Craftsmanship in Wood

On Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEVER-USED-Teru ... 1260323558

Best avoided, trust me.

Out of curiosity, why not?

They suck. Don't believe the marketing hype. That blacksmith may have been good once (I imagine he has passed on now), but by the time Japan Woodworker got his product he was not producing such great work. Well, at least the products the store was selling were not his best work, even though they look pretty. Those chisels won't hold an edge for very long at all. The edges chip very easily. I had a few of them and know of others who have had them with similarly poor outcomes. And don't expect Japan Woodworker to be of any help if you complan about the product - more likely, they will claim it is your fault. Fuckers!



Yeah, I'm still pissed about it.

Good info
Thanks!

They do indeed look pretty, I would've fallen for their description. Thanks.

Good to know. I can hardly afford them, but I was certainly looking at them. I do have a thing for kamaji.

I think blacksmiths generally peak, in terms of the quality of their product, in their 50's. The issue that affects them as they move on from there in age, besides the generally hazardous environment in which they work, is that their eyesight gradually worsens. It's not a matter of visual acuity, it's a matter of how well their can differentiate colors, which is a very important aspect to blacksmithing. You can't just put glasses on and solve the problem, you know?

Generally, you'll obtain the best quality products from a smith who is/was in the 50~60 years old range when the tool was made. This is my opinion, it's not gospel truth and surely there are exceptions. Generally, as a smith moves on in age, more and more of the work is taken over by the apprentices, if they have any, and the blacksmith just puts his stamp on the product. As this process is going on, year by year, the smith becomes more and more famous, and his work more highly coveted, and yet it is in fact getting worse in quality in many cases.

Case in point: I purchased a Sakata plane in 2004, based on the fame of the blacksmith. I obtained one of the planes made in the last few years he was alive. It was poorly formed even though it cost me over $1000. I had to grind a fair amount of the iron off of one corner just to get it to fit properly in the dai, and to this day i don't use the plane much at all. I'm sure his fame was well deserved, but it would have been far better to find one of his planes made 15~20 years previous. A good lesson for me.

You reference the blacksmiths out of Japan, whether in this case or more broadly, but I have similar experience with one of the well known smids out of Sweden. Recently I got the axe of Johan Skog, got it right from his neighbor out in Hjärtum town who took it from Skog himself who died back in the 60s and had never even put a handle on it. Unfortunately the grinding of the edge was very poor indeed and it took removing more steel than I would have wished otherwise to get it in order. The smid following on from Skog was Willy Persson and I have one of the same axes from him which he made quite late, only a few years before he too died, still according to the process passed down through three generations of smids at the Hjärtum forge but the hardening is less than ideal and not what it should be for a Hjärtumyxa and I am sure it has much to do with the eyesight of the aged Willy Persson.