Homework

When you study physics, at least in Chile, you learn by doing homework. Real difficult problems that you need to solve before next week. During one semester we (as in the group of friends studying physics) didn't sleep one night, the whole night working and talking about the homework.

It was really intense and after that, everything else seems a bit like vacations. Vacations in hell as in Graz but vacations anyway.

While reading one of these old woodworking books I found the same. Exercises they were called here. First one was to make flat one face of a piece of wood with a chisel. Second, make flat and perpendicular the next face, again with a chisel. Quite fast the book was asking you to make a handrail or a boat... or something like that, really complex exercises.

What stuck me then was the order of the exercises. First of all not the sawing, or the planing, but the chisel. And use the chisel as a plane. I have never tried doing it, flattening a board with a chisel. I should try perhaps.

Anyway, today in the night, since we have a new japanese heater. The cylindrical ones where you can put your kettle and make tea later. I guess it fits my tools. So, having solved the cold problem for today, I decided to try some joinery in my room.

The rules are: no jigs, no knife marks, no rabbet planes. So everything is done, save the squaring, with chisel and hammer.

I want to make some shoji eventually (today we took half of the kitchen's tiles off, it's looking emptier and nicer already). So why not copy Gabe and try some miter tenon joints a la Odate?

Don't look at the rabbet, that was another exercise.

I love the way rauli (Lophozonia alpina) (in my times it was a notophagus btw) cuts. Gives you really crisp surfaces and it's a pleasure to work with.

I don't know if you can see it, but I didn't cut the last part of the tenon, there where the shadow is. I could not figure it out how to do it without a drill and you cannot put a saw in that hole... plus I don't have a bottom cleaning chisel.

If I were to make this for real, I would plane the mitres' end grain with a shooting board, then the sides of the tenon also planed and only use chisels for the inner parts. Faster and more accurate. Also, knife mark the lines and plane to them.

One of my tasks for the first months here is to make a collection of japanese joints, so expect more posts like this one. Maybe we call them one night stand joints?

Madonoko is the new black

I had trouble keeping up with Jason's pace and now I also need to be up to date with Gabe.

So, first of all, the setting hammer handle (I guess this a much smaller hammer than your Gabe btw):

together with a 6" square and my other hammers, the small one on the left and the curved one have new handles since I left the old ones in Europe, olive wood and cheery, both from the house. The thickness of the handle tells you how much force you use in with the hammer. The same with door pulls, if I remember correctly, said Krenov. I tend to like shorter handles than factory made japanese hammers, the setting hammer being the exception. I'm still not sure about the cherry handle also... need to keep studying this. I see handles as something that need to be transparent in use (Heidegger's term), that is you don't feel it when you use them, they are an extension of your hand.

Going more down you can see some of the saws.

All this is temporary as I plan to move the workshop downstairs once the Roubo bench is finished. This is how it looks, amazing what you can bring in 3 bags  

So, the Madonoko.

That's a saw with "windows", not the crappy OS but big gullets along the edge.

Yo may have seen this before, it was a ryoba and now is a kataba. The small nip on the top is a remainder: do not shear hardened saws. It broke like glass as I sheared, good I was far from my line. After that I used the grinder and files to refine the curve. Still thinking about that shape to give it. 

This is a 2/5 pattern, the gullet is 2 teeth and the rest 5 with 1 rip and 4 cross cut. This way the cross cutting teeth are alternating, something I've seen in Nagakatsu's saws. What's the difference with the 1/5 pattern? No frikkin idea. The gullets are larger, that much is true. (ie easier to make in smaller saws.)

Here's Gabe's pictures of his madonoko, far better than mine: 

http://granitemountainwoodcraft.com/2015/06/07/diagonal-chomasaru-western-panel-saw/

I haven't finished the saw because I have no saw vice here in Chile yet... but it seems that what we really need to make is a sen. Monday's project perhaps?

Finally, 

And the Roubo bench? Well, I was planing the other half of the top with my No 5 till I decided to make that olive wood handle and the rest is history. I had so much fun with my kanna that the bench went on vacation.

