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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
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    551

    Default Shoji Door Project

    I thought this little project may be of interest to some on here...

    I've just done some major work on the master bedroom - gutted it completely, insulated, removed one window and walled it over, replaced another two windows, relined, installed a bamboo floor etc. The next step is the wardrobe, which will extend over one entire end of the room (3m wide, floor to ceiling). What better for that than a set of Shoji doors?

    There are also two small windows high up on the wall that I'm going to cover with a pair of little Shoji screens to give a nice soft lighting effect. Here are the windows (and the edge of where the doors will go):




    Note the bogan double glazing - a layer of bubble wrap that provides an extra layer of insulation between the glass and the shoji screen. Will obviously be invisible.

    I started with the frames for the windows, which are a mortice and tenon assembly to provide some cohesiveness with the stile and rail arrangement of the shoji doors:



    The timber is clears Macrocarpa, and as per the traditional way of doing shoji, they are simply planed with no finish.

    Next up are the doors themselves. I'm doing 3 doors, each 2.1m x 1m, with a fairly sparse kumiko arrangement to achieve the look we're after. Here's a sketch:



    So far, I have dimensioned and dressed the timber:



    Next up will be marking everything out and doing the joinery...

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
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    551

    Default

    Have now marked everything out. The main rail joints will be double mortices, 6mm each as per Des K's book. As I have a habit of making a hash of sawing straight tenon cheeks, I've made a set of 4 little guides that I can clamp onto the rails. A test joint proved the concept, so I can proceed with some confidence...



    I'm using two mortice gauges to avoid having to reset them for each part of the double - one western and one Japanese. From using them side-by-side, I can conclude that Japanese gauges are far superior...

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Back on the sunny Gold Coast from Japan
    Age
    67
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    334

    Default

    Watching with interest Stu. Top idea with the sawing guides.

    Des
    See some of my work and general shoji/kumiko information at kskdesign.com.au

    My Instagram page
    My YouTube channel

  5. #4
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
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    551

    Default

    Progress is slow as it's difficult to find a lot of shed time at the moment... Anyway, first 4 mortice and tenon joints are done for the top and bottom rails on one door:



    All seem to fit OK, which is nice. The sawing guides do a good job of keeping the tenons straight and even

    I have struck an issue with one of the stile pairs though - it appears to be essentially unplanable: the grain reverses all over the place, so I get sections where it's impossible to plane in any direction without major tearout. This is with a razor sharp, very carefully set up Kanna too. Things are slightly better with a western plane (with a higher bedding angle), but it simply won't be possible to have the planed surface be the final finish on those bits. I'll just have to sand it to 600 or 800 or so, and burnish the surface with a bit of oak to get a reasonable match to the planed surfaces on the other bits.

  6. #5
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
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    551

    Default

    Haven't got too much further with the door construction - I've finished all the main rail/stile joints and thought I had better tidy the shed before I started on the kumiko (the thin lattice stuff). However, the shoji paper I ordered (eventually) arrived, so I was able to finish off and install the window screens.

    Quite pleased at how they turned out.



    They're actually stuck on to the wall with super-strong automotive double-sided tape. Permanent and invisible...

  7. #6
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
    Posts
    551

    Default

    Holy thread resurrection batman!

    (apologies for the broken image links in the above posts - I've switched image hosting providers and I don't think there's a way to edit the earlier posts.)

    It's been a rather busy 16 months since I last posted, with no progress until this week when I found some time to get stuck into the half-finished pile of shoji bits sitting on my workbench. So, I've now cut all of the kumiko mortise and tenon joints, and the half lap joints in said kumiko:

    IMAG0347.jpg
    Rails, with tenons done and rebated to go in the track

    IMAG0349.jpg
    Stiles, with all mortises done

    IMAG0351.jpg
    Lots of kumiko all cut and ready to go

    The next step is to cut mortises in the stiles for the flush pulls:

    IMAG0352.jpg

    ...and then do all the finish planing and assemble.

    After that, I have to cut the final rebates in the stile ends to fit the tracks and fine tune the fit, then stick the paper on. It'll be nice having it all done

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Sydney
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    650

    Default

    I've just ordered a book on shoji and am looking forward to having a crack at it..

    Yours is looking very nice.

  9. #8
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
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    Default

    Got the first one assembled. Not 100% happy with some of the joints (tenon shoulders not quite even, leaving small gaps at the front in a couple of places), but it'll be serviceable enough!

    IMAG0357.jpg

    The other two doors should be better. It's all a learning process!

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    Albury Well Just Outside
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by NZStu View Post
    ..... It's all a learning process!
    So very true, we never stop learning something.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Finished. Fitting involved a little tweaking to get them to slide nicely, but here you go:

    IMAG0375.jpg
    IMAG0379.jpg

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Back on the sunny Gold Coast from Japan
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    Default

    Nicely done Stu. The doors look great!

    Des
    See some of my work and general shoji/kumiko information at kskdesign.com.au

    My Instagram page
    My YouTube channel

  13. #12
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Wellington, NZ
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    551

    Default

    Cheers Des, and thanks for writing your book - I can highly recommend it to anyone else pondering making some shoji!

  14. #13
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    Albury Well Just Outside
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    Default

    They do look very nice.

  15. #14
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Northen Rivers NSW
    Age
    57
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    2,837

    Default

    Three thumbs up!


  16. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Sydney,Australia
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    3,157

    Default

    Hope you don't have any cats. Apparently they are renown for pawing holes in the paper rather than go around.

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