Cabinet build

[Brian Holcombe]

The iron is by Yokoyama Kunio in Tougou Kou and the dia maker is Nimura-san.

I bedded the iron, and set the chipper, but have yet to actually tune the sole beyond a little tiny bit required after bedding the blade. I have a feeling that once I am able to tune the sole (waiting a few weeks/months for the wood to adjust to my humidity level) I should be able to get a super thin shaving (this one is like .001"~). I dont need anything like 10 micron, but I could go for about double that.

I'll probably end up getting a few of these probably from a few makers and setting them for different humidity levels and different cuts.

I thought the iron would be a lot of work, since his cold worked irons are generally somewhat 'rustic' but it was pretty spot on, needing minor ura-dashi to bring down one corner. The chipper needed quite a bit of work and still needs a little fine tuning.

[Mike Allen1010]

I think it's official that I have a carbon steel and wooden soles addiction;

Ooooohhhh - very Nice Brian!!!!

I continue to savor your build. Beyond wood working techniques and skills, I also lean a lot about how you set up your tools for the terrific performance you get from them, as seen in this thread . I especially enjoy your description of Japanese tools. For example, I would love to hear what you look for in a Japanese plane, why you select different dai\blade makers, how you set them up etc.

I don't want to hijack your build thread and I'm sure there are others posts on this subject. Brian, I think your perspective is particularly helpful for me because we get to see an hear the context of how you use your tools in your build threads, which really helps me "put the pieces together" and understand how various hand tools are supposed to work.

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your work. I super enjoy your threads-your work is outstanding .

All the best, Mike

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks Mike! I'm happy to share on the subject, but fair warning as this will be a bit long winded.

Chris Hall initially nudged me down this path, seeing my increasing interest in Japanese hand tools but wondering why I had been stopping short of the Kanna. We debated for a bit and ultimately I decided I would like to try and see what the Japanese hand plane had to offer. This came at a time when David Weaver and I were talking about the merits of wooden bodied planes and plain carbon steels and how they would perform in the work that I do (flattening panels, dimensioning by hand, ect) and David concurred that adding a Kanna to the lineup would be helpful and enlightening to me, and so I proceeded. I'll need more time on the Kanna, of course, but in using David's planes I can say that the wooden bodied plane has changed everything about how I work. I still use metal planes for many facets of my work, but the wooden bodied planes are an absolute joy to use and perform exceptionally well. I have them tuned up for panels which is where I find they benefit my process the most.

So this draws back to the thought process behind going to wooden bodied planes. The problem I wanted to solve was when jointing a panel I found there to be a point at which the panel is beginning to get very flat and the metal soled jointer became a friction monster. The Try plane that David built solved this issue, I could create a nice flat panel quickly and further refine it with a finish plane with ease. Using the plane is addicting, so much so that I fell a little further down the rabbit hole with the Kanna and the wooden jack plane.

The decision goes a little further than just the soles of the planes, the carbon steel blades are quite quick and easy to sharpen up and can be worked on natural stones. Natural stones can remain truer for longer and are truly splash and go. I find that building a slurry with a 1200 atoma plate is also enough to maintain flatness of the stone, so I can use them really easily. I like my Chosera stones, but I dont like to constantly use them because of the soaking and flattening involved in using them.

Since I plan to use this plane for finish planing my qualifications for the blade were that I wanted something that would be easy to sharpen, make a very keen edge and provide a nice clear finish on medium hardwoods. I brought my qualifications to So Yamashita and after some time in debating specifics he suggested Yokoyama Kunio's range of offerings, Yokoyama Kunio's speciality is in plain carbon steels, though he can work in alloy steels as well. He uses traditional methods of work on his blades, so pine charcoal forging and cold work to refine the steels and provide a very hard edge that is easy to sharpen on natural stones. My understanding is that using pine charcoal and low heat minimizes carbon loss in the forging process. The downside is that these blades will often have minor delaminations that many will find unappealing, they do not bother me.

When it comes to setting up the blade and fitting into the dai, then further adjusting the sole (which I've yet to do on this Kanna), I followed Chris-Sensei's guide as closely as possible.
http://thecarpentryway.blogspot.com/...u-perhaps.html

Chris has eight posts on this that detail the work he does to setup, but when I adjust the sole and further tune the blade (I want to add a very minor camber and further tune the corners) I'll detail those things with photos.

Chris' detailing of the sole setup;
http://thecarpentryway.blogspot.com/...-and-wave.html

There are 5 posts detailing plane sole setup.

One more note, I'm still working out my equipment for ura-dashi (tapping out), and straightening of the chip breaker. I made some copper shims from a piece of pipe that was hanging around;


I plan to make something for the Hardy hole, probably will wind up like a ball hardy.

[Mike Allen1010]

Brian, thanks very much for sharing the links to info on setting up Japanese planes.

I read through 4 of the posts and I have to say my ignorant reaction is waaaay to much work. I appreciate sharp, well tuned hand tools/ planes more than most -sincerely I do. In fact I have several Japanese planes, including some with irons that alone cost more than a complete, comparable LV/ LN western style planes. My experience has been these Japanese plane irons have the best edge in my shop, even though I rarely use them for the reasons implied in my question below.

My question is given all the work of flattening Japanese plane irons (given the typically significant lack of flatness due to combing 2 different types of steel, as described in the links), and the need to periodically "tap out" the hollow iron, and the required tools solely for that - do you prefer these to western planes?

