Unique 27-step box
It started raining this morning. I’m glad I made and attached the Aruki panels (moving panels) for the square box yesterday—it turned out to be the right decision. Since I can’t do any work that’s sensitive to humidity today, I started making the structural parts of the 27-steps puzzle box for the Hakone market.
I already pasted the Yosegi panels last week. This 27-steps box is a little bigger than my usual 4-sun box. As I mentioned last week, I’m making it to match the size of the top "Mokuzogan" (a picture made of wood), so it’s slightly larger than normal. I’ve prepared the materials accordingly.
There are only about 30 of these mokuzogan pieces, so I decided to make around 10 additional boxes with other designs to ship together to the Hakone market. This time, the marquetry design is a rare and old one called "Sansui (mountain and water)". Sansui shows a landscape of Hakone, mainly featuring Mt. Fuji and Lake Ashinoko. It’s a traditional and well-known design in this region.
I found about 30 sheets of this marquetry, so I’ll use them. The Hakone supplier has been in business for a long time, so sometimes they find old Yosegi or mokuzogan pieces in their storage. Back in the old days, they made a lot more products than they do now, so they probably forgot these even existed!😂 But everything was well-stored, so the condition is still very good.
With older Yosegi, the biggest problem is often that the glue weakens and the pieces fall apart. Also, they tend to turn yellow from sun exposure over time. But in this case, the mokuzogan sheets were kept between newspaper pages, which protected them from UV light, so there’s very little discoloration.
I think these boxes will turn out to be quite unique.
I already pasted the Yosegi panels last week. This 27-steps box is a little bigger than my usual 4-sun box. As I mentioned last week, I’m making it to match the size of the top "Mokuzogan" (a picture made of wood), so it’s slightly larger than normal. I’ve prepared the materials accordingly.
There are only about 30 of these mokuzogan pieces, so I decided to make around 10 additional boxes with other designs to ship together to the Hakone market. This time, the marquetry design is a rare and old one called "Sansui (mountain and water)". Sansui shows a landscape of Hakone, mainly featuring Mt. Fuji and Lake Ashinoko. It’s a traditional and well-known design in this region.
I found about 30 sheets of this marquetry, so I’ll use them. The Hakone supplier has been in business for a long time, so sometimes they find old Yosegi or mokuzogan pieces in their storage. Back in the old days, they made a lot more products than they do now, so they probably forgot these even existed!😂 But everything was well-stored, so the condition is still very good.
With older Yosegi, the biggest problem is often that the glue weakens and the pieces fall apart. Also, they tend to turn yellow from sun exposure over time. But in this case, the mokuzogan sheets were kept between newspaper pages, which protected them from UV light, so there’s very little discoloration.
I think these boxes will turn out to be quite unique.
