Kansei

Kansei means the finish, and I've been asked when that would be and today is the day.  I need to do a few small things to the boat and its done.  The museum is flying me back to Kameoka for the opening of an exhibit based on the boat June 28th and we will launch the boat in the river on June 29th.

Tricky layout for the forward beam, which has dovetailed ends and must fit against tapering planking.

I asked my students to sign under the foredeck.

Urakawa san, the last wooden boatbuilder of this area, came by our shop.  We and met his daughter by accident.  He worked with his father builder boats like this and the larger downriver boats.  Around 1980 the company switched to fiberglass so the bulk of his work was in plastic, but he had a lot of stories to tell and more importantly, gave us some valuable construction details for our boat.  One of my problems was that the only original boat I had looked at was covered in fiberglass so many details were hidden.

He pointed out that the plate running across the top of the transom should pass over the plank ends.  There really wasn't time to fix this.

The beams are shouldered to the inside of the planking and have a half lap dovetail.  We are in the process of plugging bolt holes and knots in the hinoki.  These are recycled timbers.

Urakawa san said this aft deck should be recessed into the hull, so I scribed that and made the change.

I led a public demonstration and slide lecture Saturday afternoon.  We had a good crowd.  I demonstrated sure awase, tsubanomi and we nailed a couple of planks together.

The four young guys in the center are temple carpenter apprentices from Kyoto.

Slide show on the second floor.

Lots of sanding at the end.

The forward beam is tied to a single floor timber with a panel.

My last day with the students I used their help to measure an old ayubune that Urakawa san confirmed his father had built.  It was full of water so until it was empty I had no way of measuring the curve in the bottom.  This boat had been fiberglassed so I am confident its kept its original shape.

Wouldn't you know under all the water and muck we find the bailer.

Despite the mud everyone seemed to enjoy the lines-taking.

One little details was uncovering (we pulled off some fiberglass and the stern deck came off) at the stern how the back plank overlaps the plank ends, just as Urakawa san told us, plus there was a gap left between the back board and the transom.

Back at the museum we had more visitors, including the boat's first passenger.

Group photo.  These guys did such a great job considering three weeks ago they had never touched a woodworking tool.  Really impressive, and they were great fun to work with.

That evening I came in and took the main prop down and tipped the boat over for a look.

Kajiyasan

The other day we took a walk over to see the local blacksmith.  He stopped by to see us and I wanted my students to meet him.  Its an experience, as he's quite a character and an amazing craftsman.  

Very cool sign saying "kajiya" which means "blacksmith shop."

Katae san chatting with us.  His father was a blacksmith and he talked about what hard work it was, particularly his job of shouldering tools and riding his bicycles among the rice paddies trying to sell their wares.  He told me when times were tough he wanted to quit but through the study of Buddhism he persevered.  He repeated over and over again that now, at 82, he is completely happy.

His shop is like something out of the Edo-period.  Note the rails installed so he can get down to the forge.

Notes on the shop walls.

He said he specialized in farming tools and axes.

Here are some hatchets.

The axes were gorgeous.

He explained that the gull-wing style axes are only used for flattening a log into a square timber, or any other place you might also use an adze.  He said you cut using the center of the blade and the gull-wing design is to put weight above the cutting area for better balance.  The other tool shown here he said was for trimming branches, and is swung upward.  I didn't get its name but I've never seen one before.

More farming tools for digging ditches in the rice paddy and trimming the edges.

Katae san's greatest satisfaction has come from teaching blacksmithing, and on weekends his shop is a de facto clubhouse of people working with metal, including students from the Kyoto University Blacksmithing Club.

Local architecture

Japan, despite its reputation for concrete, is still a woodworker's paradise, with amazing structures and wooden ware easily found.  In my neighborhood here is the beautifully restored house compound.

One detail is the charred wooden fence boards.  This was an old method of preserving planks and I wish I knew more about exactly how its done.

Right across the street is this other lovely house.  Note the garden within the front wall.  There is a matching garden in back.  Turns out the building, a 140-year old house, is now home to a graphic design studio.  One of the staff saw me admiring the place and invited me in.

Except for the entryway they have left this house largely undisturbed.  Here's a hall connecting rooms flanking the larger garden in the back.

Lovely detail to a transom.

The kitchen is still circa 1970's?

And the soaring beadwork above.  This would have been to facilitate smoke from the original cooking fires (there may or may not have been an actual chimney) so these walls would have been black from soot.  Cleaning this up was probably the biggest job of the whole restoration.

And the design office in a traditional setting.  You can see the garden behind.

In the attic the massive beadwork, plus some kind of object nailed to the highest post by the carpenters.

Hanging planks

I left our planks for the weekend bent and propped in place and when we came back to work it was time to do suriawase through all the seam to fit them, mark their locations carefully, and remove them from the boat and prepare for fastening.  I ran a drill through the planks and into the bottom at each nail location.  This is not something any of my teachers did, they preferred to transfer marks, sometimes with a batten, to mark nail locations.  

The nice thing about my drilling method is that it gave us the exact angle for the nail hole.  We stuck a chopstick in the hole to get the angle before chiseling the rectangular holes we need for our nails.

These are the goops we've been using on the project.  From top to bottom: a silicone caulking we spread between the side planks and the bottom, Bondo brand woodworking glue which we used with sawdust to make putty (not waterproof), and five minute epoxy for small repairs. etc.  The local boatbuilder loaned us some KR Bondo which is waterproof and only available mail order.  We used it between all the planks we edge-nailed together.

One of my students piloting nail holes in the bottom with the plank, all the nail holes plugged, in the background.

Also straightening all of our nails.

I didn't take any photos of the actual fastening because I was running around too much getting things propped in place and supervising the fastening.  Here nails have been loaded into the holes at the stem awaiting someone to come and drive them in.  We had to tack all our props because nailing inevitably loosened them.

With the planks hung it was time to start installing the beams.

While I did the tricky work fitting beams my students did finish planing and planed the sheer edge flat.