Rosewood Handles

[Brian]

I recently optimized the shape of my gennou handles with the help of Stan Covington, he drew out a sketch of what to make and I made it. The optimized handle allows me to apply force very accurately and basically back off the size of hammer needed for a given task. That being said it seems to have also the ability of showing me why rosewood handles are not optimal for the receiving end of this force.



I bought these because they happened to be attached to chisels that I really wanted and rosewood isn't exactly a turn off. That being said I think they will be replaced with gumi or white oak as soon as I can get replacements.

Thought you guys might like to see, I've been warned many times by experienced users, while I have not purposely avoiding heading those warnings I think it might be nice to show why they do warn against it.

[Chris Hall]

Rosewood is, in a word, brittle. A lovely wood otherwise. I remember the struggles I had making the andon in cocobolo. Several times I dropped a kumiko on the floor and it would snap in two. If you looked at it funny, it would snap in two.

I think rosewood is fine for paring chisel handles.

[Brian]

I remember you saying something like a 60% loss when working in cocobolo. They do have issues, I did a rosewood humidor not long ago and ended up having something break out, rather than put it back together I decided it was better off as a rosewood carrier for finishing supplies.

I agree....for paring chisels it's a viable choice. Speaking of which, did you get yours yet? I received mine and from what I found out Saitou-san had some serious back problems in the early part of the year that put production way behind. So, all in all I waited 9-10 months for mine, since I can't recall exactly when I ordered but I know it was late last year.

The zitan rosewood handles are really nice!

[Chris Hall]

Well, I was being a bit shy about that, but since you ask, why, yes, they are in fact ready after a year's wait:

unnamed-2-small.jpg (123.87 KiB) Viewed 14197 times

Since I will never likely get the chance to actually work with Zitan (Shitan in Japanese), I thought it would be cool to at least experience how the wood feels to the touch.

A couple more photos - Satō kaji-ya san does nice work indeed:

unnamed-1-small.jpg (160.93 KiB) Viewed 14197 times

unnamed-small.jpg (170.13 KiB) Viewed 14197 times

I'm waiting for a kiri box to be made, and the calligraphy will be done, as I specified (I might say, I was given a choice between three styles and, perversely, chose a 4th), in seal-script style. I am not big into paulownia boxes as such, but they are a handy way to keep things apart within my Kennedy tool box, which is where I keep my chisels and planes. Like my set of Kiyohisa chisels, I will take the lid off the box and keep it at home and use the box like an insert tray inside the cabinet.

[Brian]

Beautiful!

Is the pronunciation similar to Mandarin in that it is pronounced zeh-tan?

Also I always hear Stan pronounce Saitou as ee-tou. Is the 's' silent?

I rounded out my 10 set and requested also a cranked neck chisel.





Got one of the big ones prepped, I've been taking my time with these and performing ura-dashi to make certain I get it started off right.

I still find it amazing how substantial these are.

[Chris Hall]

Is the pronunciation similar to Mandarin in that it is pronounced zeh-tan?

No, the pronunciation is nothing like Mandarin. Shi~ is pronounced exactly like the English word 'she', and ~tan as in the word tangent.

Also I always hear Stan pronounce Saitou as ee-tou. Is the 's' silent?

No idea who Stan is....

Saitou - um, I dislike it when it is romanized that way, as English speaker will invariably end up with a mistaken idea about how to pronounce the vowel sound. I much prefer Saitō.

There are old systems of Romanizing Japanese that, unless you are familiar with how the systems work, lead to bad pronunciation. A classic example is the dropping of the 's' from Mitsutoyo, which is how one old Romanization system used to represent the 'tsu' sound (as 'tu'). The error sticks - it's printed in English on all their products - and now the company name is mispronounced by English speakers everywhere. Imagine if the same thing had happened with the car company Mitsubishi - we'd all be pronouncing it 'Mitubishi'

The same with old systems for Romanizing Chinese - like Beijing used to be written as Peking. The old Wade Giles system gave 'Peking', but the modern Hanyu Pinyin system gives Beijing.

Curiously, the New York Times retains the old Romanizations for Chinese terms, which is weird and every so slightly paternalistic/stubborn.

Anyway, lest I get too far off topic, no, the 'S' in Saitō' is voiced in standard Japanese. In certain dialects of Japanese however it may be pronounced in a different way. If your friend Stan is from Ōsaka, for example, he might have learned a few non-standard pronunciations, part of the Ōsaka dialect. Not sure if that would mean dropping the 's' from Saitō however....

There are technically speaking no silent sounds in Japanese, however in actual practice it is common to hear a lot of people not voice terminal vowel sounds. The Hokkaidō town name 'Rikubetsu' for example is going to be pronounced 'Rukubets' by a lot of folks. But if you asked them to enunciate the syllables clearly, they would say '~tsu', not 'ts'.

[Brian]

Sorry, by Stan I should clarify I mean Stan Covington, who frequents sawmill creek. It's quite possible that I misheard the pronunciation, after years of loud tools and cars I don't always hear everything as it is spoken, so if the S were not pronounced specifically then it's possible I would miss it. Stan has a personal relationship with Saitō-san and so that is where I had learned of his issues.

Thanks for clarifying these things, I took your comments from a while back seriously and have been making efforts to learn to pronounce the words properly.

Now when my wife corrects me for pronouncing it she-tan I can mention that I prefer the Japanese pronunciation.

[nyamo_iaint]

Beautiful! Also I always hear Stan pronounce Saitou as ee-tou. Is the 's' silent?

By my ear ee-tou would be "Itō", a different name. And like Chris said, this 's' is definitely pronounced as it comes from the Japanese mora (sort of a syllable) 'sa'. Although I don't think I'd go as far as calling it "voiced", as that would be "za-".

There are old systems of Romanizing Japanese that, unless you are familiar with how the systems work, lead to bad pronunciation.

This talk of orthography makes we want to head for the syocyu (as my wife has been known to write).

Iain

[Chris Hall]

I was also thinking, as was Iain, that your friend Stan may have been referring to the surname Itō instead of Saitō.

I appreciate your efforts to learn Japanese pronunciation Brian. The nice thing is that there are very few sounds in Japanese that are any challenge at all for an English speaker. The only toughies are the ryo~ryu, kyo~kyu~, gyo~ type of phonemes. Nothing near as hard as Chinese with all those tones we don't have in English. I am hopeless at pronouncing Chinese, and none of the Chinese Romanizations are much help at all really as a guide for pronouncing many of the words. My wife corrects my mangled attempts to pronounce Chinese, however the info doesn't seem to stick well in my head.

[Brian]

Ahh, that makes more sense.

Chinese is tough, I'm learning at about the same pace as my son, so we both say baba and that's about it. Though I did convince my mother in law to teach me how to say ' I would prefer not to' and that comes in handy around the house.

I've got Gyo down pat, so I can Gyokucho with confidence.