bill tindall
01-31-2014, 10:13 AM
History of the rediscovery of the Kato and Kawai work and video on the cap iron(chip breaker) effect
It was quite an accident
Steve Elliot has been doing research on plane blades and planing for several years. I was following Steve’s work posted on his web site. During some discussion he directed me to a publication by Professor Kato on plane blade wear. Steve also made me aware of some “screen shots” he had posted on his web site that were taken from a long lost video on what Professor Kato calls the “cap iron effect”. This paper referenced some additional publications on plane blade wear that Steve was interested in. When I tried to obtain these publications I found them to be in obscure Japanese technical journals. Professor Kawai is still teaching and through the University library I was able to track him down in the midst of the Japanese Tsunami tragedy (the university was closed). He in turn put me in touch with Professor Kato who generously volunteered to send me copies of the publications. He mentioned off hand that he had a planing video he could send. Indeed, it was the “lost” video.
Professor Kato’s research was on plane blade wear, specifically for the Japanese Super Surfacers, planing machines that replicate the surface finish of hand planing. A laboratory planing machine was developed for these studies. The planing machine enabled videos of shaving formation to be made. Professors Kato and Kawai realized that these pictures would be a useful teaching tool in their trades classes. They prepared a video for this purpose. This video was presented by Professor Kato at the 3rd International Tooling Symposium in 1994. There was interest in this video and Professor Kato put it up for at time on the University web site. Some screen shots from this video got captured and it was these shots that found their way to Steve’s web site. However, without the complete text to go with them they were not as informative as they could be.
Steve’s focus at the time was on blade wear and he needed a translation of Kato’s publication on this topic. One of our club members, Mia Iwasaki, graciously volunteered to translate the publication. Because the publication is copyrighted we could not repost it. But, a review of the paper was prepared and it is posted on Steve’s site. There are several other important publications on wear that we will post when we are able to get them translated.
When I received the copy of the video from Professor Kato , I asked Mia to translate the audio which she did. In the mean time Professor Kawai agreed to put the video back up on the University web site. In various places, for example Weaver article at Wood Central, there are links to this video.
Kato and Kawai published a description for setting the cap iron (chip breaker) as a teaching tool for their classes. We have not gotten this publication thoroughly translated at this time. ( If anyone can translate Japanese to English we have several planing papers that would be of interest that need translation. One in particular is on wear and sharpening of various plane blade steels.) In this paper they use the compression of the shaving to judge when the cap iron is properly set. It is this shaving compression that provides the counter force to resist the lifting of the shaving ahead of the plane blade tip.
I have in hand the original copy of the Kato and Kawai video. I have permission from Professor Kato to share it so long as it is not used for any commercial purpose( like don’t make copies and sell them!). Ideally, it will get stored in enough places that I will not get lost again.
It was quite an accident
Steve Elliot has been doing research on plane blades and planing for several years. I was following Steve’s work posted on his web site. During some discussion he directed me to a publication by Professor Kato on plane blade wear. Steve also made me aware of some “screen shots” he had posted on his web site that were taken from a long lost video on what Professor Kato calls the “cap iron effect”. This paper referenced some additional publications on plane blade wear that Steve was interested in. When I tried to obtain these publications I found them to be in obscure Japanese technical journals. Professor Kawai is still teaching and through the University library I was able to track him down in the midst of the Japanese Tsunami tragedy (the university was closed). He in turn put me in touch with Professor Kato who generously volunteered to send me copies of the publications. He mentioned off hand that he had a planing video he could send. Indeed, it was the “lost” video.
Professor Kato’s research was on plane blade wear, specifically for the Japanese Super Surfacers, planing machines that replicate the surface finish of hand planing. A laboratory planing machine was developed for these studies. The planing machine enabled videos of shaving formation to be made. Professors Kato and Kawai realized that these pictures would be a useful teaching tool in their trades classes. They prepared a video for this purpose. This video was presented by Professor Kato at the 3rd International Tooling Symposium in 1994. There was interest in this video and Professor Kato put it up for at time on the University web site. Some screen shots from this video got captured and it was these shots that found their way to Steve’s web site. However, without the complete text to go with them they were not as informative as they could be.
Steve’s focus at the time was on blade wear and he needed a translation of Kato’s publication on this topic. One of our club members, Mia Iwasaki, graciously volunteered to translate the publication. Because the publication is copyrighted we could not repost it. But, a review of the paper was prepared and it is posted on Steve’s site. There are several other important publications on wear that we will post when we are able to get them translated.
When I received the copy of the video from Professor Kato , I asked Mia to translate the audio which she did. In the mean time Professor Kawai agreed to put the video back up on the University web site. In various places, for example Weaver article at Wood Central, there are links to this video.
Kato and Kawai published a description for setting the cap iron (chip breaker) as a teaching tool for their classes. We have not gotten this publication thoroughly translated at this time. ( If anyone can translate Japanese to English we have several planing papers that would be of interest that need translation. One in particular is on wear and sharpening of various plane blade steels.) In this paper they use the compression of the shaving to judge when the cap iron is properly set. It is this shaving compression that provides the counter force to resist the lifting of the shaving ahead of the plane blade tip.
I have in hand the original copy of the Kato and Kawai video. I have permission from Professor Kato to share it so long as it is not used for any commercial purpose( like don’t make copies and sell them!). Ideally, it will get stored in enough places that I will not get lost again.