An old-fashioned adjustable chamfer plane. It lacks the convenient screw adjusters of the modern version, but it does a fine job nonetheless.
The edge separates the average from the exceptional.
Anon
In this installment in our series of articles about Japanese handplanes, your most humble and obedient servant would like to present one of the most useful woodworking tools of Japan, the adjustable chamfer plane.
Terminology
In Japanese this handplane is called a kadomenganna, written 角面鉋 in Chinese characters. “角Kado” means “corner,” “面 men” means “surface,” and “鉋 ganna” is a tweaked pronunciation of “kanna” which means “handplane.” Since it’s mainly used to cut 45˚chamfers on the 90˚ corners and edges of wooden objects, and being fully adjustable, I choose to call it an “adjustable chamfer plane” in English. I beg Gentle Reader’s kind undulgence.
Side view of a standard kakumenganna chamfer plane.
Top view of a new kakumenganna chamfer plane. Of course, the 2 Chinese characters stamped on its leg read, top to bottom, “kadomen.” This version has a slightly skewed blade to reduce tearout. The blade and chipbreaker are mounted in a movable block connected to the right and left legs by a tongue and groove joint forming what I call a “carriage.” These two legs serve as fences which can can be opened or closed, using the bolts and nuts seen, to adjust the gap which determines the width of the chamfer to be cut. You can see two graduated brass bars inlet into the legs to help with alignment and in judging the gap.
Components
Your humble servant’s old and well-used chamfer plane. The block which houses the blade is located to the left of the image with two fences I call legs in the middle. Together these form a “carriage.” The horizontal line in the center of both legs was cut by the blade as I shifted the carriage right and left.A side view of the block (left), the underside of the legs (center), and back of the blade (lower right). The cedar block (upper right) is used to adjust the block and remove the blade in combination with a smallish wooden mallet.You can see the brass mouth reinforcement inlet into the sole of the block. This is very important for a chamfer plane that will see heavy use shaping various materials. Although it has become dim over the years, the line drawn across the legs indicate the position of the blade, an important point to watch for when starting and stopping some cuts.
I’m sharing these photos of my old plane as a practical example. When new, the edge of the blade’s head had a sharp burr which I filed down for comfort. This is a type of plane that does not take ham-handed abuse from fools well. Please note that, unlike most such planes used by less knowledgeable folk, the head of the blade is not mushroomed and the blade’s face is not dinged. Why? I have never struck this plane, purchased in 2009, with a steel hammer, not even once. For the same reason the wooden parts, while discolored and less-than-perfect through much use, exhibit none of the deformation, cracking, splitting, chipping and denting planes adjusted using steel hammers always do. This is the fruit of wisdom shared with me by an ancient plane maker on Shikoku island far back in the mists of time (ツ). Rejoice! You and your planes are now free of the chains of ignorance.
The modern Japanese chamfer plane, which is the only type we currently carry, is comprised of a small block of white oak housing a relatively narrow laminated steel blade as well as a chipbreaker.
This block (aka “dai” 台 in Japanese) fits into a “carriage” comprised of two sticks of white oak joined by steel and brass nuts and bolts held in place by captured wing nuts. The block fits tightly into grooves cut into the carriage so the user can shift the block and its blade right or left as necessary to either accommodate the required width of cut, or to expose a sharp portion of the blade when one portion becomes dull.
The width of cut can be quickly adjusted from zero to 24mm wide by rotating the two wing nuts smoothly opening or closing the gap between the two legs of the carriage. Eazy peazy Japaneezy.
The most common variety of chamfer plane has a blade inlet into the block with its mouth oriented 90˚ to the direction of travel. The next most common variety has a blade that is slightly skewed to produce a smoother cut with less tearout. We carry both types.
Standard chamfer plane (left) and skewed chamfer plane (right).
Uses for the Chamfer Plane
Japanese chamfer planes are essentially molding planes with two mutually adjustable fences used to produce chamfered edge treatments on wooden objects. Molding handplanes typically have blades ground to specific profiles intended to plane the edges and corners of wooden objects. Some produce purely decorative, curved shapes such as the Roman ogee, while others produce functional and/or structural edges such as tongue and groove joints.
But 45˚chamfer planes have a simple straight blade intended to produce a flat surface at 45˚ to the adjacent faces of the board. However, some varieties are used to cut chamfered surfaces at various angles.
The ancient, attractive and functional lambs tongue chamfer stop use in wood, stone and ivory.
Once cut this 45˚ chamfer is often left as-is in many projects and especially structural wood members as a finished surface. It tends to make make the board, beam or column look more refined. It also prevents the corners from being easily chipped or torn off, a safety feature in some cases. A hard 90˚ corner in exposed wood is seldom durable and given time and abuse often becomes ouchy.
