The word for hand plane (woodworking tool) in Japanese is Kanna. A kanna is made up of at least two parts; a main blade (or iron) and a wooden body that holds the main blade, which is called the Dai. A loose translation of the word dai might be “holder”. In the last two or three hundred years two more parts have been added, a sub-blade (or chip breaker) and a pin to keep the sub-blade in contact with the flat of the main blade. See the sketch below for a rough through section of a Japanese plane and its parts, as well as five pictures of a Tanaka plane that he made for me. The dai is Hon Shiro Gashi (old red oak).

Tanaka Hisao was sold as a young boy to a master dai maker. This was by no means uncommon in the last century and while I am aware that Tanaka san’s youth was filled with hardship and the struggle to master the craft assigned to him I never heard him complain about any discomfort or inequity of any sort. He did master dai making and before he was very old was considered by many plane iron blacksmiths as the greatest dai maker alive. Tanaka san was officially granted the title of “Living treasure” in his seventies, a very young age for such an honor. I met him, and my two other Japanese teachers, at a woodworking seminar in New Hampshire in the early 1980’s. Tanaka san, like Fujieada san and Miyano san, was a “Mejin no Mejin”, a Master’s Master. It was my great fortune to have known these great and celebrated craftsmen, all of whom were generous with their time and knowledge and had no reason to be so except out of choice.

These pictures were taken at Tanaka san’s shop in Miki City Japan in the late eighties.
Tanaka san at his bench. Traditional craftsmen tended to work sitting on the floor.

In the photographs below, Tanaka san is tuning a hand plane that he has made, making it ready for use.

These are photographs showing his work area, with and without his dai bench in place.

Last is Tanaka san's sharpening station.

Thank you for reading these posts. I hope I have been able to give you a glimpse of something you were not aware of and that you found some of it interesting. For my own part these men were enormously important to me as I came to understand how pathetically narrow my experience was and also that there were, and are, always many ways of efficiently and effectively solving problems and that many of the best are less than obvious. I owe much to these three Shokunin, who treated me most kindly.

At 11:03 on the morning of April 14th, 1998, a boy was born into my waiting hands under the 104 degree water of a portable birthing pool in our bedroom at the back of our over 200 year old house on the day that the buds on the trees first began bursting into leaf on 37 Prospect Street, Newburyport, Massachusetts. His mother labored in the pool all morning, the steam rising off of her in the windows while she made herself and our child ready for the next big phase of life.

After two big pushes out he came, first his head and then a turn and his shoulders next and then all of him (and clearly a him), a perfect presentation. I supported him in the water and without consciously doing so noted that he had the right number of fingers and toes and he looked just perfectly wonderful as he stretched his legs and arms for the very first time. Such a soft and delicate feeling, holding him there under the water, the umbilical cord still pulsing and providing him with oxygen. He was under the water for a good two minutes, gently moving himself around, and then he straightened both of his legs, straightened his back and his neck, opened his arms like a pair of wings and for the very first time opened his eyes, looked at us and smiled.

He looked at all of us, me, his mother, his grandmother, our dear friends Michelle and Rory and his half sister. He made eye contact under the water with all of us. Then he motioned with his arms as though he wanted to come up into the air, so I raised him onto his mother's shoulder. He held his head up and looked around at all of us again, breathed perfectly right from the start, and started giggling.



My son Jake came into this world and forever changed everything for me. All the cliches people say about what happens to you when you become a parent became simple sense since the instant that I first saw the top of his head. His mother had worried before his birth if she would be able to love him as much as she loved her daughter but soon after told me that she needn't have worried, that rather than have to divide her love between two children that her capacity for love simply increased.

He's a lucky fellow, and a very kind and wonderful young man who is fourteen tomorrow. I am so impossibly proud of him and pleased for him beyond measure at what a fine fellow he is. Happy Birthday Jake, and many, many more.

Another Japan photo post to mark the passing of my favorite teacher this past week.

Meet Miyano Dai Endo (his professional name) known to many of those who were close to him as Yataiki. Like my Temple carpenter teacher Fujieda san, I met Endo san at a Japanese woodworking demonstration and seminar in southern New Hampshire in the early 1980s. Yataiki was the last in a long line of great swordsmiths. A swordsmith will typically only take on a son as an apprentice and while he and his wonderful wife were blessed with healthy children none were boys, so the traditions of his swordmaking line have now ended. The pictures below show the stages of the birth of a sword. These sorts of images are quite rare.

I spent a day making steel from scrap antique (pre-industrial) iron objects, such as an ancient iron pot, broken up carefully into pieces the size of half a fingernail, as well as old nails, some heated in the fire and stretched, others cut into 1/2 inch pieces.

After preparing the forge, we built a fire using wood charcoal and started adding in the scrap iron, a little at a time.

While a celebrated swordsmith, the bulk of Yataiki's blacksmithing income came from the making of woodworking saws. I have several of his blades and treasure them as great works of art. Here are some pictures of his saw scraping and tuning work area.

Yataiki was an Ai-to master, a No master, an Urusenke tea master, at the time these pictures were taken the president of the International Calligraphy Association (one often sees his calligraphy on commercial products to this day) a Go master of the highest ranking, a poet, perhaps the greatest blacksmith of his generation and the most gentle and generous man I have ever known. The sadness I feel at his passing is so easily eclipsed by the light he brought to my life and many others. I revere him above any other and from the time we met considered him my master, and was privileged to do so.

Photo post.

I shot the pictures below with a cheap 35mm mini camera in the late 80s. They were all taken early one winter morning in the countryside just outside Miki City, Japan.

