>got the picrel
>look for a beginner's book
>literally every suggestion is fluffy bullshit about history or the art
>not one single practical guide
>I'd literally suck off an octopus to get started
I just want to make a desk for my wife and I. Please tell me PrepHole bros that you know a good resource to get started with basic projects like tables, shelves, and simple desks.
You start by collecting a bunch of tentacle porn.
too showa. Just collect doujins instead.
Yeah frick knows how a chisel works. Or a saw. Or one of those weird ass Japanese hammers. good luck OP
More like how do I build a desk without using screws?
Why would you want to build a desktop without screws? Even skilled woodworkers use screws because it's convenient to break down and install projects. Not using screws and fasteners for woodworking is moronic
Traditional Japanese woodworking, it's on the title of the thread
Are you japanese?
>Yes
Go take some classes or ask to watch how they do things in an actual shop
>No
Stop being a weeaboo moron
Go frick yourself I'm trying to learn a new hobby
Lol guess we know your answer then
Sorry for the lack of good answers OP, I'm sure the answers are out there. I commend the ability to do this kind of thing that you're planning on doing.
Very fricking carefully.
>Go to YouTube
>Japanese carpeting/how to join wood without screws
>????
>Profit
Literally that easy
use nails
>mortise and tenon
>drill hole that passes through both
>put dowel in hole and trim
>wah-la
It really is that easy, just practice on scrap. Once you can cut accurate shoulders then start practicing dovetails
After being able to do those consistently, you can ascend to the jigsaw-puzzle-tier joints. A good starter would be a pinned scarf joint.
You will never be Japanese (sorry) but it's all about patience and practice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HMa5tofqps
by using screws
Have you tried using the tools for their intended purposes?
ikea comes with illustrated instructions
the main thing about Japanese woodworking is they don't use modern style work benches, so if you want to use the tools correctly you'll need to figure out different ways of work holding.
straightforward guides are going to be harder to find because Japanese old timers are staunch traditionalists and still use the old master and apprentice system. Some of the younger guys recognize that the art is dying and are finding new ways to pass it on though.
Get used to fluffy bullshit about history, that's going to be part of it. the reason they don't use work benches, for example, is because traditionally they would set up a small camp on the client's property and make everything they need on site, leaving it all there for when the client commissions something else in the future.
look at this pic op
nipponesian stuff all cuts on the pull because its intended to be used on the floor, with your feed doing the woodworking
the European body was made for a working height of 90cm
I mean, we still call it a work bench because for a few thousand years it was actually just a bench.
I trust you've read your Schwarz.
and when the Japanese wanted to work standing up they just propped the work up on a frame.
history is fricking weird.
the Romans had the bench plane and europeans straight forgot about it for a couple centuries, only free handing special purpose chisels like the japanese.
the horn plane as shown in your pic did only appear in the late middle ages, well after the carpenters guild split out of the framer guild
Nah bro. Your pic isn't a chisel. It is a "spear plane". The origin of the Japanese chisel was originally as a double beveled chisel, and were used in multiples to split straight grained logs to make beams, like how westerners use wedges. IIRC the surface was then refined with an axe, an adze, and finished with the spear plane (yari kanna. For my Shogun 2 bros, the word "yari" is probably familiar). Eventually, the really nice straight grained stuff became harder to find, and the wood was thus less able to be split well into straight lines. The saw was invented or introduced, to deal with this issue, to rip the logs into beams. The traditional method had the carpenter hew the log square with an axe, and then rip the log into boards or beams. I don't know if they still used the yari kanna at this point in history though. The non-yari kanna was introduced surprisingly late (it was a push plane at first, following the Chinese style), but then again so was the saw.
I don't know if the westerners really forgot about planes or anything. But the beams used in traditional western timber framing would be hewn with an axe with a very broad blade, after splitting with wooded wedges. Frequently these axes (hewing axe, or broadaxe) would also have only a single bevel, allowing you to hew a very flat surface using the unbeveled side as a reference surface, almost akin to registering a paring chisel. Westerners seem to not use an adze in refining the surface of beams, but for forming tapers, cutouts, etc. AFAIK the hewn surface is generally the final surface in most buildings. I assume a nicer building like a church or noble's hall would have a more refined surface but that is something I don't know about.
It is interesting to learn about all the ways the Japanese tradition has analogues in the west and vis versa. I like the ergonomics of the western style myself but it is still fun to learn about.
>Your pic isn't a chisel.
thats why i wrote special purpose chisel, i lacked the word obviously.
What you write about japanese carpentry pretty much mirrors middle age european style of using split straight grained wood.
Thing about used tool is just, Steel tools rust and fall apart, wooden tools perish.