Nowadays the electric router has sadly replaced practically all molding planes, and although I haven’t used an electric router in 15 years or so, I won’t deny they are very useful tools even if they are ultimately more expensive, destroy the user’s inner peace along with their hearing, fills their lungs with dust, chews their fingers, leaves unsightly ripple marks on the wood, and goes through expensive bits like Homer Simpson does donuts… mmmm donuts.
But routers are not all evil, for they do have the advantage of being able to treat the inside surfaces of curved edge whereas the plane under consideration can only do straight edges and outside curved surfaces. Of course, it’s possible to make chamfer planes that cut inside curved surfaces like those used by coopers (barrel makers).
The Joinery Chamfer Plane
An old but unused chamfer plane for kumiko and cabinet sash with wooden adjustment screws.
Chamfers cut on standard kumiko. Being much less than 45˚, this angle gives the kumiko a refined appearance.Even thinner kumiko with yet a different chamfer angle. Assembly of such continuous kumiko can be challenging.
As mentioned above there are a very few varieties of specialty chamfer planes long used in joinery to produce different angles. Why angles other than 45˚ you say? Ah, perspicacious as always. Well, a simple 45˚ chamfer sheds dust and water well, but in the case of windows, doors and shoji, for example, it removes too much wood weakening mullions and kumiko to the point of structural frailty, and often appears less refined to boot. Sadly, these are no longer being made and are hard to find.
Advantages
As I suggested above, the chamfer plane produces lots of of fragrant shavings but little unhealthy dust. It won’t make your fingers bleed, and won’t grab your clothes.
Indeed, I can still remember the night I was working late on a custom door using a 15amp 1/2″ collet electrical plunge router with a long 3/4″ Ø carbide bit to cut deep mortises. This was before the days of automatic mechanisms to stop the spinning mass of copper and steel that is the armature when the power switch is released. Suddenly, out of pure evil malice, the howling beast grabbed my loose soccer jersey nearly chewing a hole in my chest! Ah, good times!
The chamfer plane works slower than a router, but it won’t gouge your work if you loose concentration for a second, it won’t make burn marks on your boards, or cause She Who Must Be Obeyed to lob complaints about racket and dust at you like barbed arrows smeared with toxic tree frog goop. To the contrary, it’s an efficient, well-behaved, forgiving, even gentle tool, one that produces a flat, sometimes even shiny surface with perfectly crisp edges on wood instead of the burnt and pounded washboard surfaces violent routers often inflict.
Another advantage to the Japanese chamfer plane is its relative light weight and small bulk, compared to the bulky, clunky, mind-numbing electrical equivalent. Much easier to store in the toolbox or work apron. And of course, being a simpler and more honest tool, it’s much less likely to be commandeered by Murphy’s painful pointy purple pecker to wreak death and destruction.
And of course, while its blade does need to be sharpened occasionally, the chamfer plane will provide many decades of continuous service without having to purchase a single nasty spinning bit from the CCP.
While it incorporates a couple of bolts, it has no cord and needs neither piggish chargers, nor poisonous batteries. It is a tool in total denial of the principles of planned obsolescence, predetermined service life, corporate profitability and hidden environmental destruction advocated by the high priests of profit at the Harvard School of Business and Monkey Butts. One might even say it’s a pragmatically contrarian tool. But whatever you choose to call it, I call mine a faithful servant, indeed, a friend.
How to Adjust
Adjusting the width of the chamfer is accomplished by first loosening the two wing nuts on the bolts. If increasing the width of cut, continue to spin the wingnuts out. Then once the gap between the legs is the right width, set the locknuts to the right position, check that the legs are parallel either by using a caliper to measure the distance between the legs at the front and rear of the carriage, and lock the legs in place using the wingnuts.
These planes have graduated brass indicators inlaid across the front legs and another across the rear sides of the carriage that are useful for rough use, but should not be relied on for precise settings.
Alternately, you can rest the plane on the corner of the board and examine the gap between the legs and board. If a significant gap exists, simple adjust the wing nuts until it closes.
When considering the purchase of a chamfer plane, be sure it has a brass plate inlaid in front of the mouth to prevent wear at this high-pressure area.
When you receive your chamfer plane, the block should fit tightly into it’s carriage. This will loosen with use, or applying a bit of oil or wax on the tongues of the block will help. Worse case, use a metal file and a bit of 220grit sandpaper to lightly adjust the width of the tongue.
When removing the block from the carriage, please do not use a steel hammer to strike the block. A wooden mallet works well, but holding a small block of softwood, like the one shown in the photo above, as a cushion between hammer/mallet and plane is best.
