Show & Tell and a Progress Report

This is about puling together a few threads, showing of a few new tools and giving a kind of progress report on how my exploration of the kanna is lurching forward.

A while back I posted some links to Japanese Tool Shops in Japan that are willing to sell internationally, many Japanese business do not like trading with outsiders for various reasons. Now all off these stores are small family business selling to traditional carpenters and the hobbyist woodworkers.

Well I have started to buy tools from www2.odn.ne.jp/mandaraya the owner Teshiba says his English is bad but its okay, I just keep it simple. First I purchased a Dai for a 60mm blade that I got from NeilS. If you look at this thread you can see I was having all kinds of problems getting the kanna to work. I eventually decided that the Dai was FUBAR and that a new Dai was in order.

I surfed the www2.odn.ne.jp/mandaraya website found the page with the item I wanted and composed this email:

Quote:

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Hi

I have 60 mm wide (幅) blade (kanna-ba)
I need to buy plane (鉋) body (台)
I need to buy 堀台包口棒付（穴開け済)
www2.odn.ne.jp/mandaraya


Postage cost 郵便料金?


XX XXXXX Rd XXXX
Post Code XXXX
Australia


Thank You

XXXXX

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With in 6 hours I got a quote for the Dai and postage, the only caveat was that he wanted me to pay the PayPal commission, a whopping 289 yen or AU $3.40. Total cost $78.48. I paid via Paypal and within 10 days I had the Dai.

After setting up the new kanna I have been playing with my technique building on my blunders I am slowly lurching slowly forward. The kanna-ba (blade) was very rusty when I got it. The ura was heavily pitted. I found that every time a pit intersected with the cutting edge, the edge would chip. So I purchased a very small flap wheel that I fitted to the drill press and then I set about grinding out the ura trying to remove the pitting and to narrow the legs a touch. I got the worst out, but you can still see some pits. I have also had to increase the bevel angle from ~ 25º when I got the blade to now being close to 32º, this seems to helped with the blades edge retention. I had to tap out the ura and I will admit I cracked the lamination the first time I tried it, forcing me to grind 5mm off the blade, but I now have an okay urasuki (a little uneven but okay I hope). But the legs are too wide however their is nothing I can do about that. Its a second hand blade.

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A while back I posted problems I was having with using a kanna here. I am making progress, a few things are getting easier. I am starting to being able to pull off whole full length & width shavings in certain timbers. I am also getting better at squaring up an edge, but I still suck at it, it takes me forever. A few things I have observed, my workbench is to tall, its fine for western plane but I have found being over the plane bearing on top of the kanna makes pulling a shaving easier, and when you watch Japanese craftsman they lean over the work and pull back. Also being directly behind the workpiece is easier, with western planes we tend to stand next to our work pieces and push forward at and angle and that works fine but with a kanna it just seems easier to be directly inline with a kanna.

Like this:

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I have bad knees so I will not be working on my knees, but I thinking of building a raise platform maybe three pallets nailed together, would lift me high enough to put me over the workpiece.

Hand pressure is king. Its amazing how subtle changes in hand pressure makes or breaks the shavings. I am having to learn how to plane from the very beginning the last 10 years of western hand planes are for most part useless. This is some red oak shaving the piece has some referring grain and its very coarse grained however I have managed to pull some nice shavings. However I am muscling it, I have to exert a huge amount of muscle control to pull a good shavings, its like learning to walk.

Look at these lovelies - I am very proud of them.

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Here you can see the reversing grain, having a higher bedding angle may help.

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The one timber I am having no luck with is Rock Maple, I just cannot pull a nice shaving, just a little here and a touch there, but nothing solid. Black Walnut is lovely to plane and the surface finish is A+.

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I feel that I am getting confidant enough to be looking into purchasing a brand name ko-kanna something like a 42mm wide kanna-ba. When that kanna arrives I will be making this kanna available for some else to borrow and try out.

Next I ordered some marking gauges from him and they arrived today. One is a petite mortising gauge and the second one is a large cutting gauge both in shirogashi. It took me a little time to setup the mortise gauge sharpening the blades is much like sharpening the blades for a router plane. The only difficulty I had was that the bottom of the two blades was a tad to long, and I need to remove about 1/3 of a mm to get booth blades having the same cutting depth. Its still not perfect its out a tiny hair but I will get it in the next sharpening. The blades for the mortising gauge is solid tool steel and so is not laminated, however the large cutting gauge has a laminated blade. The cost for the two gauges was $125.54 including postage.

Setting up the mortising gauge is relatively simple you can tighten the brass knob a touch so you can still nudge the arms then using the inside of the vernier jaws to set the mortice width. Then you can use a small 150mm ruler to set the offset of the mortise. I really need video, but I think you get the idea.

Here are some photos:

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Here you can see how how much control the gauges give you over cutting depth. I made a series of progressive lighter lines.

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Here is a group shot - I coat all my Japanese tools with carnauba wax, it keeps it natural colour and protects it from dirt and discolouration.

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You may want to consider using a 5" or 6" thick block of wood to use as a planing bench at which you'd sit and pull back on the kanna. It's very amenable to installing planing "jigs" like stops. I'll try to find my photos of Inamoto's travelling "bench." That knee thing looks like torture, to the back as well as knees.

Pam

Like this - Then yes its on my todo list.

https://youtu.be/ItMUjHdWiI4

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Perhaps Schwartz's Roman "Work" Bench makes more sense in this sort of context.... The work platforms and postures only make sense once you start using their tools...

For example - the Japanese practice of working directly on a hard floor with only a work holding plank makes sense when you consider the massive timber needed to reduce deflection of an upright bench when planing vs a simple flat piece of wood simply laid on a good flat spot on a hard packed earth floor.

It is interesting watching these fellows work with these planes - how they often use one leg/foot to stabilize the work while they plane.

My second thought is that Red Oak is not the correct wood to use to train yourself on these sort of tools. Its a great way to completely exhaust yourself while trying to establish the muscle memory. Start with Spruce, Western Red Cedar, White Pine/Fir, or Port Orford Cedar. Luan would be a fine choice as well.

A whole lot of Traditional Japanese woodworking is done in soft wood... So this also has some traditional merit.

Yes the tools, techniques and work holding are intimately connected.

However shoji maker and furniture makers in Japan today use western style workbenches so I should be able to learn to use a kanna standing at bench.

I am practicing on a variety of timbers and I have tried Western Red Cedar, not really a challenge to plane. I will post some photos.

The Japanese also use Keyaki (Zelkova genus) Japanese Elm, Kuri - Red Elm, Magnolia, Camphor Laurel, Ash, Maple, Red & White Oak.

If I cannot learn to work a kanna in these timbers then the kanna should just be thrown away.

Thumbsucker,

Fantastic write up but I have no interest in going Japanese.
Doing English Europe is hard enough.
Due to your great right up but I will take an interest from a far.Just to be polite.
I also suggest you stand back from your credit card stand back before you break it.

Cheers Matt

I have always had a love of all thing Japanese, In my youth I became involved in Japanese martial arts, food and culture, its only natural that my woodworking also turns Japanese.

I buy things only from my surplus funds, thats why I get thing in a rather piecemeal fashion, if I was wealthy I would go to Japan with like a million dollars and I would it all.