Final Steps

Chiseling out the blind mortises in the rails & stiles to make room for the kumiko tenons.

Final smooth planing of all pieces prior to assembly.

The walnut wedges cut to size and (more or less) ready for insertion into the rail tenons upon final assembly.

Assembling the kumiko for the final product.

Adding the rails, and after that the stiles.

Insert wedges into tenons, hammer into place, saw off waste, smooth with low angle block plane, repeat. A note: I made the exterior stile mortise too large and had to insert 4 small wedges instead of two large ones to avoid splitting the tenon. This was a bit of headache and one of the areas for improvement next time around.

And the final product-minus the paper, which will be addressed soon.

Otherwise a good first attempt. Turns out it takes a delicate hand and determined patience and practice to cut everything to such precise dimensions. No gap on the entire piece was greater than 1/32 but on a piece like this, it really matters and is very noticeable. Especially to the maker. The compression joints worked like a charm and no glue was necessary. I needed to do some final planing to match the rail and stile joints, but that was easy enough work.

As Mr. Van Arsdale says, “…If one or more pieces don’t fit… resolve to do better next time”.

And so I will.

Onto the Kumiko

Marking the kumiko for the half-lap joints was somewhat challenging. They are small pieces (1/4″ x 3/8″) by approx 21″ or 31″ for the horizontal and vertical strips respectively. The process is of the type where after you do it, it makes perfect sense but prior to, it’s challenging to wrap your head around, at least in the pre-visualization sense. One of the positive aspects is that if you are making several shoji of the same size, you can take care of several of the marking and cutting steps all at the same time.

Once I had that step completed, I laid out all the pieces again to make sure all the marks were in the right place and then moved on to cutting out the half laps. Here’s where the time saver comes in. When you lay out all the horizontal kumiko, you can orient them so that all the half laps are lined up and the sides of the joint can be sawn out simultaneously. Then, you can flip every other kumiko 180 degrees so that all the tenons line up at which point you can saw those. Repeat with the vertical kumiko.

To knock out the waste of each half lap, lightly tap bottom of the joint with the correct sized chisel to establish a line to eliminate tear out on each side then remove the waste. While you could do this using only hand pressure, a mallet provides more accuracy.

Once done, I assembled the kumiko to confirm the fit. Everything was pretty close but some of the half-lap joints were a little short so I’ll need to go back and remove a little bit more to make them flush.

I cut the kumiko a tad long just to give myself some room to work with-I’ll need to cut the tenons so that the final length is correct.

The last big step is to cut the mortises in the tenons and rails.

Unfortunately I don’t have a chisel small enough to perform this task so these guys will have to wait. Turns out it’s not so easy to find a 1/8″ or 3/16″ mortising chisel at the local hardware store. I’ve got a lead on a woodturning supply place nearby. Will report back on my findings…

Marking und Measuring

Once the rails, stiles, and kumiko were sized and planed to working length, I moved on to choosing which sides, specifically on the rails and stiles, I wanted for the front and back of the screen.

The marks shown here are located on the interior of the frame and indicate the top (for the stiles) and the RH side (the rails) which then also indicates which side is the front of the shoji.

For the kumiko, I laid them out in the actual alternating weave pattern in which they will appear in the final product. Here too, I marked each kumiko to indicate relative location. I also marked with an “X” the approximate spot where each half-lap joint will be cut.

Next up was measuring and marking the mortises and tenons and then actually cutting them.

With the tenons, I started with the three rip cuts and then moved onto the cross cuts, careful not to cut into the tenon and undermine its strength. I used a 240mm dozuki to begin each cut, establishing a cut on each corner and then a kerf to establish a straight line. Nonetheless it takes some effort to make flawless, parallel cuts and mine were by no means perfect, but I absolutely tried to do the best that I could. The rest will come with time and practice.

It took me, a novice with hand tools, about 1 hour to properly cut each tenon and then clean it up with a chisel as best I could. Onto the mortises.

If you buy Jay Van Arsdale’s book, Shoji, for no other reason than to learn how to properly cut mortises, then you have got your money’s worth. In a deceptively short 96 pages, Mr. Van Arsdale condenses a week-long workshop worth of advice into how to mark and cut mortise and tenon joints. It’s dense reading no doubt for the beginner. But well worth the time and effort. The right mindset helps. I dove into this project in the spirit of experiment, knowing it wouldn’t be perfect the first time, but that each subsequent screen would build on the experiences of the last one.

And it’s of no embarrassment to admit that I have basically been cutting mortises backwards for the last 3 or so years that I’ve been woodworking. Ah, the foibles of auto-didacticism. Rather than reinvent the wheel here, I’ll give you the photos and leave it at that. Suffice to say, it was an epiphany to realize that using the chisel bevel-down worked so much better.

Now for the first dry fit of the rails and stiles. I left the tenons and mortises somewhat rough-to aid in keeping the joints tight. One note here; I don’t have the proper chisels, nor the right sizes so some improvisation was in order. I’ll need to find some smaller than 1/4″ mortising and paring chisels.

Overall, a good result with the joints. I’ll need to plane the rails and stiles so that everything is even and planar. The biggest issue I had was the mortises being slightly over wide and that was due to not have the correct size chisel, along with making the tenons a hair narrower than they should have been. Still a snug fit but a tiny gap on either side all the same.

Since this entire screen is compression fit only-no glue or fasteners, the tenons need to in effect grab on to the mortises and hold tight. To enable, two thin, angled cuts about half the depth of the mortise are sawn into the tenons.