A Professional Technique
Quite frequently we need to cut a stopped chamfer, whether it’s for a lambs tongue chamfer detail or where stile meets rail in joinery. In any case, when we need to judge exactly where the blade of our planes starts and stops a cut, it helps to make marks on the chamfer plane’s legs indicating the location of the cutting edge, and corresponding pencil marks on the workpiece, to help with starting and stopping chamfer cuts in the right place.
Summary
The Japanese kakumenganna 45˚chamfer plane is a lightweight, compact, safe, healthy, cost efficient, environmentally sustainable and pleasant tool for quickly cutting chamfers in wood without leaving ugly ripples or burn marks on the wood, or ruining our hearing, or filling our lungs with sawdust. I couldn’t work without mine.
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 or the IT manager for HRC’s bathroom server farm, and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may all my chamfers chip and become slivers in my fundament
When God means to punish a man He sends him stupid friends and clever enemies.
Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold
Introduction
Gentle Readers are probably familiar with the modern mass-produced mass-marketed exchangeable-blade handsaws made in Japan. In this first part of a two part series we will briefly examine the history of how these saws came to be, how they are manufactured, and the market forces that made them so popular in Japan and even overseas.
In Part 2, to be published later, your most humble and obedient servant will list pros and cons and share some techniques for improving their performance.
Gentle Reader may already be aware of these saws and even own and use them at work daily, but in this article your humble servant will share details about them not available elsewhere. I pray it proves informative, or at least entertaining.
Terminology
In the Japanese language the type of consumer-grade handsaw I mentioned above with blades that can be removed and reattached to a handle mechanism are called “kaeba nokogiri” (kah/eh/bah nokogiri 替刃鋸) meaning, of course, “exchangeable-blade saw.” From this point forward I will call them “kaeba saws” for brevity. They have entirely replaced traditional forged handsaws in Japan for good and valid reasons, and indeed are popular throughout Asia as well as Western countries too.
So let’s begin this adventure by considering the history of this new version of an old tool that shook the handsaw world like a terrier does a rat.
Historical Background
In the late 1970’s the kaeba handsaw appeared in the Japanese market changing everything.
I’m not sure who first developed the concept, but there’s no doubt it was inspired by the convenient and highly-profitable bits and blades used with powertools. The first automated equipment for making these sawblades was developed by a 150 year old company located in Sanjo, Japan that shifted their traditional saw sharpening business to producing and selling CNC saw sharpening machines. Later, inspired by automated circular-saw blade production techniques, they went on to develop CNC machinery to fabricate handsaw blades in an automated production line.
Production Methods
The manufacturing process begins with materials, of course. The primary material is pre-hardened sheet steel sanded to uniform thickness in rolling mills, and delivered to the blade manufacturer in large, heavy rolls. This product means the blade manufacturer doesn’t have to sort, forge, heat-treat, stress-relieve, or taper-grind the steel. In fact, he couldn’t even if he wanted to.
As this roll of sheet steel is unspooled into the production line, CNC machines cut and deburr the blade blanks, punch the teeth, and shape and sharpen them with special abrasives, after which set is applied by machine. And unlike traditional hand-forged fixed-blade saws, the plates are not forged, taper-ground or heat treated by the saw manufacturer at all. This is an important distinction to those who know saws from shinola.
Some but by no means all such blades are tensioned between two steel rollers in imitation of the techniques used during the manufacture of circular saw blades.
Most kaeba manufacturers induction-harden just the tips of the teeth of some blades for extra durability as the blades are fed between, and instantaneously heated red hot by, electrically-charged copper blocks, then immediately quenched in coolant spray after exiting the induction blocks leaving them a darker oxidized color. These blades cannot be sharpened by hand as the teeth are harder than files.
Handles
Kaeba saw’s handles are sometimes made of wood, sometimes of plastic, and sometimes of rubber over plastic. The blade is secured to the handle by metal mechanical widgets and sometimes screws integral to the handle. The blades can be quickly and easily changed encouraging consumers to do so frequently, but each manufacturer’s blades will fit only their proprietary handle locking the consumer into buying proprietary replacement blades, much like printers and ink/toner cartridges, because as the O’Jays sang on Soul Train, it’s the blade that makes the money, money, money, money, mo-ney, but it’s the handle that drives market share.
And with labor costs to produce such a handsaw a single digit percentage of what’s required for a traditional handsaw, the few manufacturers of kaeba saws find it difficult betimes to wade through the mountains of mad stacks laying about.
