Trouble cutting a straight (plumb) line

[Jim Koepke]

There is some here > https://japanwoodcraftassociation.co...ns/philosophy/

jtk

[Luke Dupont]

To add to Jim's points.
Most people know that Japanese saws and planes are pulled not pushed. This design is in part inspired by the philosophy that when working wood, giving it a second life as something new, there is an aspect of animism. Working with the wood and not against it, and having respect for the tree as well as what is being made.
Pulling the saw or plane towards ones body, rather that pushing it away, represents the drawing in of the spirit of the wood.

The technique in the photos posted may work for some but personally it's quite strange and awkward looking to me.

I think the whole "pulling versus pushing" being for some spiritual reason is hokey.

Spend a day in a traditional Japanese house and all of your questions will soon be answered. There's no place you could put a large, heavy work-bench, which would be expensive anyway -- and people are in the habit of sitting on the floor. I don't know why the workbench would be the only thing that you'd stand up to use/work at.

If you're sitting down, you're working with a pretty small work surface, which can't be all that heavy. How do you keep it from moving away from you as you plane?

That's right. Butt the bench up against you and pull towards yourself. YOU are the bench/planing stop.

Same with sawing and stuff.

If you need a clamp, that's what your feet and butt are for.

Besides saving a lot of money (common people and craftsmen were generally not wealthy at all), this all does have one additional huge advantage: you can literally work just about anywhere without the need of a big, supremely heavy, fancy bench.

Also, your eyes are much closer to your work, so it's easy to see what you're doing.

I've always found working this way to be extremely comfortable and natural, and have far more back pain bending over a bench that is a little too low (or high -- never quite the right height it seems) trying to see what I'm doing.

[Rafael Herrera]

Both references above are rather Western-oriented marketing literature of Japanese craftmanship. In that context, any craft from any part of the world can be described in a profound philosophical fashion. That may or may not be the case for Japanese woodworking, there may be a "spiritual" element embraced by their Japanese practicioners, I don't really know.

Explaning the reason for having pull saws as the norm in their woodworking to some eastern mystical pullling inward motion sounds like BS to me. It is more likely that the saw is the way it is for more mundane reasons, like, the user is sitting down and pulling is rather more natural than pushing in that position.

It wouldn't be difficult to imagine some exalted spiritual condition that would help craftsmen create their masterpieces. Take for example the renaissance painter Caravaggio, that guy was a genius, but also he wasn't very nice and was no saint.

[Edward Weber]

I think the whole "pulling versus pushing" being for some spiritual reason is hokey.

Well that's one mans opinion, I personally find is offensive to criticize what others believe.
The Japanese to this day still preform a Jichinsai ceremony before putting up a building, I guess that's hokey too.

Did it ever occur to you that the tools, the materials available, the culture, and the philosophy, evolved in conjunction with one another over the centuries?

https://www.seattlejapanesegarden.or...rking-in-japan

“Japanese woodworkers traditionally worked on the floor, and pulling tools were preferred as it allowed the maker to generate more power from a seated position… The pull-stroke is one of the key differences between Western and Japanese woodworking. It is all-encompassing in its ramifications – in the anatomy of the tools, in how the tools are used and experienced, in what kind and size of wood can be processed, and in what information is fed back to the maker during use… the pull-stroke allows for more control, offers increased accuracy, requires less effort, and provides more nuanced feedback.”

[steven c newman]

Ok...did you notice WHERE Mr. Dupont resides? Compared to where YOU live...hmmm, must have missed that little bit of info?

[Jim Koepke]

Reading many of the above posts led me to ponder on the OP's original question.

One thing came to mind that hasn't been tested yet. It would be to imagine the back line (the one that can not be seen) and put the emphasis when sawing on cutting it instead of the front.

The theory being this puts the tension at the back of the cut (furthest away from the sawyer) instead of the tension being on the closer edge leaving the rest of the saw plate waving around.

Just a thought that came to me while not being able to fall asleep this morning.

jtk

[Charles Guest]

All the Japanese tool stuff is the rabbit hole to end all rabbit holes. You can respect other traditions (in woodworking, food, and lots of things) without attempting to practice/adopt them. You don't have to be a sushi master, to simply eat sushi. By all means respect the skill, don't go out and spend $3,000 on Japanese knives trying to replicate it. It takes more than just owning the same tools. Regardless of the endeavor, expert craftsmen always make it look easy.

Your first clue it's a dead end is right here in this thread -- can't cut a straight line a very short distance, and apparently after well more than half-hearted attempts to do so. My 13 year old granddaughter can easily cut a straight line with a Western tenon saw and short panel saws and it didn't take very much practice -- just some advice on posture and to not put a white knuckle grip on the saw. That was pretty much it. She didn't have her psyche and sense of self-worth invested in it. She just picked up the tools and pretty much let them do the work, like you're supposed to.

