Mame yosegi panels
Today is also a national holiday in Japan and the last day of the Golden Week break. May 6th itself isn’t a special holiday, but since the long break overlapped with the weekend, today became a substitute holiday.
It was rainy from the morning, so I came to the workshop a bit later than usual. Since I had already finished making and assembling the Aruki panels yesterday while the weather was still good, I started today by attaching the top and bottom yosegi panels to the 18-step Mame himitsu-bako that I had prepared in advance. This time, I’m making about 50 boxes in total. Around 10 of them will have walnut top and bottom panels, with a solid hexagon yosegi on the top. The rest will be the traditional yosegi type.
The next step is attaching the side panels, but since the humidity is high today, I decided to postpone that until tomorrow. Although mame himitsu-bako are small and generally less affected by humidity, the panels are quite thin, so I’m still a bit concerned. So for today, I focused only on making the panels and will attach them starting tomorrow.
After that, I worked on making and attaching the top and bottom panels for the assembled 4-step mame himitsu-bako. Since this is a standard 4-step type, the bottom panel is fixed and do not move. Unlike other mame himitsu-bako, the back of the top panel is not cut at an angle. Instead, I slightly trim the back corners on the left and right sides. This is done in preparation for the next step — attaching the side panels (the Aruki side). Because the gluing area is small, the glue sometimes oozes out. This trimming helps prevent any excess glue from touching the top panel if that happens.
Actually, although you can’t see it from the outside of the box, there are several hidden design adjustments like this that are used during the production of Himitsu-bako. These small techniques are often applied for the purpose of mass production. If I were only making a few boxes, I could take my time and work carefully to avoid problems. But when producing 50 or 100 boxes, repeating the same task many times naturally leads to small variations in hand movement. Sometimes this results in using too much glue, for example. These hidden adjustments help prevent the internal mechanisms from sticking together in such cases. In the past, it seems that craftsmen often produced the same type of box in lots of 300 or even 500 pieces. That’s likely why such clever techniques were developed. Since I don’t usually produce in such large numbers, I don’t often include these adjustments. However, for this 4-step box, the panels tend to stick easily, so I added this processing as a precaution.
Tomorrow, I plan to continue working on these tasks, as well as resume work on the 3-sun 12-step puzzle boxes, which have been on hold.
It was rainy from the morning, so I came to the workshop a bit later than usual. Since I had already finished making and assembling the Aruki panels yesterday while the weather was still good, I started today by attaching the top and bottom yosegi panels to the 18-step Mame himitsu-bako that I had prepared in advance. This time, I’m making about 50 boxes in total. Around 10 of them will have walnut top and bottom panels, with a solid hexagon yosegi on the top. The rest will be the traditional yosegi type.
The next step is attaching the side panels, but since the humidity is high today, I decided to postpone that until tomorrow. Although mame himitsu-bako are small and generally less affected by humidity, the panels are quite thin, so I’m still a bit concerned. So for today, I focused only on making the panels and will attach them starting tomorrow.
After that, I worked on making and attaching the top and bottom panels for the assembled 4-step mame himitsu-bako. Since this is a standard 4-step type, the bottom panel is fixed and do not move. Unlike other mame himitsu-bako, the back of the top panel is not cut at an angle. Instead, I slightly trim the back corners on the left and right sides. This is done in preparation for the next step — attaching the side panels (the Aruki side). Because the gluing area is small, the glue sometimes oozes out. This trimming helps prevent any excess glue from touching the top panel if that happens.
Actually, although you can’t see it from the outside of the box, there are several hidden design adjustments like this that are used during the production of Himitsu-bako. These small techniques are often applied for the purpose of mass production. If I were only making a few boxes, I could take my time and work carefully to avoid problems. But when producing 50 or 100 boxes, repeating the same task many times naturally leads to small variations in hand movement. Sometimes this results in using too much glue, for example. These hidden adjustments help prevent the internal mechanisms from sticking together in such cases. In the past, it seems that craftsmen often produced the same type of box in lots of 300 or even 500 pieces. That’s likely why such clever techniques were developed. Since I don’t usually produce in such large numbers, I don’t often include these adjustments. However, for this 4-step box, the panels tend to stick easily, so I added this processing as a precaution.
Tomorrow, I plan to continue working on these tasks, as well as resume work on the 3-sun 12-step puzzle boxes, which have been on hold.