With the production technology perfected, compatible materials available, and CNC machinery in the hands of a few manufacturers, it was only a hop skip and a jump to widespread sales of kaeba handsaws, and if I may paraphrase my old carpenter foreman Uglúk, it looks like rats are back on the menu, boys.
Some prefer their rodent roasted on rye with horseradish sauce, but I prefer mine sauteed with a drop o’ Tabasco Sauce, or as Bert suggested, maybe even a floater for delicately piquant flavor! What about you?
The Societal Impacts of Kaeba Handsaws 替刃鋸の波及
I mentioned above that this new type of saw changed everything. Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration because babies still love boobies and politicians graft, but indeed some things changed drastically in Japan.
The first big change the kaeba handsaw wrought was putting nearly all the traditional sawsmiths in Japan out of work in a matter of a few decades. Indeed, the number of sawsmiths still forging traditional saws full-time nowadays can be numbered on the fingers of one hand after a manicure using a tablesaw.
The second domino was the near destruction of the saw handle industry. As the demand for exchangeable-blade handsaws ramped up, the production of traditional handsaws, along with the need for traditional handles, crashed.
You see, exchangeable-blade saws have patented brand-specific wooden handles with integral metal mounting plates/screws/clips to which the specific blade-maker’s replacement blade is attached. The maker of each brand of exchangeable-blade handsaw subcontracts the production of their handle to specific suppliers, and since the producers of handsaws are now few, so are the handle suppliers. Sadly, your humble servant is aware of only one, and occasionally two producers of traditional handles still operating. I believe they still have all their fingers but I’m concerned one gentleman’s liver has seen better days.
Just when it looked like things couldn’t get worse, the third domino fell-over and crushed the saw sharpening trade. While many kaeba saws can be resharpened, some cannot be economically resharpened at all because their teeth are induction-heat-treated to be harder than sawfiles. In fact, while it’s usually a little cheaper to have even a kaeba sawblade professionally sharpened rather than purchasing a replacement, buying a new sawblade and tossing the old one is quicker, more convenient and obviates the need to carry spare saws to a jobsite because thin, lightweight replacement sawblades will suffice. In any case the jobs of saw sharpeners (metateshi meh/tah/teh/she 目立て師), like those of sawsmiths, handlemakers, wheelwrights, and honest climate scientists have been practically eliminated.
The one overarching societal lesson one can take away from this is that technological advances always have and always will engender painful changes in every industry in the world, and the case of the Japanese handsaw industry only confirms that one can either ride the train of technology sipping tea and eating pringles in comfort as it rolls along, or grease the tracks as it runs one over. Just ask the once mighty Eastman Kodak company of camera and film fame if ‘taint so.
A similar progression occurred within the saw manufacturing industry in the West, but instead of the changes stemming from product innovation, the causes were quality adulteration, active neglect of customers needs, and abandonment of unparalled tradition. Welcome to the Harvard School of Business Management’s model of “profit through disruption” in action. I hear they’re looking for a new university president.
An American Handsaw Maker
To this point we’ve taken a shallow look at Japanese handsaws, especially the impact of the kaeba variety on Japanese markets, but highly intelligent Gentle Readers (could there possibly be any other kind? absolutely not!) may wonder how in heck these strange Japanese products managed to make such profound inroads into Western markets, so a few points about a well-known American saw manufacturer may prove instructive.
Gentle Reader may recall that the famous American handsaw manufacturer Henry Disston (1819–1878) was born in England the son of a designer and manufacturer of lace-making machines and immigrated to the USA in 1833 along with his father and sister. His father died three days after stepping off the boat. Tough luck.
Being a determined and diligent young man, Henry apprenticed himself to a saw company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1840 he went independent, and after some lean years building a reputation for quality, he founded the Keystone Saw Works there in 1850. After the American civil war his son Hamilton joined the business and Henry changed the company’s name to Disston & Son, and later to Disston & Sons. At its peak Disston & Sons was the largest and most productive saw manufacturer in the world with 8,000 direct employees working on 300 acres.
At the time he established the Keystone Saw Works, nearly all tool steel used in North America was imported from Great Britain. This was a serious impediment to growth so Henry established the first crucible steel mill of consequence in the Americas to supply steel for his products and to support the war effort, and although other more famous, ruthless individuals falsely took credit for developing steel production in America, they were originally only Henry’s customers. For the next 25 years, the Disstons were among the largest producers of quality tool steel in the world outside England.
Interestingly, American consumers at the time were absolutely convinced that only Birmingham, England could make quality tool steel, so while other American sawmakers imported their steel from England, D&S used their own steel, avoiding the high import tariffs of the time. But to avoid the stigma of being seen as a “colonial product,” for many decades the acid-etched engraving on Disston & Sons’ sawblades included variations of the words “London Spring Steel” intimating that more prestigious British steel was used. Interestingly modern chemical analysis suggests that D&S’s tool steel was at least as high-quality as that imported from Britain at the time.
