Japanese Hand Planes

There's more than exoticism tied up in how some woodworkers feel about Japanese tools.  While they are fundamentally the same tools we have, the are also profoundly different.  90% of that is because the tools reflect two geographically separate cultures finding solutions to the same problems with technology.  

But some things are different.  For example, Early American timber framing chisels are composed of two types of steel in order to maintaing a sharp edge while not being so hard they become brittle.  Many of those old chisels are superior to today's chisels.  

America's early carpenters had nice steel produced by skilled blacksmiths.  However, Japan's nicest chisels are made by the hands of craftsmen directly descended from Samurai sword-smiths (for real, there's documentation of the career changes sword-smiths made after the Samurai were banned). There is a measurable difference in the cutting ability of those tools. 

They were a pleasure to use. They're also crazy.  This link will bring to a video of a Japanese Plane Competition. At one point a ribbon of planed wood is measured at 9 microns.  To give you a sense, in woodworking, 1/64th of an inch is small.  It's also 396 microns.

Every dog has some wolf.

German Timber Framing, Session 3: The Hip Rafter

THAT was a long couple of weekends.  We started this season camping outside and sweating in the autumn sun.  We're still camping outside and sweating in the sun, but boy it's more intense!  

There's been a theme to all of our classes, and I'm not talking just about the enormous truck-stop sandwiches.  What's made this series unlike other timber framing opportunities was the lay out method. Often introductory classes teach square-rule framing - for which you make all joinery to geometrically-perfect imagined timbers contained in a larger, imperfect timber.  It's a beautiful and straightforward method and it caught on like wildfire in the states after it's introduction (back in the day).  It requires units of measurement and accuracy with those measurements, but once you have the design clearly defined each piece could be cut in different locations and assembled like a puzzle of perfectly-fitting orphan pieces.

Snapped lines

German Lofting is more of a family affair.  First, all the measured drawing happens on a series of 1:1 scale drawing of the building - typically snapped chalk lines - which are very precise. From there, all the cut lines are made by connecting dots either derived from the snapped lines or from simply laying one timber on top of it's sibling. The difference is a separation of the two steps in the process: square-rule cutting is peppered throughout out with laying out your cuts, while lofting requires about the same amount of time total, but plowed to the front-end. It also frees the wood's milling from being a determining factor, though math always wins.

Layed out after being lofted.

Hip rafter meets lower plate.

Common rafter.

Looking forward to what the spring may bring...

German Timber Framing, Session 2: The Stuhl

Session two of the German Timber framing Suite was heavier than the horses, both in weight and complexity.  Stuhl is the German word for stool or chair - the chair upon which the roof sits.  It's an admirably beefy structure.  Any roof will have plates on which rafters sit.  Normally those plates are the top of a wall (as in a shed roof) or rafters run from a plate at the bottom and butt-up to a mirroring rafter or ridge beam (gable roof).  On our structure (above) rafters are supported at three points: on the lower plate (which is more or less the joists that support the second floor), on the stuhl plate (about the middle of the rafters), and at the ridge beam (which is in turn supported by the stuhl).  As I said, beefy in a hot way.

As advertised, one of the focal points of this class was a review of classic timber frame joinery.  There where an assortment of garden-variety connections made, but the cross half-lap caught the eye of a couple folks. It came together like a dream.

AND this is what arrivals to the final class were greeted by...