More colours

I got some help from a japanese friend of mine and he corrected my previous drawing. I was missing the signature, a proper tang, and the filed holes on the blade.

And a more realistic configuration. 

So, how did I make that?

Easy, you just take (uniform) random "kicks" in either direction with a random (Poisson distribution) size and you see what happens. Again, blue means going inside the screen and red going outside it.

The simple, yet perhaps important lesson, is that the red kink in the lower part of the blade is the sum of several other smaller kinks that interact with each other. This is not a local problem thus you cannot focus on the kink to fix the kink. Zeny-zen isn't it? well, that's the way the world is. To make the red kink disappear, you need to take care of all the red and blue circles, otherwise the kinks will just move around your blade.

Maybe tomorrow I make a video but I'm not sure, I don't think anybody is actually following this rambles. Should do Roubo benches instead.

Ok, sorry for that. I know I'm an awful teacher (that's why I don't give lectures) so when something is clear for me I don't see the point of explaining it further unless somebody asks me specific questions. So go ahead and ask if something is not clear.

For the sake of open source full disclosure and all that, this is the code for making the plots, runs in mathematica, which albeit not open source, comes in raspberry pi's linux dist:

nH = 20;

x0 = RandomReal[{-1, 3}, nH] // N;

y0 = RandomReal[{-1, 1}, nH] // N;

\[Sigma] = -Log[RandomReal[{0, 1}, nH]]/8 // N;

sign = If[# > 0.5, 1., -1.] & /@ RandomReal[{0, 1}, nH] // N;

surface = 

  Total[Table[

    sign[[i]] Exp[-((x - x0[[i]])^2 + (y + 

              y0[[i]])^2)^2/\[Sigma][[i]]], {i, nH}]];

DensityPlot[surface, {x, -3, 3}, {y, -3, 3}, 

 ColorFunction -> GrayLevel,

 PlotRange -> {{-4, 4}, {-4, 4}, Full}, PlotPoints -> 50, 

 RegionFunction -> 

  Function[{x, y, z}, x + 10 > 30 Abs[y/2] && x > -1], 

 Epilog -> {{White, Disk[{-1, .1975}, .07], Disk[{-1, -.1975}, .07]}, 

   Triangle[{{-2.5, -.125}, {-3.5, 0}, {-2.5, .125}}], 

   Rectangle[{-2.5, -.125}, {-.99, .125}], 

   Table[{If[sign[[i]] > 0, Red, Blue], 

     Circle[{x0[[i]], -y0[[i]]}, 0 \[Sigma][[i]]]}, {i, nH}]}, 

 FrameTicks -> None]

Straightening saws (or going with the hip)

So, everybody is sharpening and straightening saws nowadays.

First, my favourite american in Hawaii gave us a lesson on how to make things flat:

http://mypeculiarnature.blogspot.nl/2015/05/japanese-saw-tuneup-straighten-out.html

Then, another american appeared who has a few very sexy whale blades and is turning everything into planks

http://granitemountainwoodcraft.com/2015/06/02/just-cant-stop-sawing/

I've been busy cleaning the trees so some sun can reach the house and I haven't had much time for tools. However, today was feeling ill so decided to take it easy and work a bit with the computer.

That's the representation of a not so straight saw. The blue is bent to one side and the red to the other. Green is level.

I took inspiration from this saw:

 What I'm trying to illustrate is the displacement field of the saw. If you wish, how far it has moved form its ideal flat straight state.

Now, some saws will have one "oil puddle"

This are the ones you need to work in a circular manner (isn't it Jason?)  so you expand the ripples around till you get something "flatter"

And eventually much flat

Note that in the different drawing the colour scale is not the same, the amplitude of the waves gets smaller as you have more ripples. (Sorry for that, I was lazy today too so didn't want to code that, perhaps I update it later.)

Now, when I was looking at the saw today I was mentally superimposing this colour map on the surface of the saw, a bit like Jason's pictures but with LSD colours. 

Yeah, I know, reality is not as circular and nice as computer models. But that's the fun of it, isn't it?