These kerfs will be widened by two wedges of hardwood. In my case I will use walnut. To give them room to expand, I had to flare out the top and bottom of the exterior mortise by 1/8″. The two images below are the before and after. It’s not easy to see but you can notice the flare on the second photo if you look closely.

And you can definitely see the gaps now, when the tenon is inserted into the mortise. Those will then close up once the wedges are inserted on final assembly. This essentially creates a dovetail joint.

And lastly for today’s work, I began measuring out all the mortises, tenons, and half-laps that will go with the kumiko. 

I’ve only begun this stage and will go into further detail down the road. Until next time.

Ways to Help

Consider donating to the United Way of Boston or the Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts as a way to help out.

Thickness Planing Jig

In order to get the kumiko pieces to the required dimensions, I needed a way to use the hand plane without destroying the pieces in the process and a thickness planing jig was the answer. Using some diagrams from FW #204 I put together a fairly simple jig.

Basically it consists of 2 “L” shaped strips glued and brad nailed to a board at the width of the plane I intended to use. In this case a #4 bevel up smoother.

I inserted a piece of 3/4 plywood sized to the same width as the smoothing plane to ensure that the two “L” pieces remained parallel. For the wood I used QS Sycamore.

The fit with the smoothing plane was a tad tight, but a little work with the paring chisel took care of things.

In theory, a spacer is used to bring the kumiko up to the desired height where the plane then shaves off the difference. One could then use different spacers with varying thickness to effect the desired height of the piece to be planed. In reality, I ended up using the low angle block plane which conveniently fits into the lower level, had little to no room to shift side to side and beautifully shaved off the thickness necessary to get the kumiko to spec.

While I didn’t end up using the jig for the initial intended purpose, it worked just fine. And I’ll still be able to use it with the #4 when the time arises.

Forward Motion

From this…

To this…

At this point I’ve got all the pieces milled and cut to working size. You can see from the above image there are 2 rails, 2 stiles, and 7 kumiko. In Van Arsdale’s Shoji, he lays out plans for creating 4 screens. The screens are the same size and are intended to work together as an entire unit. I’ll be building this first one as a trial and if all goes well, end up with two workable screens to create a simple, single, sliding unit.

One completed screen will be approximately 2′x3′. That puts the working size of the rails at 25″ x 1 1/4″ x 2 1/2″, the stiles at 37″ x 1 1/4″ x 1 1/2″, the horizontal kumiko (4) at 22″ x 1/4″ x 3/8″, and the vertical kumiko (3) at 32″ x 1/4″ x 3/8″.

My rails and stiles ended up being somewhat thinner and narrower, based entirely on my inexperience using a hand plane to joint to square and plane to thickness. I can’t see that this will cause much of an issue in the long run-we’re talking maybe 1/16″ to 1/8″ less than the specified plans. Which means on the following screens, during the power milling process, I’ll leave more room for error, I mean practice.

For those who are interested-I used a table saw (one could certainly substitute a good band saw here), chop saw and planer to get everything to the rough measurements. From there I’ve moved to hand tools. I’m mixing Eastern and Western hand tools for a couple reasons. I feel comfortable using Japanese saws and chisels. However when it comes to planes, I have little to no experience with the Japanese variety. They remain that mysterious dark space in my time spent woodworking. I would very much like to explore Japanese planes further, and in fact while using a #4 bevel-up smoothing plane, especially on the longer stiles, it seemed it would have been easier to pull the plane rather than push. But I am also frankly out of shape when it comes to the motions needed for good planing practice-it is no doubt a good workout. For now I really want to make the best possible Shoji that I can-perfection is the goal.

I’ve also been using a low angle block plane. My strategy at this point has been to take off a bit of a thicker shaving with the #4 Smoother and when I need to work on truing one particular place on a rail or stile I bring in the low angle block which is set to take a very thin shaving. This lets me spend a lot of time taking thin passes, checking the work for true and then move back to the smoother for a final pass. Prior to final assembly I will go over everything again with the #4 and take the thinnest shaving I can manage. One trick I learned for a final burnish is to take a handful of those fine shavings and rub down the planed piece. It creates a lovely, smooth sheen.

The other technical note is that of sharpening. Everything I’ve read about issues that come up with using hand tools have all emphasized one thing-keep your tools sharp. I’d like to add my voice to that chorus. The moment things start feeling wonky, out of wack, etc., go sharpen your tools. And that is an entirely different beast, but one well worth exploring. I’ve been using Japanese waterstones with a grit of 1000 and 6000 and an Atoma diamond lapping plate at 400 grit to keep them flat. And a honing guide does wonders for the novice. There are numerous resources out there explaining the process; a little research and a lot of experimentation will pay off in the end.

As the kumiko are still “roughly” milled, I need to design a jig to allow me to hand plane them. Which might sound easier than it actually is-the kumiko are only 1/4″ x 3/8″ making them quite vulnerable to damage. Once I figure that out, it will be on to cutting the tenons and then hollowing out the mortises in rails & stiles respectively.

Making Paper

 

Forward progress on the shoji experiment.

Planing the rails and stiles to size.

Moving on to the kumiko. Fortunately the plans call for at least two extra kumiko. In my case I basically destroyed one and needed to use one of the spares.

Finer finish than I’ve been able to manage with sand paper. Will do a final smoothing prior to assembly.A sharp edge, achieved courtesy of my smoothing plane.

Now 3/32″ seems like a lot of wood. Somewhere in that dark hole is the reason why hand tools are a joy to work with.