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Thread: Japanese hammer/genno

  1. #16
    Thanks.

    My first name is Jay but an epic struggle registering for the site led to using my middle name.

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Apr 2021
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    648
    Quote Originally Posted by Derek Cohen View Post
    This is a quote from So Yamashita’s website. So lives on the northern beaches of Sydney and sells the very highest quality Japanese tools. I obtained my gennou heads from him many years ago.

    A bit more on Japanese hammers, since I started (^^). Top quality handmade Japanese hammerheads are not hardened just evenly throughout the body. The hardness is different within a single head. The centre of the striking surface is softer so that it won't be as slippery when striking the nail. The peripheral is made harder to prevent dents and chips. The body is hardened and tempered to make it as tenacious as possible to absorb the shock. The best of the best hammerheads are constructed using soft iron for the body and steel laminated on the striking surface. The MOST expensive ones even have wood grain pattern on the jigane (body iron). The handle attatching hole is opened to absolute square, and the center is made slightly tighter by tapping the body from outside after the hole has been gouged. This makes it possible for the handle to be attatched with no wedge holding the handle from the other side, and still will not come off. The best made hole's edge is not rounded at all, and it looks as if it was chiseled out.


    Here is a sincere question, not intended to offend, for those most familiar with Japanese tools - how much of this is marketing B.S.?

    I've always wondered, as the descriptions are beautifully written. Japanese culture has a lot of ceremony/ritual incorporated in it and Shinto traditions that give inanimate objects attributes that probably don't have an equivalent in Western culture.

    I appreciate true craftsmanship and don't want to discount the skill involved. But these are businesses all selling essentially the same widgets. Do these product features actually make a difference in performance? Perhaps whoever wrote this took some creative license with the copy? Is this just ritual for the sake of marketing?


    I recall a blind test of professional violinists playing both modern violins and Stradivarius violins. When asked to choose the best sounding violins, most unknowingly choose the modern versions. But most were still convinced that the Strats were better.


    Is my skepticism unwarranted here?

  3. #18
    I think a gennou is actually better, but perhaps the best feature of a well crafted head is that it inspires you to create a well crafted handle. I have never gone out of my way to make a good handle for a random hammer head, but I have spent the time to make a handle for my gennou that fits my hand and arm. It is so much easier to use than any other hammer I have ever had.

  4. #19
    I think there is marketing, tradition, and like high-end things generally, at the top the performance difference is vanishingly small.
    The best is not always the best, however- for example high end saws have brittle teeth that are easily broken. Your Ferrari is not ideal as a grocery getter.
    I have generally mid and upper-mid quality tools, and quite a few used ones that were clearly good enough to have been used professionally for many years, and sharpened hundreds of times. So much depends on the set up and tools kind of have their individual personalities so one learns how to get the best from them. Compared to normal western tools, 'tho, one chisel is used for precise joinery, and the other is mostly used for scraping glue. The metal planes have their good points but rarely get used, & the only western saw that gets used is a hacksaw.

  5. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Derek Cohen View Post

    Those handles were eventually remade a couple of times until I achieved a comfortable diameter. The current two I use are …


    Derek
    With the butt end of the handle larger than the head end, how is the head secured?

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Perth, Australia
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    9,450
    Ed, go here for a pictorial I wrote:

    http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...oraGennou.html

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  7. #22
    Nice work.

  8. #23
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    South West Ontario
    Posts
    1,502
    I agree about the handle. Here is mine with the handle I made and the discarded handle it came with.
    E7A73D2C-772D-4F05-B1C1-92151690DA84.jpg
    The difference in use is like night and day.
    ​You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!

  9. #24
    I was watching a Korean clip about masters of different skills on You Tube and saw an older guy up in the woods who was carving pine faces onto logs. One of the hammers he used had the main part of the trunk, about 4 inch diameter for the mallet, and a branch about 1 inch diameter for the handle.... That seems so good, I may have to try to find a piece like it.

    robo hippy

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