So you hammer, change the colours, turn up and down the saw, and keep in your mind updating the colours as you hammer. Check with the saw that the image you have in your mind corresponds to reality by looking at how straight the saw is.

All this is a bit like trying to teach how to play violin by writing, so don't blame us because our explanations are poor. 

After 10 minutes or so the saw was 90% straight.

I sanded the surface and then more hammering. (I had to fix a shitty stanley pein and ball hammer in the meantime.) Then I stopped. 

"Know when to stop" says Mark. 

I upload the picture of the straight saw once the battery of the camera is full. 

Done. Camera is full and I had my tea and bread with cheese. 

Now, there are just a few spots on the saw. 

 And this is how it looks from one side

 And the other.

There's still a kink on one side near the handle but I don't think I will be spending files on this saws, so it doesn't matter. 

Just for the sake of coolness, a before and after picture:

Ok, and since I had more time think about the problem, what follows is the evolution of the "saw" when you invert each of the 3 kinks it has. (Some kinks are pointing in one direction and some in others, and what I do with the code is simply to invert the sign of it). To make it more "realistic" I superimposed a wave as in the first image, that is a saw that has both kinks and it's bowed. 

You start with this:

 then you hit the leftmost

 then the red one down (note how the wave of the saw has changed direction by pressing the kink)

 and finally the middle kink

As you see, it's not so easy. Thanks god you don't need to compute the eigenvalue decomposition of the problem, but simply hammer it straight. 

Continuing with the analogy of the violin, you know where to hammer to produce a sound, and you just do it. It's only a saw. You are only You.

First fire

Today was a good day. Somehow, the municipality has a truck that comes every monday around and takes all your gigantic garbage for free. Everything. From trees to concrete passing by old crappy chairs.

So the house is very fast getting cleaner.

I also had my first "helper" today. Nico, the son of the girl who takes cares of my packages here in Chile and ex-neighbour, who wants to learn a bit of carpentry.

So in the morning I put him to plane some wood with the No 5. (You always need a plane you can trash, western planes are perfect for this.) I'm starting my morning grabbing one or two pieces from the pile there, and planing it clean, then taking the wood inside the house. The wood has been for several years there, just laying around, so most of it is really fucked up but some pieces are still salvageable.

This is "roble", the chilean one. So not oak, which is called encina here, but Nothofagus obliqua, a native species. It's used mostly in old houses for sills and the like.  It's a dense and hard wood, a bit like beech but with a wilder grain, perhaps reminiscent of ash. Or maybe just roble.

After the morning coffee and tacos with cheese and chili (I need to make a post of the food in Chile, I love the colours of it) we went downstairs to clean. The "closet" went out and under it a nice surprise.

Very mouldy rotten wood. It was a great idea not to put any kind of ventilation there. You can imagine the relation with my dad at the moment is a bit tense. Pretty much everything he makes is fucked up (save the stone walls) and today 2 axe handles where in the fire...

Anyway, we left that there to dry and I sent nico to the clean the roof and I took a few pictures.

After that we cut that old dry pine in the right with the big madonoko I got. It cut so well that I went to make a handle for it, it's a really really fast beast, more info will follow. (I'd love to make video to show you the speed of these things, a la tanaka, but my camera is crap for videos and Julia's ipad is coming in november with her... so we need to wait)

Around 5 we were dead tired. We spend the rest of the afternoon cutting trees to let the sun reach the house, so a lot of machete and sawing and moving around. For sure not the same kind of job I was used to in Graz.

After dinner, we went down, and made the first fire in my old house,

and decided that tomorrow I take it off and go to Santiago to buy some nice wood and see friends.

(BTW, I implicitly assume that if you read here, you also reading Jason's blog. Yesterday he nailed it and wrote the best ever intro to saw straightening, really eye opening. Give it a read, and then another one, this is very subtle stuff and you need to experiment and read, and then repeat. I'm very much looking forward to part 2 http://mypeculiarnature.blogspot.nl/2015/05/japanese-saw-tuneup-straighten-out.html  If everything goes according to the plan, by summer 2016 we will have documented the whole process of metate and the saws will start to sing again.)

