r/JapaneseWoodworking

I'm fan of this book, already have it in pdf, buy i wish to have a physical copy of it. But i can't find anywhere the english version of it, just the japonese one. Anyone would have an idea of where i can find it? Thanks !!

I know glue is not often discussed here. But Is there pH neutal wood glues?

I made a little wooden knife sheath for a Kiridashi. I used two thin pieces of cedar and glued them together.

I used Titebond II

Now the knife starts rusting when in the sheath! 

Are there pH neutral wood glues? I was reading Titebond II has an acidic pH of 3 (Titebond III is 2.5)

Looking for a new good quality square, any recommendations?

So many different options but wondering what people use, brands etc.

I set out a goal of making a kanna plane, why you ask? because im way overconfident in myself and “it cant be that hard”. To make it even better i never done something like that before! well here’s where my question begin, so far i know that both the blade and plane body have hollows in the middle (does the hollow in the body extend to the edge? or stop right before it) but there’s a plethora or things i dont know.
-does it require a specific quality of wood? or random piece of quartersawn oak/beech will do
-what would the bed angle be for a smoothing plane?
-how to mark out the location of the crossbar so the chipbreaker sits nice with the blade?
-maybe blade/chipbreaker recommendations?

Im probably missing way more stuff than i can imagine, so if a more informed person decides to waste 5 minutes of their life sharing some knowledge, id greatly appreciate it.

This video shows the process of setting up a Kumiko Kanna (i made it myself). It didn't take too much time, did it?

I am building a simple timber frame from round wood. White pine in the parts that will be exposed to the weather.

I'd like to control the checking so that it is in the wall thickness (which will be light straw clay) rather than on an exposed face. I've come across a few mentions of the technique of sewari to accomplish this - a kerf cut lengthwise along the middle of a face and possibly widened with wedges as drying proceeds to force the checking to mostly happen on that face. That sounds just like what I want to do.

Anyone I've been able to find who is doing this uses a skill saw or somethings similar. The catch is that I work entirely with hand tools. I don't have a way to get electricity to the site, and I wouldn't want to if I could. I presume sewari is older than power tools, so how was it done? How can I cut a deep lengthwise kerf with hand tools? Or does it work to just carefully split the log along a line with an axe or wedges?

Hi! I'm quite new to woodworking with hand tools and while I understand, at least in theory, how to square rough sawn boards with western tools, I'm really not sure how I should approach this task with the Japanese tools, which I'd like to use in the future, as research on this topic quickly become very jargon-y.

I have some rough oak boards (2,5cm / 1in thick), for which I have some projects planned. I just ordered my first batch of Japanese tools, including two smoothing planes (42x150mm and 60x255mm). If I understand correctly, these are not really the most appropriate for removing large amounts of material when initially planing rough boards.

Should I:

a) initially just work with these two planes, simply taking more passes until the board is nice and flat?

b) modify one of the planes and shape the blade into a more curved shape to take larger bites in the wood (I've seen some people do that)?

c) order an arashiko kanna (design for specifically this purpose), which seems exceedingly difficult to find in the EU?

Thanks for any tips :)