The first handsaw I owned as a young man was an antique and terribly rusty D&S D-8 thumbhole rip saw missing a handle (but with partial screws) I found languishing in a joint compound bucket in the back of a Las Vegas pawnshop. My penny-pinching carpenter father said it could be restored to be a better saw than I could buy new, and at $3 and a lot of elbow grease, the price was right and so was he. After derusting the blade, making a handle from a piece of scrap walnut, and reworking the teeth several times until I got the nack, that antique D-8 became an excellent handsaw, far superior to the new Disston saws still available at the time. My son owns it now.
A classic 28″ Disston D-8 swayback rip saw with a 2 hand thumbhole stock. Not my rescue saw but close.
The first point I want to make in this section is that by the time I was old enough to want to own a handsaw, the circular saw ruled the construction industry in the West (but not yet in Japan) and most younger carpenters neither owned a decent handsaw nor could care less. As a result of these market changes, the production and sale of handsaws became less profitable, the quality of those available became shamefully degraded, and instead of increasing production efficiency, and/or innovating like Japanese saw companies did, D&S did a double doodoo on quality, then lay down to be eaten by vultures. Other than a few tiny, recently-established boutique backsaw makers, the once-mighty American handsaw industry is now as dead as decency.
My second point is that this shameful degradation and subsequent abandonment of a once huge and profitable American industry fomented despair among Western woodworkers who needed quality handsaws but couldn’t procure them new anymore forcing many, like your humble servant, to haunt flea markets, pawnshops, and later Ebay for old handsaws (including Disston & Sons products) and to even purchase tools imported from Japan back when Japan’s reputation for quality was not as shiny as it is now. These forsaken and “disrupted” woodworkers, hungry for better tools, were the primary reason medium-quality but very sharp Japanese crosscut handsaws first became so popular in the USA. And when Japanese kaeba saws became available later, overseas markets snapped them up like the proverbial duck on a June bug.
FYI, the Disstonian Institute website has some interesting information about Disston & Sons those interested in history may enjoy.
As an aside, I noticed that Disston, now the Chinese holesaw maker, is offering a newer version of the D-8 26″ swayback rip/crosscut handsaw exclusively on Amazon. It looks shiny! The country of manufacture and local content is not listed anywhere, but probably not the USA and definitely not Philly. The video on their website almost made your unworthy servant spew chunky chunks. Consider yourself warned.
Let us next shift our attention back to the kaeba saw and consider the first and most popular such handsaw, as well as some other popular varieties.
Dozuki Kaeba Handsaw
The dozuki handsaw was the first Japanese kaeba saw to become popular overseas, perhaps initially attracting attention because it vaguely resembles the petite “gents” back saws once popular with amateurs. The dozuki is a thin crosscut backsaw (a single-edged handsaw with a steel or brass stiffener attached to its back) that cuts on the pull stroke.
The name is pronounced dough/zoo/key and is comprised of two Chinese characters: “胴” pronounced “dough” meaning “trunk” as in the trunk of a tree or the human torso, and 付き pronounced “zookey,” a verb meaning “to attach or make.” To the best of your humble servant’s understanding most Western woodworkers are unaware of the name’s meaning or the saw’s specialized purpose but nonetheless they use them for everything but spreading jam on toast (marmalade gums up the teeth terribly). The name refers to the job of cross-cutting the shoulders of tenons, but not the cheeks, which is a job for the specialized “ hozohiki” rip saw.
A 210mm dozuki crosscut saw with fine teeth for precision work. The manufacturer calls it a “kumiko” saw after the narrow slats found in traditional decorative joinery such as shoji and ranma. The teeth are not induction hardened. The fit between back and blade is pretty darn good and it makes excellent cuts, but the teeth have too much set for the highest-quality work.
In the case of joinery, furniture, cabinetry, and fine architectural woodwork, well-made mortise and tenon joints are essential to the appearance and even the strength of the finished product. And since the shoulder is the only visible part of most mortise and tenon joints, shoulder appearance is important.
Cutting tenon shoulders in a craftsman-like manner in the Japanese tradition demands not only a good eye, a good saw, and a skilled hand but speed, because the craftsman is expected to saw deftly, precisely and cleanly to the layout line the first time every time, all day long. This differs from the inefficient, amateurish methodology for cutting tenons in cabinetry and joinery as taught by the Holy Masters of Woodworking in the West who lack adequate saws and/or skills and shamefully advocate cutting wide of the layout line and sneaking up on it with chisels and planes. How embarrassing.