Zone 0

In line with yesterday's depression, today I didn't even look at the house downstairs.

The morning was a bit of planing, lunch at an aunt's, and afternoon finishing my chisel holder.

I want first to have a nice room and a place for all my tools. From there, I can go working outwards fixing things little by little.

So, the chisel holder:

I saw a picture in one of these japanese blogs that really struck me, perhaps because I haven't seen the design in western world.

It was not really clear how the chisels hold in the holder and at what angle they are...

Mine are like at 60 degrees, maybe a bit too much but I could not manage to make the angle closer to 90 without the chisels falling down too much.

I glued, plane it, and brought it to my room

Sorry for the light, it was night already. A view from the side:

And a shot of my desk. It's not as neat as I want it yet but I'm getting there. One small victory each day.

Tomorrow I make the kanna holder and perhaps nail a piece of wood to hang the saws.  And start destroying the crap in the house downstairs.

First post: things changed and changing things

I was asked by the woman of customs what are you bringing. Tools for carpentry, I'm learning violin making (I was smuggling 4 violin bows so needed an excuse for that too). And for how long you stay?, she asked. I'm coming to stay, did my phd in Holland and now I come back after 6 years or so. Ok my darling, (in spanish she said "mi niño") for this time you can pass.

Like that I brought my 60 kilos of tools, boxes, stones and the few clothes I got to start a life here. Lessons learnt: I have too much stuff and smiling to old chilean women still works like a charm.

I last lived in this house:

My mother used to have a  garden in front of the house and there was not so much dirt around. That bench you see there is pretty much standing firewood.

In front of the house there was the rose garden, nothing fancy, just grass and a few roses where the trees are now. It looks dry

Inside, the living room is the the only thing I like. Except for the ikea lamps, that is. And the social housing iron window.

 Da roof.

Then you go into the "small room", it has a "closet" made by my dad. On the bottom you see the fucked up wall and humidity stains.

 This is one window one of the renters changed. Sturdy aluminium construction that almost doesn't leak.

From the small room you have access to the toilet and the sleeping room. That fake wall was not there so it made is slightly nicer and easy to walk, more gezellig too.

That's the bedroom wall with cables for tv something like a bookshelf. Good I left most of my books so I can take that out without remorse. I had to lighten up this picture, at 4pm it's kinda dark here already

 Now it get's better. The kitchen

Those blue "tiles"  are plastic. The white death cabinets need to go asap. There is some tile fixing to do in the back and perhaps do something with the ceiling?

 A clean corner with proper electric wiring

And more abstract painting with electricity

 This one is called "white on shite"

some presents the last guy renting here left.

I need a big container for all this crap, pardon, presents from last renter.


Ok, now a look at the outside for damage assessment

First wall is actually nice.

That's the place where I want to make a winter garden / greenhouse. Something glassy and woody and squarish on top of that nice concrete floor last renter made.

 Water management

Now going behind the house.  I remember this to be green. And there was a fucsia there.

or was it here? anyway now looks slightly dead

more water control over here.

And finally, we arrived at the japanese section of the house: the roof.

And some japanese wabi sabi cabinet for what do I know. I love the proportions of this all... next to it there is a big box with OSB cover. For keeping stuff I would guess.

last picture. I'm squatting the dinning table for my tools. Counted around 17 saws. I may have a problem.

Anyway, the house downstairs was a big bummer. Need to get rid of the trash asap and start building anew and properly.

To avoid depression and breakdown, permaculture guys always recommend to start from the core out, they call it zone 0. I'm trying to do that with my room in my dad's house, then move the workbench and workshop downstairs to have my own clean and ordered space. A room of your own as Virginia said. Once that is done I can start with the wiring and insulation, if you have any ideas about the latter please share. Then make windows for the house.

If you made it till here, congratulations.

So, new settings, new look. I changed the top of the blog and added some pages that I found interesting to stick up there. They will be updated soon.

Now it's time for some tea and get going with that cleaning.