularly. Of course, you can’t check for straight or square unless you have a truly straight line/surface to index from. It would be silly to imagine that the edge of one’s tablesaw top or jointer table are perfectly straight without first checking it against a reliable standard;
  2. I use a precision straightedge to examine the soles of my handplanes to help me keep them straight, flat and free of wind because it’s very difficult to plane a flat surface with a screwy plane. No matter how much time I invest in truing my planes, I’ve found the results are never better than the straightedge I use.
  3. Check that lapping plates and the float-glass plate I use for truing stones and plane soles remain within tolerances. Yes, they wear out too.
  4. Check that the tables of stationary equipment such as tablesaws, bandsaws, jointers, and planers are true, and that infeed/outfeed soles of handheld electrical planers are properly aligned;
  5. Check that surfaces of wooden components of special projects requiring extra precision are true.

Do you ever need to accomplish any of these tasks?

Tasks for Which the Matsui Precision Straightedge is Not Ideally Suited

The Matsui Precision Straightedge is not an expensive tool, but since it is one I rely on, it is most cost-effective to protect it from premature wear and damage, so the following are tasks for which I use a less-expensive and less-protected “working straightedge” instead of my Matsui precision straightedge:

  1. I don’t use it for checking sharpening stones. The Matsui straightedge can do this job with style, but after a few years of being pressed against (and dragged over) abrasive stones, the tool’s precision would be degraded. Better to use a less-expensive straightedge for this job, and check it occasionally against the Matsui Precision Straightedge to confirm it’s still straight. If it isn’t, fix or replace it.
  2. I don’t use it for daily general woodworking tasks. Once again, the Matsui straightedge can do general jobs with style, but after a few years of being pressed against (and dragged over) wooden surfaces, the tool’s precision would become degraded prematurely. Instead I use a “working straightedge” that has been checked against my “Standard” Matsui Precision straightedge;

How To Use a Precision Straightedge for Checking Tools and Surfaces

Neither the human hand nor eye can measure a straight line or a true plane with any precision unaided, but there is one technique older than the pyramids all woodworkers must be proficient at, namely to place a truly straight, simple straightedge on-edge on a surface to be checked, be it a board, a jointer outfeed table, or the sole of a plane, and shine a light source at the gap between the straightedge and the surface being examined. If gaps exist, light will pass between the edge of the thin straightedge and the surface being checked confirming the surface is not straight and/or flat. The human eye can detect even a small amount of light this way and both quickly and effectively judge how flat the surface being checked is with a surprising degree of accuracy.

Feeler Gauge

Another technique that yields more precise values without relying on Mark1 Eyeball is to place the straightedge’s beveled edge against the surface to be checked, and insert feeler gauges into gaps between the straightedge and the surface. If the feeler gauge selected won’t fit, then one replaces it with thinner gauges until one that just fits is found.

Once you know the value of the gap between your straightedge and the area of the board you need to true, for instance, you can divide the measured thickness of the shaving your planes takes in a single pass (easily checked with a caliper) to calculate how many passes it will take to true the high-spots on a board, thereby eliminating a lot of the guesswork that makes precise woodworking difficult at times.

To reliably perform these checks, we need a truly straight straightedge. Straight is a relative thing, but straightedges sold for woodworking are seldom straight because purveyors rely on purchasers to not bother, or even know how, to check the quality and precision of the straightedges they sell.

Another reason honest, precision straightedges are relatively rare among woodworking tool collections is that making a high-tolerance piece of hardened steel that is straight, and will stay that way, is hard work that most woodworkers are neither inclined to appreciate nor bother to check, much less pay for. Is ignorance bliss? I believe it is in the exalted natures of our Gentle Readers to always strive to improve the quality and efficiency of their work. A high-quality precision straightedge is an essential tool in undertaking that blissful quest.

Challenges & Solutions

The dilemma of the straightedge is that it must be thick and rigid enough to prevent warping and flopping around in-use, but reasonably lightweight and not too bulky, otherwise it will be clumsy. At the same time, it must not be so thick as to block out most of the light passing between its edge and work-piece making it useless.

Another challenge the straightedge faces is the constant threat of damage. If the delicate edge is too soft, it will become dinged and deformed instantly becoming inaccurate. And if the straightedge rusts (the bane of all steel), precision will suffer.

