The 23rd of March was the first international tool sale of the year for me. I traveled up on the Friday morning eventually finding myself in a winter wonderland. Should I snow board or go in search of Japanese tools. Lets do both
Something caught my eye on Bill Carters table umm whats this ,a bronze casting with Japanese tools, about 6inches long and 3inches wide very interesting . It was a shame there was know story behind the this lovely bronze.
Here's Bills stamps that he put on a boxwood mallet. What an interesting ,original idea.
This is the top.
What a beauty
He does come up with some great ideas.
And here is one last picture for Berin.
I asked around my friends and it was not long before I heard the cry,
Andy I have something for you.
Just the job for conditioning the soles of my Kanna, a scraper plane or in English Tachi-Ba-Kanna ( standing blade plane ) but I like to call it a Dai-Naoshi-Kanna.
Heres the blade
It does upset me how many blades I come across that have been badly sharpened ,which is only rectified by sending back to Japan.
I recognize this stamp and have seen it before ,can anyone help ?.
Next came this little fella.
These bench stops are great for planing Japanese style.
Made in ebony with no sub blade ( Uragane ).
And there's a shaving after a quick sharpen on the stones.
What do you think this is going to be used for ?,or do you know what it is ?.
Well its a bearing scraper and i'm going to try and use it for de-burring Japanese saws after they have been sharpened.
Here is Master Nagatsu-san de-burring a saw after sharpening.
and heres a close up of the knife type tool.
This tool I use for scraping the bottom of my Kanna.
This other bearing scrapers I will use for fitting the kanna blades into the wooden dai.
Thanks for reading and please leave questions or comments part 2 to follow as soon as I have more time.
Andy Ryalls
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Andy, I enjoyed reading this post, as two things of interest to me: Stamps and the name-stamping of your work; and also the 'bearing scraper'. That was a revelation to me, as since I'd acquired my father's best buddy's workshop machinery and tools (who's sadly passed away) there are a handful of tools I just can't work out. Your bearing scraper is one of them :) I was really scratching my head over it. Well, now I know what it is! I'm sure that you'd be interested in some of the tools and machinery he left, as he was a true craftsmen, both in woodworking and metalworking: Wrote, photographed and had published, some practical woodworking and metalworking books; and he designed and made various classroom projects, including standing steam and traction engines. He even made his own tools, such as those required when performing certain tasks on metal. The metalworking lathe he built even bears his name and the year he made it, into the castings. Washing machine motors were adapted and geared with appropriate flywheels to set the speeds needed for the thicknesser/planer, disc and belt sanders, not to mention circular saw unit.
ReplyDeleteI just wish I'd learned more from him than I did when he taught me at secondary school (yes, although my father's best buddy, he was also my metalwork teacher too). It's going to take a few years work and training on his tools and machinery to really become familiar with his workshop aids. I feel that meeting and sharing ideas at your meeting, will greatly help in this endeavour.
Thanks Andy!
Hey there, this is probably a bit late but I thought I'd comment for future visitors. The dai-naoshi kanna you have there was made by a company called Tomoe Mokkou, or "Tomoe Woodworking". They are out of business now I think but they specialised in making small planes and speciality planes. They aren't the best in quality out there but they are solid performers. They were pretty common and I've read a few reports from Japanese users who are happy with their products. I have a set of kiwa kanna from them and they do the job. They do need some work to produce fine work though. My blades were not very flat so I had to do quite a bit of grinding to get them to be flat. That is probably part of the reason for the mangled back of your blade. The kanji on your blade say it has a blue steel edge which is pretty normal and is a sign that these planes are a step above the hardware store variety tools. Tune it up and it should serve you well. Enjoy!
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