The man pictured here is a sixteenth generation temple carpenter, one of my teachers. The pictures above were taken near his home. Here he stands at one of the several gates leading into Himeji Castle.
Back story:

On the evening of November 18th last year I arrived in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, a Spanish island off the coast of West Africa. I had traveled from California to Boston, where I met a friend I have known since grade school, Ron, and the two of us boarded a flight to Las Palmas with a layover in Madrid. The purpose of our trip was to meet up with another grade school friend, Blake, and his brother Tony aboard his 83 foot yacht in order to serve as crew during the 2011 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC). The ARC has been running annually for over 20 years from Las Palmas to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia and has proven very popular, as such events go. There were over 210 entries this year. As with most sail races there are classes for each general type of vessel. Our ship, Mustang, fit into the open category. At 65 tons and 83 feet we were by no means the largest and fastest boat in the open class and Mustang's only previous attempt, in 2006 (different owner and crew) resulted in her dismasting half way across. Despite some very stiff competition we prepared to make the best showing possible while enjoying a true gentleman's race, which is sailed entirely with the wind.

I will spare you the minutiae and post pictures with little descriptions of what is pictured, if needed. Otherwise, enjoy.

Me, Ron and Richard in Mustang's cockpit, 11/19.

Mustang from across the marina.

Our neighbor in Las Palmas to port.

The Captain had a local artist paint this on the wall aft at the Marina.

Under way...

Me getting the ships cannon ready for firing as we cross the line.

Dolphins, and these are little ones. About mid way across during a watch on an overcast night we heard a splash and whoosh to port and knew that it was dolphins coming up for a breath and a look at us. Intensely curious, dolphins are always checking out boats. This night we were treated to a phosphorescence light show. I went forward to the bow pulpit and hung out over the water as perhaps a dozen large dolphins swam left and right and among each other just under and ahead of the bow, with an occasional silhouette of one of them breaching the surface, followed by the abundant phosphorescence caused by their re-entry into the water. Pure magic and one of the most incredibly beautiful things I have ever seen.

Back to the passage. A sail arrangement you probably have never seen...

Wing on wing on wing, The main, an inner fore sail and the outer fore sail, all flying at the same time, one spilling into the next spilling into the last. Very efficient and much safer than flying a purely downwind sail (spinnaker, tri-radial, etc.).

General shots...

We arrived in St. Lucia on December 5th at 07:30 local time, 13 days and 23 hours after leaving Las Palmas, a very respectable time. Our finish place was 4th in the open class and 24th overall, a fine finish. No one who came in ahead of us belonged behind us and many who came after us ought to have finished ahead.
This is White Knight, a fast Swan sailed by two really cool young Italian gentlemen who were great fun to hang out with.

I'll end this with a shot of yours truly at the starboard main winch and Mustang at rest on the west coast of St. Lucia.

I will be away from November 17th until early or mid December. The sailing yacht Mustang awaits in Gran Canaria off the West Coast of Africa and I have been called to man her as she races to St. Lucia in the Caribbean.

I will miss you all and look forward to catching up when I return. Best wishes to you all. Enjoy Thanksgiving and stay safe.

URL tracking Mustang http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=ZHGZ3

Sanctioning organizations entry list http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/entries.aspx

Edit: Arrived St. Lucia 07:30 5 December, 3rd in the open division. More once I am home.

I don't remember the date, but it was winter of 95-96 I think. It was a Sunday night and I had been hanging out at the Grog in Newburyport with one of the waitresses and the rest of the floor staff. They had a so called blues show every Sunday night down in the basement where the stage is and as usual we would sit smoking cigarettes and sipping a drink while watching the loners and the pairings leave the blues show. We called it the parade. Closing time rolls around and a pretty large group of us head around the corner to the Thirsty Whale for a drink. There is a pretty good snowstorm outside but its not super cold or windy. We have a few at the Whale, then most of us decide to head over to my place to sit around in front of the fireplace (I had a nearly walk in fireplace) and drink some more and smoke more butts. On the way there somebody throws a snowball at somebody else and then the great Newburyport snowball massacre begins.

Its not such a common sight to see a group of maybe fifteen adults, ranging in age from 24 to 50, running around the streets like a bunch of kids throwing snowballs in the middle of the night. The melee actually grows when a cop we know and like comes upon us in his patrol car, steps out, removes his gunbelt and joins in. There's lots of snow, and it packs easily but not too densely. Perfect snowball snow. Someone gets someone in the earhole, someone else escalates the hostilities by raising a big chunk of plow berm and crashing it over their victim's head, its just mayhem. Great times. The snowball fight winds down, but not the laughter or the smiling. We head over to my old place and enjoy the fire, and the drinks, and the butts, and each other.

There is not a lot I miss about winter in New England, but I sure miss that.

I'm thinking of heading down to LA to visit some friends and family sometime in the next month. Anyone around?

Chicken Rice Mess

One 5.3 pound roasted chicken.

Pan with drippings.

Pan gravy.

All cut up and ready for the next night.

The makings before removing excess fat from pan gravy.

Dice time.

Knife work.

Half an hour later.

Leftovers.

With apologies to all of my SG friends for simply going for a very long walk (thats a metaphor), I would like to say that I am back.

I went through a long period of unemployment and am now nearly six weeks back to work. During the year + of vritually no work I had nothing positive or even constructive to add to this community and so went AWOL. I probably should have been at least a little communicative but I wasn't. PI probably ought to have checked in with a few particular individuals here (whom I hope are still here) but I didn't. I needed to figuratively crawl under a rock and hide, so I did.

Love to you all and looking forward to catching up.