Craftsmanship in Wood

Here's where all the plane blade makers who do not reside in the three main areas for blacksmithing in Japan will be cataloged.

Here is a 70 mm blade of Heiji-san. It is specially made for kezurou-kai competitions and is made of carbon-steel.

That's Heiji - the characters on the blade are 平治

How do you like the plane - what can you compare it to?

Chis, this kanna works quite different, because there is a lower angle(36°) and therefore difficult to compare with other kannas. Carbon steel blades is made for softwood of course. The softer the wood the sharper the blade must be. But the consequence is: You have to sharpen ths blade very often for perfect results.

I don't know who the maker is so I'll try putting this 42mm koganna blade here. I think it's my favorite blade, hard and gets quite sharp. Love to know
the blacksmith!

Here's the ura:

A last closeup of the mei:

On the ura side, the two kanji are 入魂, read as nyūkon, and meaning 'intimacy, familiarity', literally to enter, 入, the soul, 魂.

Thanks very much, Chris. I like those thoughts. I wish the blade had been better cared for before, and will do what I can to make a nicer ura-ba (?) over time.

The kanji on the front of the kannami, 木口, are interesting. The characters are read as 'koguchi', and aren't, to me, looking much like the inscription of the smith's name by the way they are simply scratched in there. The term '木口', also refers to a koguchi-ganna, which is a type of plane that has a skewed blade like a kiwa ganna:

The kiwa ganna is on the left, and the koguchi-ganna on the right.

The difference is seen when you look at the soles of the planes:


Besides the dai difference, the kiwa-ganna blade comes to a sharp point at one corner, which the koguchi-ganna uses a blade in the same form as that of a regular plane.

'Koguchi' refers also to the end grain of wood, and this plane is especially suited for that:


If you pair a kiwa ganna with a koguchi ganna, you obtain a set referred to as dō-zuki ganna - yes, just like the name of the saw with the stiffening back. Confusingly, some Japanese sites will call a left-right pair of kiwa ganna a dō-zuki ganna set, which I think is in error.

Looking on the Takenaka Tool Museum http://www.dougukan.jp/tools/30 listing, it has a listing for koguchi ganna. It also describes the tool as similar looking to a kiwa-ganna, distinguishing them in the fact that with the koguchi-ganna, the "side slope of the plane mouth faces the opposite way".

I'm guessing your plane was originally used in a koguchi-ganna. Did you purchase only the blade? It looks also like you have made a new dai for it, yes?