All that said, the Japanese saw you're using could be total junk with a bad set job on the teeth. Good luck fixing that. Just because the saw cost $800 or some silly amount of money and was supposedly made by some master doesn't mean squat as you could easily have been completely defrauded about the tool. I don't know if this is the case or not. I hope not, but if it is you wouldn't be the first fool to fall for all the hype, and it's mostly hype and ad copy.

It does sound like the saw is twisting in the cut. If I were you, I'd simply try a western saw and see if you're any more successful. If you are, that should tell you something. If you fail to get the message, then the rabbit hole awaits. You've apparently wasted a lot of time trying to saw a consistent and serviceable line around 3/4" to 1" long as for dovetailing. How much more time are you really willing to waste? If you'd take a decent 10" Western tenon saw, even one with a rather thick-ish blade and with crosscut teeth, I'd be willing to bet you'd be able to saw the dead straight line you're looking for. Within reason, and just starting out, kerf width doesn't matter nor does crosscut vs. rip teeth for such short cuts. Use the bigger saw, get good with it, then you can move to an 8" Western dovetailer, a little more upscale saw, with a thinner plate.

[mike stenson]

Spend a day in a traditional Japanese house and all of your questions will soon be answered. There's no place you could put a large, heavy work-bench, which would be expensive anyway -- and people are in the habit of sitting on the floor. I don't know why the workbench would be the only thing that you'd stand up to use/work at.

Having been fortunate enough to have spent more than a few days in a traditional house, sitting around a blanket table. I agree. There are cultural differences, even amongst Japanese-Americans, and there may be some spirituality tied in (there are enough religions/philosophies in Japan that I've lost track of how many there are), but I also believe that the nature of life in general had more to do with it.

Ok, now I miss Japan.

[Jack Dover]

it is not a "claim", it is simply part of a broader philosophy of Control over force. Pulling a saw in towards ones body provides more control with less effort. Add to that the spirituality of the act of drawing the wood towards you and not pushing it away, there is symbolism there.

Is this your personal philosophy then? It's okay to find symbolism in even the most mundane things and I'd respect that, it's just the way you put implies it's a philosophy in a broad sense, as it's understood by the general public. And that probably requires some support from sources other than a personal opinion. Or even several opinions. Because being quite involved with many things Japanese I never witnessed this spirituality in "the wild", only as a part of a formal ritual where someone parts with money in the end. In fact, I have witnessed something almost opposite. Sure there's symbolism in the product of the craft, great many books were written about it, Shinto influence on aesthetics and such. But not in the craft itself. So if you have something like this or this but on Japanese joinery or furniture making - I'd be happy to change my opinion.

If you look closely, most all Japanese tools and techniques have this same element of drawing or pulling inward, providing a greater sense of control and connection to the wood.

Well, given that OP has issues controlling a pull saw it seems contradictory to this statement, doesn't it? Also don't you think we need some better categories to draw from to make it a philosophical system than just a direction of one particular movement? 'Cos there were very traditional Western saws that were/are pulled too: coping saws is a great example, but there were pull table saws (the other kind), then Turkish saws and keyhole saws (the first and the last ones were found in both push and pull configurations). Does using these tools makes a craftsman more connected to wood than, say, while using a back saw? Also, how exactly pulling makes you better connected to the wood? Does this make a Japanese chisel, which is a push tool, less connected to wood? And in which sense you're connected to the wood after all? When exactly are you connected to the wood, when you're toiling for 14 hours a day in a badly lit corner of a frigid workshop where you occasionally beaten just for the a wrong look or after? Is this wood connection the reason why Japanese youth abandons traditional crafts and prefers other occupations, up to leaving Japan? So many questions, and I'm not even halfway through the list.

https://downloads.ctfassets.net/zwqo...og4_5small.pdf


"Also unique to Japanese tools is the manner of how they are used. A number of Japanese
carpentry tools are pulled, rather than pushed, in order to cut or shape wood, unlike in
woodworking traditions in other locations such as China, Europe, and the United States.
The difference is especially notable in the case of saws and planes. Japanese carpentry has
evolved to prioritize control over force."

I mean, it feels like you're promoting some marketing blurb directed at Westerners from, well, blurb to a whole philosophy. Note that down the text the explanation for pulling is way different:

Japanese saws function differently than saws in China, Europe, and the United States: theorientation of their teeth places the sharp side towards the handle, rather than away fromit. This configuration results in saws that cut while the carpenter pulls the saw, as opposedto pushing the saw, which is a more efficient action that reduces stress on the steel blades,thereby allowing them to be thinner.

