Woods used for Checkered yosegi
Today marks the start of a new week, and many jobs in Japan will probably enter the year-end and New Year holidays after this week. I’m sure many people are busy preparing for that. All of my shipments for this year will finish on the 26th (Friday). Any orders placed after that will be shipped starting on January 5th in the new year. Thank you for your understanding.
Today I continued working on the 6-sun puzzle boxes. I started making the Aruki moving panels in the morning, and the installation work is already finished. Next, I will cut the top and bottom panels and attach them. Since the painting process will take some time, I would like to finish the assembly stage as early as possible. For Japanese puzzle boxes, it is always necessary to allow a fixed amount of time for the glue to dry. No matter how much I hurry, a certain number of days is required, and that time cannot be shortened.
At the same time, I also started making checkered yosegi today. This is the four-color type that I have been making for some time. As you can see in the photo, from the front they are mizuki, ho, nyatoh, and urushi wood. This time as well, I plan to arrange this checkered yosegi in a diagonal pattern. By “diagonal,” I mean a gentle angle—about 20 degrees. Many traditional Hakone yosegi patterns are angled at around 45 degrees, so compared to those, mine is much softer. There isn’t a special reason for this, but with my way of working, if the angle is too steep, there ends up being more waste material. As I’ve written before, these four woods are chosen because they are relatively easy to slice. They are soft and have a fine, even grain. Only the urushi wood has a rougher grain, but when it is glued on, the roughness doesn’t stand out. Even if it becomes slightly transparent when attached to agathis wood, it doesn’t look bad. For those reasons, I use these four colors. They are also woods that I can obtain consistently, which is important 😊
Today I continued working on the 6-sun puzzle boxes. I started making the Aruki moving panels in the morning, and the installation work is already finished. Next, I will cut the top and bottom panels and attach them. Since the painting process will take some time, I would like to finish the assembly stage as early as possible. For Japanese puzzle boxes, it is always necessary to allow a fixed amount of time for the glue to dry. No matter how much I hurry, a certain number of days is required, and that time cannot be shortened.
At the same time, I also started making checkered yosegi today. This is the four-color type that I have been making for some time. As you can see in the photo, from the front they are mizuki, ho, nyatoh, and urushi wood. This time as well, I plan to arrange this checkered yosegi in a diagonal pattern. By “diagonal,” I mean a gentle angle—about 20 degrees. Many traditional Hakone yosegi patterns are angled at around 45 degrees, so compared to those, mine is much softer. There isn’t a special reason for this, but with my way of working, if the angle is too steep, there ends up being more waste material. As I’ve written before, these four woods are chosen because they are relatively easy to slice. They are soft and have a fine, even grain. Only the urushi wood has a rougher grain, but when it is glued on, the roughness doesn’t stand out. Even if it becomes slightly transparent when attached to agathis wood, it doesn’t look bad. For those reasons, I use these four colors. They are also woods that I can obtain consistently, which is important 😊