Notebook

The inspiration for this build was a fine sliding table saw I used while apprenticing in Japan. It did not have a super accurate work stop and required checking square, but otherwise it was a very stable and precise tool. I set out to create something similar, but that could be adapted to the common western table saws.

Over the past couple of years, what started out as a small seed in my mind has germinated and taken root. Pottery. It seems inevitable that a crafts-person might dabble in other disciplines, experiment and so forth. The idea of of shaping something from clay, and turning it into a useful object appealed to me.

After returning from my last pilgrimage to Japan during the summer of 2018, I had the fantastic fortune to meet Kohei Yamamoto and Jon Stollenmeyer of Somacousha in Okayama, Japan during the…

Here follows a detailed description of the process I used to make a set of shoji doors. While many of the shoji doors in this project had different over all dimensions, the joinery dimensions were all similar, the main differences being…

A critical step when building a set of shoji doors is to prepare the Kumiko, the thin strips of wood that divide the light from the washi paper. These strips must all have an exact thickness so that thier lap joints fit snuggly with now gaps. Additionally, all surfaces should ideally be hand planed to…

It is often helpful to know how the wood we are using is oriented in the tree. This is particularly needed for Japanese carpentry where the position is important for aesthetic, strength and quasi spiritual reasons…