A quality dozuki saw is extremely effective at making these cuts. To do so it must be able to make a straight, precise, smooth cut right to a final layout line every time without wandering off into the weeds and without having to use a paring chisel or shoulder plane to obtain a clean, square, straight shoulder. Accordingly, it must have a thin, true plate that won’t produce excess friction, nor buckle, oil-can, or bind as it heats up, and fine, uniform teeth with minimum practical set. It must also have a lightweight but rigid steel back that effectively keeps the blade’s plate true, protects it from buckling, and discourages it from weedy adventures.
Kaeba dozuki saws come in various lengths ranging from 150mm to 240mm. TPI varies with maker. Zetsaw by Okada Industries is my favorite kaeba brand and makes some with induction-hardened teeth that can be made extremely useful with the modifications I will share in Part 2. FYI, your humble servant does not sell Z-saws and has never received free (or even discounted) samples, nor been wined, dined laid or paid to promote them.
Interestingly, even before the development of the exchangeable-blade kaeba saw, the Japanese dozuki saw was used in the West for cutting dovetails, a job which requires occasional crosscuts but frequent rip cuts, something the hozohiki saw does much better. In any case, that Western woodworkers ended up preferring the Japanese dozuki saw for even rip cuts may give Gentle Reader an idea about the comparatively adulterated performance of readily-available Western dovetail saws from the 1970’s onward.
The kaeba concept has been expanded to include useful saws of many shapes and sizes, some of which your humble servant owns and uses, especially when there is a risk of damaging one of his professional-grade fixed-blade handsaws.
Let’s next consider some popular varieties of kaeba saws other than the dozuki and hozohiki.
Kaeba Crosscut/Rip Saws
The best selling Japanese handsaw both domestically and internationally is the standard single-edged (“kataba”) carpenter’s crosscut saw. These come in various lengths, shapes, and with various types of teeth. They are handy in the shop, and I always have one or two of these on hand when working in the field, especially when cutting EWP (engineered wood products) which I refuse to allow my hand-forged saws to even touch no matter how much they wiggle and whine. If you need to cut plywood or other EWP, these saws are a must-have IMHO. More on this subject in Part 2.
A 265mm kataba crosscut saw with hardened teeth by Zeton owned by your humble servant. The blade has seen a lot of abuse and neglect. It has a paulownia wood handle still wrapped in plastic with the pricetag still attached.A 7sun (210mm) crosscut saw by Zeton missing a couple of its induction-hardened teeth. It has a soft paulownia wood handle that has seen better days. Hinoki would have been a better wood in this case.
But the usefulness of kaeba saws is not limited to woodworking and sandwich making only, oh no. I carry a 333mm (13″) kaeba formwork saw with a lightweight plastic pistol-grip handle when hunting because no other tool I know of is so light, so compact, and can cut so much wood so quickly.
A special-use kaeba saw I am fond of, with two of its blades shown. The handle (a Zeton product) is made of fairly lightweight but tough plastic, but its most valuable feature IMO is its short length which makes it fit nicely inside toolbags and backpacks. The 300mm blade, handle, and a wooden scabbard I made to fit, goes in the toolbag I take to jobsites. I have a plastic scabbard for the 333mm saw which I strap to my backpack when camping and hunting. Much lighter and more compact than an axe.
The Silky brand arborist’s saw blades are excellent for this purpose too if you ditch the heavy rubber handle and gaudy scabbard.
Ryouba Double-edged Kaeba Saws
This style of kaeba saw combines a rip saw and a crosscut saw in one exchangeable blade. I own one 270mm kaeba ryouba saw with induction-hardened teeth I like well enough, but I still prefer fixed-blade ryouba saws. I daresay most people can’t tell the difference.
A 270mm ryouba double-edged saw with hardened teeth by Fujiwara intended for interior installation work. The blade retention bar can be seen projecting from the center line of the handle. I’m unsure if this saw is still being producedThe same 270mm ryouba saw disassembled showing handle, blade, and wire retention clip. The two bent tabs at the end of the sprung retention bar fit into the two slots in the blade when assembled.The same 270mm ryouba kaeba saw showing the wire retention clip used to secure the two tabs that lock the blade in-place. Notice the blue-black discoloration of the sawteeth tips typical of induction-hardening.
