Stanley Covington
11-13-2016, 6:58 AM
This post is the third installation in my posts about The Gennou.
This is simply an example of another way to get the job done.
Matt Lau kindly sent me two pieces of Osage Orange wood over the last year. I made one small gennou (280 gm) out of one piece, of which I added pictures to my previous part titled "The Gennou - BTS Part Deux." This time I made a larger (400 gm) gennou in a Yamakichi style from a different piece of the same wood. I suspect both pieces were riven from the same tree. Being heavier and having a larger eye, the Yamakichi handle is of course bigger.
The Yamakichi style is the Kanto version of the Funate style gennou. It is a general purpose head intended to drive and set nails, drive chisels, and adjust planes (egads!). It is very handy around a construction site. The face is very slightly domed, which is not ideal for chisels, but the radius is very large so it is not enough to damage chisels.
Both gennou are fitted to my body. You will notice the handle length, measured from the face's center, is identical. The curvature, which is essentially a graceful way to tweak the angle of the head in relation to the hand, is greater in the heavier Yamakichi gennou than in the smaller one. This is because the Yamakichi head is longer than the ryoguchi (two-faced) head.
There are two interesting things I wanted to point out. The first is the difference in color. The smaller gennou spent 4 months on a window ledge in my shop exposed to sunlight, turning it a nice nut brown, while the Yamakichi is brand new and a frightening yellow-orange color. I like the color that Osage Orange develops.
The second point is that both handles are musical. If you tap them with a hardwood stick, they make a beautiful musical note. Of course, the larger handle has a deeper tone. Matt uses Osage Orange for guitars, and now I know why.
Osage Orange is hard, very fibrous and very tough. It makes an excellent gennou handle.
The orientation of the grain is rotated 90 degrees from the ideal, but what you see is the only orientation the riven stick would permit.
Stan
347356347357347358347353347355
This is simply an example of another way to get the job done.
Matt Lau kindly sent me two pieces of Osage Orange wood over the last year. I made one small gennou (280 gm) out of one piece, of which I added pictures to my previous part titled "The Gennou - BTS Part Deux." This time I made a larger (400 gm) gennou in a Yamakichi style from a different piece of the same wood. I suspect both pieces were riven from the same tree. Being heavier and having a larger eye, the Yamakichi handle is of course bigger.
The Yamakichi style is the Kanto version of the Funate style gennou. It is a general purpose head intended to drive and set nails, drive chisels, and adjust planes (egads!). It is very handy around a construction site. The face is very slightly domed, which is not ideal for chisels, but the radius is very large so it is not enough to damage chisels.
Both gennou are fitted to my body. You will notice the handle length, measured from the face's center, is identical. The curvature, which is essentially a graceful way to tweak the angle of the head in relation to the hand, is greater in the heavier Yamakichi gennou than in the smaller one. This is because the Yamakichi head is longer than the ryoguchi (two-faced) head.
There are two interesting things I wanted to point out. The first is the difference in color. The smaller gennou spent 4 months on a window ledge in my shop exposed to sunlight, turning it a nice nut brown, while the Yamakichi is brand new and a frightening yellow-orange color. I like the color that Osage Orange develops.
The second point is that both handles are musical. If you tap them with a hardwood stick, they make a beautiful musical note. Of course, the larger handle has a deeper tone. Matt uses Osage Orange for guitars, and now I know why.
Osage Orange is hard, very fibrous and very tough. It makes an excellent gennou handle.
The orientation of the grain is rotated 90 degrees from the ideal, but what you see is the only orientation the riven stick would permit.
Stan
347356347357347358347353347355