And the middle ages span more than a thousand years with not a lot of historical records. Most of the shit the internet wants to sell you as "ancient" is at most 250 years old
I found a copy of this book in a local library, and read it:
Wood Joints in Classical Japanese Architecture - Torashichi Sumiyoshi, Gengo Matsui
It's not a lesson, or narrative, it's a catalog of various joints, with line drawings showing their dimensions and how they fit together.
There was some other book I got at the same time, black border, I think it just said JAPANESE JOINERY on the cover. Very similar material.
Third book was that first Toshio Odate book (about tools, not the one about making shoji).
Uh... that's it. Just kind of absorbed the info. Practiced a bit afterwards.
(I work in a machine shop that makes tool bits, so I grind cutting tools all day.)
I only got into this because I needed to make a couple of things for my house, and frick paying someone else to do it.
>I trust you've read your Schwarz
Lost Art Press is just down the road from me, but I've never seen the guy, or stopped in.
For some reason I imagine he's a prick in real life.
>Japanese old timers are staunch traditionalists and still use the old master and apprentice system
that may be true in japan and individuals will stick with what works as far as tools go, but in my experience japanese carpenters are happy to let people with a genuine interest watch them and ask sensible questions about what they are doing and why. I learned a lot that way hanging around them at a boatyard in CA where the foreman had apprenticed as a temple builder before doing boat interiors and coming to the US along with his crew when that boat builder left Japan.
Those guys still did all the tradition about conserving the spirit of the wood, saving all the scraps and sawdust they made to cook lunch with etc. but for the most part they were happy to be free from all the rigid conformity and heirarchical BS of the old countrys work environment.
Oh, no doubt, but "go find a carpenter and ask if you can stay a while and watch" isn't exactly the same thing as going to the library and taking out a book of Roubo or whatever.
The thing is that it's really not about transferring joinery information to your brain from some repository any more than memorizing all the notes and scales and other theoretical stuff makes you a musician.
It's more about how they approach specific tasks and solve problems specific to them, which is why it seems so philosophical when you try to gain an understanding of it.
Like lots of other eastern/western dichotomies it's a matter of perspective that in some cases is so vastly different that you have to study your own perspective to understand your own biases and assumptions so you can unlearn them where it matters. One of those for westerners is the idea that it's about learning a bunch of complicated joinery when it's really more about patience and conserving energy and resorces..
The "get a book and study it" approach is in many cases driven by impatience and the idea that you can expend more energy and speed up the acquisition of "Japanese carpentry" as a skill.
It's a mindset, not a set of joints and tools. But if you study and learn how to use the tools, the mindset follows.
Example: Japanese chalk lines use ink, and they mark lumber with a knife. When you ask what if you make a mistake, they say don't make mistakes, thats from impatience...and there's no residual ink when you saw properly, the link line is sized so the saw kerf eats it away. Leave any ink and you need to get more accurate, which is about not being impatient.
Plane shaving breaks? Be more patient when sharpening or and/or adjusting and/or drawing it.
This is exactly why its dying out
Nobody has the fricking time to dedicate their whole life and career for homosexualy joints.
Some people strive for more in life.
There will always be a place for fine joinery in the world. You just can't afford it or lack the patience to DIY.
Check out this book. I read a bit in scribd and after chapter 2 it starts giving a step by step guide on making joints. Cool thing to get into, anon. I look forward to seeing what you make here
Watch two dozen youtube videos you moron.
>How in hell do you get started
Okay, step #1 is
>my wife
Hit brakes.
Step #1 is to get Japanese wife, earn trust, and pump her relentlessly
for family secrets. I wish there was easy shortcut I, but this is the only way.
So you bought the tools but you have 0 experience using them and likely very little experience in woodworking period.
Forget building a desk from scratch, If you want to learn in the traditional manner you should probably start by simply cutting a single board to exact dimensions and plaining each side perfectly square and flat.
>Forget building a desk
>plaining each side perfectly square and flat
anon want to build a wooden desk, not fricking machinery
>learn Japanese
>get books on 指物
>それはとても簡単です!
>google beginners japanse joinery
>look through suggested results
https://www.davesdiytips.com/japanese-joinery/
This is just a connection I made after watching someone discuss the research around scaler energy fields and the design of structure able to conduct them.
He said that metals are bad conductors for them although they could be used for specific purposes.
These energy fields are health promoting and are associated with religious experiences. What flipped in my mind was that japanese joinery focusses on wood joints.
What if these design principles and methods having been used for constructing temples out of stone and wood for thousands of years actually are manipulating these fields in positive ways? Could we make use of them? I would love to see if there have been any studies of field effects around these often fluted structures, just think of the traditional multilevelled pagodas and their iconic shapes. If they were designed to facilitate capture and redirection of these energies it would make sense to avoid metals.
/x/ is over there. Also meds
I'd have though PrepHole would be interested in the topic of building things using these theories like this or cloud busters?