What is Japanese Woodworking? - An Introduction

I want to live at peace with the natural world, to live close to nature and to craft things of beauty using my hands. Japanese woodworking has opened a path for this in my life so I'd love to share with you a few things that make this way of working unique. In Japan there's a strong reverence for nature. Working with the trees, utilizing the material in the way that it wants to be worked. Trees live the life of their own and during wind and storms and these stories are written into the wood when we work. In Japanese woodworking there's so much emphasis on how the wood speaks to it. This way of looking at the world has heavily influenced the way wood has been worked in Japan for centuries. Everything is put together using interlocking joinery. It allows us to use the natural characteristics of the wood. No screws or nails are used. This is categorized as sashimono. Sashimono style woodworking really exploded during the Edo period of Japan and continues to this day. So many beautiful handmade objects were created during this period in small spaces with similar tools to what I have here in this shop. No vices or bench dogs or any of that kind of thing are used in Japanese work benches traditionally. That allows me to have a really simple modular setup. I can tear it down. I can set it back up really quickly. It allows me to keep a really efficient workable space. Japanese tools are designed to cut on the pull stroke. This allows me to use the natural motion of my body to connect with the tools and then translate that into working the material. When using Japanese saws or Japanese tools in general, a light grip allows me to have a really sensitive approach to the material. When I'm making a cut, I'm pulling the force into the workbench. I can flip it, make the cut on the other side. This makes for really, really efficient and very quick work. Japanese planes are used in the same way. I've got this piece of wood sitting on my workbench. I bring it up to the plane stops. I take the plane and I'm pulling it towards me. This bench setup is so simple. It allows me to use all kinds of different setups really quickly. I can switch between tools. When I'm sawing, I can saw this way. I can put it on my bench and use my hand plane very quickly. This is a very efficient, very simple way of working. It makes me more sensitive to the tools and sensitive to the material. It's amazing how these tools are designed to just use our bodies and gravity and physics to work wood very quickly and get really beautiful results. When I first found Japanese woodworking, I was working a really stressful job at the time. I'd gotten an apprenticeship at a really high-end furniture shop in Brooklyn, New York. Beautiful work, exotic woods, and really high-end designs. But it didn't have that feeling that I wanted, that I had originally saw when I first got into woodworking, what drew me into it. I wanted to feel that warmth, the life in the wood. But in Brooklyn, there was a teacher who taught Japanese woodworking classes. I'd always been kind of like interested in Japanese culture and woodworking in the Japanese tradition always intrigued me. But when I first walked into this traditional Japanese wood shop, all the feelings that I had originally been attracted to in woodworking, I found in this place. So I decided to sign up for a few classes and this one moment in a simple mortise and tenon class, sunlight raked across the bench. And as I was sitting, kind of squatting at the bench, looking at my work, a deep breath filled my lungs. I realized this is it. This is the kind of craft that I've been looking for. There's a depth of sensing that creates the essence of beautiful work. At the heart of Japanese woodworking is connection. Connection to the tools, connection to the traditions, and ultimately connection to the material itself. I started this channel to share this beautiful way of working with you. I've got many videos planned, including projects, tools, and tips. So if you're interested in this kind of content, please hit the like button below and subscribe to this channel. And if you have any suggestions or if there's anything in particular you'd like to see in a future video, leave a comment below. I would love to hear what you think. See you next time.