I don't at all mean my question to be inflammatory and completely appreciate that tool preferences are subjectively personal. As someone who is an unabashed admirer of your work, I'm sincerely interested in your thoughts . It is entirely likely I'm missing something from my own experience .


Best, Mike Allen

[Brian Holcombe]

Anytime! My decision making was that if I wanted to be able to use the edges available in Japanese planes than I would also have to sign onto the process involved in setup and maintenance. They're significantly more work to setup, that's certainly true, but once they're setup they're not necessarily all that much more work to maintain, since how often are you at risk of wearing into the hollow? If I grind away 1/16" of my iron then I will have to tap out to thicken up the front landing...so it's not too often in my expectations. I'll make the comparison to setting up a good saw like the Disston...much more work initially (or so I assume from photos of your efforts ), but the regular day-to-day it's actually much less work since it does the job more effectively.

The big positive to that is in the day-to-day since you are no longer working a big flat section of hard steel on the back of the iron and instead working just the outside edges which makes it easier to ensure the wire edge is removed and easier to maintain flatness. The bevel self-jigs and so it's very easy to maintain as well. I combined this with western woodies for my every-day high-use planes because I wanted something ultimately much less work to maintain during the day. I can take a vintage carbon steel western iron, or Japanese iron to splash and go finish stones and get back to work in 5 minutes, no soaking, no heavy flattening of the stones, no grinding. If they're getting to the point where I need to remove more wear then I can go back to a medium stone to remove the wear and I'm back to work in 10 minutes. Eventually I will have removed synthetic stones from my use almost entirely (save for sharpening A2) but this is going to take a good bit of experimenting with stones that take me from coarse to fine.

A2 irons on the other hand become a real bear to remove the wear on, I feel that after a couple touch-up sharpenings that I have to grind back a portion of the iron to completely remove the wear or I will be working the back of the iron forever.

So rather than using these instead of western planes I consider these to be in addition to western planes. It's possible that I'd be using the bronze smoother far less once I have completed my setup, but its unlikely that it will be eliminated entirely. The same way that the western woodies have far reduced the amount of time I put on my metal jointer and jack. It's reduced their use to an point where I can live with resharpening the A2 irons, since instead of sharpening them 2x per day, it's now about 1 time per week or less.

[ken hatch]

Brian,

Leave a trail of bread crumbs as I'm slowly wondering pretty much down the same path.

ken

[Brian Holcombe]

Will do! I'll post up stuff as I nail down a regimen.

[Brian Holcombe]

And back to woodwork. Dim'd the drawer slips. I made an error in planning with my drawer depth and so I repented this sin by making drawer slips for the drawer front as well as the sides.

Last pass on this one;





I found stub tenons to be helpful locators on this and also add a very minor amount of glue surface area for the corners.





All drawer bottoms are in and all drawers now glued up. Last step for these will be finish planing the sides, fine tuning the fronts then cutting handles.





Still unsure of how I will finish the drawer bottoms I haven't decided on veneer or leather. I was planning leather but my father was requesting wood. Seemed like an odd request for a jewelry cabinet so we will debate further. Any and all suggestions are welcome,

[John Kananis]

If its jewelry then I vote for leather.

Brian, what saw do you use for cutting the plywood bottoms?

EDIT: She's a beaut by the way.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks John!

I use a festool track saw for the plywood bottoms.

[ken hatch]

Thanks John!

I use a festool track saw for the plywood bottoms.

Smart.

I finally had a Festool track saw follow me home from the wood store. After several years of borrowing the store's "Demo" unit when I needed to cut a panel or table top I said "enough get your own".

ken

[John Kananis]

Thanks John!

I use a festool track saw for the plywood bottoms.

Those are pretty cool. I usually make ply cuts on the tablesaw but the last couple years, I find myself hitting the power on my machines less and less. Taking this a tiny bit off topic but I was looking at that Japanese Plywood (looks like a Dozuki) saw from LV.

[Brian Holcombe]

Smart.

I finally had a Festool track saw follow me home from the wood store. After several years of borrowing the store's "Demo" unit when I needed to cut a panel or table top I said "enough get your own".

ken

Those are pretty cool. I usually make ply cuts on the tablesaw but the last couple years, I find myself hitting the power on my machines less and less. Taking this a tiny bit off topic but I was looking at that Japanese Plywood (looks like a Dozuki) saw from LV.

The festool saw is great. I use the festool tracksaw for breaking down slabs and sheet goods.

John, it's hard to take this thread off topic with japanese tools, hehe, they're part and parcel. I have a mitsukawa hardwood saw (replaceable blade) and I think it's a good saw but eventually I will get a few more, likely most of them being handmade. Heiji makes awesome saws so I will probably get a few from him.

[Prashun Patel]

Can you talk more about your choice of hinges here? Your selections seem so meticulously made, I'm curious about what else you considered. I am embarking on a wall hung cabinet, and am taking a lot of inspiration from here (hope u don't mind).

[Brian Holcombe]

Sure, I decided on plain butt hinges and scaled them appropriately for the size of the cabinet. My scaling is entirely by-eye since these doors arent particularly heavy. I also considered scissor hinges and soss hinges. The scissor hinges required the drawers to be set in from the sides more than I would prefer for this.

Brusso is my go-to for hinges, I like their quality level and so I always use them before anyone else.

Glad to see my work inspires. There are a few things I would change about how I did this cabinet to make the work flow a bit quicker, so if you want a second set of eyes on your design I am happy to take a look.