What are the viable solutions? They are obvious and proven, but seldom implemented well. Here is how Matsui Precision does it.

1. Stainless Steel Construction

First, they use high-quality stainless steel to prevent corrosion. If you work in humid conditions or if you will admit to perspiring salt-laden moisture at times, then this is important, but not rare.

2. Properly-sized, Precision-ground & Polished

This straightedge is not an insignificant piece of stainless steel. It is available in various lengths, but in the case of the Matsui’s 400mm straightedge (a handy, reasonably-priced length), the blade is 34mm wide and 3mm thick, enough to keep the blade rigid in use and prevent warping, but not so wide or thick as to feel heavy or clumsy. It weighs 320gm (11 ounces), a nice, and unusual, balance of rigidity and weight.

In many countries, thick and heavy are viewed as hallmarks of quality. The Japanese people of course, value quality highly, but where they differ is a strong dislike of needlessly heavy, clunky tools, seeing the extra weight and bulk as signs of inefficient design and careless manufacturing. Their love of slim, compact lightweight tools made efficiently from quality materials permeates Japanese sensibilities.

What is more rare is the fact that Matsui then precision-grinds and precision polishes the stainless steel (not the same thing) so the tool is as straight and flat as machinists require, because this is a tool designed to the higher standards of machinists, not just woodworkers, who are by default typically consigned second-rate tools falsely misrepresented as being “high-precision.”

Hardened & Trued

Matsui also hardens the stainless steel to ensure the tool is rigid and will resist wear and damage over its long useful lifespan.

During heat treating and grinding metal warps slightly. After stress-relieving, Matsui inspects each tool one-by-one and corrects irregularities or rejects those that cannot be sufficiently corrected. It’s called quality control, something that never happens in China, India, Vietnam, or Cambodia.

Beveled Edge

To make it easy to see light passing between the straightedge and surface being checked, one edge is beveled. The importance of this detail cannot be overstated.

The Notch

The Matsui Precision Straightedge being used to check the sole of a 70mm finish handplane with a blade by Sekikawa-san. The notch fits over the cutting edge so one can check the sole with the blade protruding as it will be in-use. In this photo the blade has been extended waaay too far out of the mouth to make it easy to see the cutting edge. Please notice the light showing between the straightedge and the sole indicating that something is not right. The wedging pressure of forcing the blade to project this ridiculous amount has warped the block so that the most important part of the sole, the area directly in front of the mouth, is not touching. The point is that the notch makes it possible to check the sole with the blade projecting the intended distance, a job simply not possible with an ordinary straightedge.

In the case of the tool we are introducing here, Matsui cuts a small semi-circular notch in the beveled edge of the blade to provide clearance for irregularities in the surface being checked, such as welds, or in the case of woodworking tools, the cutting edges of the blades of handplanes, electrical planers and electrical jointers. This is an important and unique feature.

Why is this notch so useful? The problem with using a metal straightedge to check/true the sole of a handplane has always been that, in order to correctly check for flatness/wind, the blade must be set to project from the plane’s mouth the same amount it will when the plane is being used, because in the case of Japanese planes the wedge-shaped blade applies slightly different pressures on the wooden block at different depths in the block, producing variable degrees of deflection.

But if the blade is projecting from the mouth the same amount it will when in use, then the straightedge will ride on top of the cutting edge preventing a proper examination, and at the same time, will possibly dull the blade and gouge the straightedge. The solution has always been to adjust the blade to not actually project, but to be just in-line with the sole, a fiddly process that has resulted in many dulled blades, scratched straightedges, and inaccurate examinations. Don’t ask me how I know this (シ)

With the elegant Matsui Precision straightedge, however, the notch fits directly over the projecting blade avoiding the irritating and time-wasting fiddling normally required to get the blade in the exact position, one that often yields an imperfect reading.

If you need to maintain handplanes, electrical woodworking tools, or do precision woodworking and need an accurate, reliable, lightweight, durable, reasonably-priced straightedge to help take the guesswork out of these jobs, this product is just what you need. I have been using one for years and couldn’t get by without it.

If you are interested, send us a message using the form below.

YMHOS

Links to Articles About Other Matsui Precision Tools:

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone by using the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or thuggish Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may I never be see a straight line again.

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