No "spirituality" in sight. The last sentence is not substantiated at all and implies that force somehow opposes control, however, they're just different dimensions of the subject, therefore it's possible to have small force with small control or great force with great control - examples are all around us. Also why is that all people mentioned in this handout are architects, museum directors, ph.d's and other white collar type people? Of course it's very easy to be spiritual and sing praises to The Working Man from the comfort of a temperature controlled office with a fridge and a minibar (especially the minibar!). But one will be hard pressed to find any text on spirituality of craft written by an average residential carpenter (maybe a blog at best), and why is that? They're not writers, they're not even good speakers. Anyone who ever spend a day on a construction site would tell you that they're all the same all across the world, and there's very little place there for spirituality or even for self reflection. Because it's labor. And labor is hard. And hard labor most often just kills that part of personality responsible for spirituality whatever the spirituality might be. It might be a shock for some, but Japanese laborers, even skilled ones, aren't very different from, say, a German laborer: they cuss and swear, they get drunk on Fridays, they chain smoke and yell at their spouses and children. Not very spiritual, isn't it? Also, before you say this is all thing of the past: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...orld-of-bonsai There's more than just this example, go check what Dale Brotherton says about apprenticeship for example, since we're appealing to authority here. Or just talk to a Japanese who went through this system - there's a way to make them talk, but your liver might not be happy.

And before you mention Nakashima: he has build very little furniture himself, he was primarily an architect. Most Nakashima's furniture was build by (surprise!) local American craftsmen under his supervision. And the most wood for his shop was harvested by a gentleman born in Poland, with soulless, gas smelling, loud chainsaws. Were these people anointed with spirituality somehow, because obviously they weren't born into it? Another example is Toshio Odate, who barely made through apprenticeship, then quit it and went to college at his first opportunity and eventually fled to USA, where he found a good audience willing to accept every word non-skeptically. This is not about his crafts skills though, since he continued his education, went into sculpture and learned from great many people from around the world - this is also in his books, no doubts he is great at what he does.

Now, all the above might give one a wrong impression that I have some sort of hatred toward Japanese ways of working wood or the nation in general. I don't, and my perception and attitude towards craft of woodworking changed exactly because exposure to Japanese methods, before that it was just a necessity and was avoided. I'm just against putting something into it that's not really there. Neither we assume that Roubo's era woodworker was a well fed, well dressed person in a wig smiling happily while sawing veneers, nor we assume that a typical 19th century American woodworker looked like Sigmound Freud with a longer beard as some text books pictures might suggest. And if someone sees Japanese ways as "spiritual", but fails to recognize same levels of spirituality in Western methods just because they're more clear to us and aren't surrounded by aura of artificial mysticism - it's clearly a personal bias. Yet we somehow hurry to elevate anything remotely Japanese (not Chinese, not Korean, only Japanese) to the level of of a guiding star, and suddenly words like "spirituality", "mindfulness", "connection" and even "zen-like" (another concept people have a completely wrong understanding of) are being [mis-]used. It's okay to have this as a system personal beliefs though, after all this occupation is what one makes it of it, and if someone finds it therapeutical to build a shrine for a chisel - that's fine, although creepy.

So there's that. Now excuse me while I dig a fox hole to hide from all the replies.

[Jack Dover]

Yup. They don't let some random people write on Internet these days, do they?

[Edward Weber]

I will not and can not explain why people believe what they believe. You seem to just want to argue.

Don't like my answer, that's fine, ask someone who you trust who would be in a position of knowing.

This has strayed far off the topic the OP asked about.

[Jim Koepke]

I will not and can not explain why people believe what they believe. You seem to just want to argue.

Don't like my answer, that's fine, ask someone who you trust who would be in a position of knowing.

This has strayed far off the topic the OP asked about.

I agree, it is impossible for me to prove true what someone related to me years ago.

jtk

[steven c newman]

About time we bury this dead horse..isn't it?

Or..just throw a bucket of ICE COLD Water on things here...

BTW..it USUALLY takes 2 (or more) to make an argument....unless you happen to be in Congress...

[Mel Fulks]

The old Japanese saw makers were getting too many complaints about kinked saws and got tired of warranty fixes. So they the started
putting handle, or ‘tote’on the other end.

[Jim Koepke]

The old Japanese saw makers were getting too many complaints about kinked saws and got tired of warranty fixes. So they the started
putting handle, or ‘tote’on the other end.

And some people still managed to kink them or jam them in a cut.

jtk