Saws retailers here in Tokyo tell me that sales of kaeba ryouba saws have dropped off dramatically the last few years probably due to increased prefabrication and LGS metal studs replacing wood and LVL (laminated veneer lumber) framing for interiors such that rip cuts in wood in the field are seldom necessary. I believe this increase in the use of pre-manufactured components is in part due to three inter-related factors: (1) Rising construction costs; and (2) High demand in the construction industry; and (3) An aging workforce resulting in a decrease in available manpower in the construction industry making it difficult to meet customer demand. I fear the current attitude of Japanese women about bearing and raising children will prove disastrous for the nation soon as you can say “Bob’s not your uncle.”
Teflon Coated Blades
Zetsaw sells some of its blades with a PTFE teflon coating which I have found to be very effective in reducing friction and preventing sap from accumulating when cutting some softwoods. Makes a great egg turner too.
An 8sun (235mm) rip saw with hardened teeth and teflon coating by Zeton. This is an exceptionally useful saw.
The Adventure Continues
In the next installment in this operatic series about the funky love of money, fine dining and handsaws we will examine the advantages and disadvantages of kaeba saws compared to traditional fixed-blade saws, and explain simple techniques Gentle Reader can employ to supercharge your kaeba saws.
But in the meantime, since the IMF, EU and UN are on the verge of outlawing backyard vegetable gardens at the same time they are taking by force and sacrificing the land of European farmers on the alter of the religion of “Climate Change,” (how did that work out for Sri Lanka?) all while increasing pressure on others (regular people, but not the bureaucrats/elite) to substitute bugs for meat (I kid thee not), I would appreciate Gentle Reader sharing any tasty recipes you may have for crispy, crunchy low-fat rodent dishes in the comments below. I need to broaden my culinary repertoire in preparation for more societal “disruption,” you see.
YMHOS
I ain’t gonna eat no bugs!
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A 320mm (“shakuni”) bukkiri gagari handsaw with a kiri wood handle resting on your humble and obedient servant’s atedai workbench
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
Winston Churchill
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Vladimir Lenin
Thank you for visiting the C&S Tools Blog! This article will be a show and tell about a couple of unusual saws of a type not well know outside Japan. For that matter, they are no longer common inside Japan.
The Bukkiri Gagari Saw
The three saws pictured in this article are of a type of Japanese handsaw called a “bukkiri gagari.”
Terminology
Let’s begin with the second word in the name, “Gagari,” (gah/gah/rhi) which refers to a larger rip saw intended for rougher work. Usually forged heavier and stiffer than standard handsaws, these were once standard tools in every Japanese carpenter’s toolbox, used for ripping boards and cutting joints in timber frames. The teeth are made large to quickly eat lots of wood, but when properly sharpened, given the right set, and used correctly, they will make smooth cuts indeed.
Your humble servant has only seen the word gagari written using phonetic “hiragana” characters which are derived from Chinese characters but do not have any inherent or historic meaning, so while I can’t guess where the word came from, in exchange for a delicious chocolate chip cookie (with a glass of cold milk, please) I might be so bold as to suggest it came from the rough sound large rip saws make when ripping thinner boards.
Likewise, I’ve never seen the modifying first word, “bukkiri” (book/kee/reeh), written using other than hiragana, but even without a cookie bribe I can guess that “bukkiri” is a modification of the word “bukkiru,” which means to “chop off” something, for instance the head of a fish or an especially-corrupt politician. In this case, I believe it refers to the pointed tang having been chopped off short. So a bukkiri gagari is a larger rip saw with a shortened tang and an angled “shumoku” handle.
The Shumoku Handle
A shumoku mallet for striking small bells
The handle is especially unusual so let’s consider it next. The skewed handles in the photos in this article are called a “shumoku” (shoo/moh/kuh) 撞木 handle.
Shumoku is an interesting word. The Chinese character “Shu” 撞 means bell, while “Moku” 木means wood. In other words, a shumoku is a piece of wood for ringing bells. The image to the right is of a wooden mallet used to strike small tabletop bells during Buddhist ceremonies.
The shumoku in the video at this LINK is a tad larger, being motivated by a group of 17 jolly monks in a bell-ringing ceremony at Chion-in Temple (知恩院, Monastery of Gratitude, Jodoshu-sect) in Kyoto. Said to be the largest bronze bell in Japan, it seems to take a lot of work to make it sing!
I have no clue why this word is used for a saw handle, and those in the industry I’ve asked didn’t either. A mystery. Based on my long years of experience reading and writing in the Japanese language, it seems likely that the woodworkers that made and used this style of handle back in the mists of time gave it a name with a pronunciation similar to shumoku back in the days when few commoners could read or write, and centuries later when the came time to write the word using Chinese characters, someone decided to use the “bell wood” characters just to poke fun at the monks in their funny dresses (ツ).
Despite what those who like to portray the Japanese language as highly cultural and absolutely logical suggest, I can assure Gentle Reader it contains many instances of such strange “assignments,” just another reason why the written language is too often confusing.
Long, straight handles with oval cross-sections are more common in Japan, and certainly better known outside Japan. And the straight handle makes accurate cuts easier because one can readily sense if the blade wanders from a straight line in the cut. But, in some cases, the straight handle has three disadvantages. First, the handle’s length sometimes gets in the way when making long strokes in the tight spaces where carpenters are sometimes required to work, whereas a saw with a shumoku handle is shorter, and is easier to use from various angles, for example, when cutting a tenon or a housed dovetail from under a beam. Second, the straight handle depends on a high-friction grip by both hands to motivate powerfully, whereas the shumoku handle does not. And third, it’s more difficult to use as powerfully as the shumoku handle due to the angle of the user’s hands in-use.
Here’s are a Link to a video of a guitar luthier using a bukkiri gagari saw.
Two Examples of Bukkiri Gagari
The photo above shows two saws: the antique 320mm shakuni (1.2 shaku) bukkiri gagari as well as a longer 355mm “shakusan” (1.3 shaku) bukkiri gagari saw hand-forged and hand-sharpened for your humble servant by Nakaya Takijiro Masayuki, with teeth especially shaped for ripping hardwoods. A most excellent saw.
The shorter saw is over 150 years old, and according to the blacksmith’s hand engraving on the tang, was forged from “Tougo Reigo” steel, aka “Togo steel,” a British product made by the Andrews Steel Works and first imported into Japan by an officer who once served under Admiral Togo in the Japanese Imperial Navy and who borrowed the name of the famous military leader.
It’s a great saw, one your most humble and obedient servant has used frequently since purchasing it at a flea market in IIdabashi Tokyo many decades ago. I like the color it presents, the control it provides, and the compact size, but the teeth are little on the hard side as evidenced by a crack in one tooth. Togo steel is well-known for being on the brittle side.
The shumoku handle attached to the Togo steel saw is one your humble servant made from kiri wood with mulberry wood inserts and a black persimmon retaining wedge. The inserts keep the blade’s tang from wearing out the soft kiri wood, and the wedge makes it easier to remove the handle for transport. It’s fancier than necessary, but I had fun making it. Another way to secure a shumoku handle is with a dovetail wedge inserted from the side, but I don’t like the weaker nature of this style, nor the feel of the wedge in the hand.
Gentle Reader will notice that the straight tang of the shorter saw has been cut off (“bukkiri”) square by the original owner long ago, and that the back of the blade curves away from the cutting edge. This curvature is standard for rip saws.
The longer 355mm saw, by comparison, has a shumoku handle I made from tougher Japanese white oak with a more-or-less rectangular cross-section and is secured by friction alone.
The blade of the Takijiro saw is more-or-less straight, lacking the curve towards the end, and instead of the tang being straight it’s curved downwards in the direction of the teeth. This is not a standard blade converted into a gagari by chopping the tang short, but was planned to accept a shumoku handle from the time it was just a spark glowing in Takijiro’s forge, making it a dedicated, professional rip saw. Takijiro shaped this saw for me after one his master forged for a temple carpenter many decades ago, a craftsman I met at his workshop, and who gave me the opportunity to use, and fall in love with, his saw.
Please don’t tell my other saws I said this because they tend to be anthropomorphically jealous, and while saw cuts seldom make hearts bleed, they can make fingers fly.
Converting a Rip Saw to a Bukkiri Gagari
Gentle Reader can readily convert a standard Japanese rip saw into a bukkiri gagari by cutting the tang short and making a shumoku handle, as is the case of the shorter saw in this article. The longer style saw is not available new, although Takijiro has forged a couple of them over the years for our Most Beloved & Patient Customers.
While this article has been about dedicated rip saws, some craftsmen convert crosscut saws in the same way.
A safety warning is called for here, however, after all, they don’t call it the “nanny state” for nuttin. If you add a shumoku handle to a standard saw blade, be sure to at least cut off the pointy end of the tang. Otherwise, you’re likely to find your chest and/or arm leaking red sticky stuff compromising your color-coordinated woodworking togs, a simply devastating fashion faux pas.
Until we meet again, I have the honor to remain,
YMHOS
A bukkiri gagari rip saw This is one of a matched set of rip/crosscut saws custom-forged by Choujiro (Azuma-san) for a temple carpenter who never picked them up. Notice the curved back peaking towards the end, the golden temper discoloration typical of handsaws made in Eastern Japan, and the old-fashioned forge-welded iron tang. With a toothline length of 330mm and progressive teeth (smaller towards the tang), this is a serious saw for serious work.
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