Kesurokai

Sharing skills

Today was quite rainy so we were thankful for the blue tarpaulins that shelter us ... and that it was still pleasantly warm! Work on the timber frames continued to progress well and some of the craftsmen took the opportunity for some wonderful new experiences.

Firstly, our junior blacksmith, Gunther spent a while working with the Japanese smith who is a well known sword smith from the area. Whilst our translator, Rahel (seen here with our senior blacksmith Manne), understandably struggles with specialist words communication usually transcends words:

Then Robin had a wonderful time learning Japanese style hewing from Hannes. With this being the main beam, which is situated 12 foot up in the air ready for sawing, and its surface being wet and slippery, it did not make an ideal beginners piece but Robin got on wonderfully. However I think he now wants to buy a proper Japanese hewing axe!

To finish some video of them in action along with one of the Japanese carpenters who came to have a play with some European hewing axes and helped Jochen to finish surface one of the beams. 

Japanese tool sharpening

We had another busy day today. For a few days both groups will work on their own projects whilst they settle into their routines. The European group are still hewing beams and they have a large area if plywood on which they are setting out the Daisy wheel geometry to the right on the photograph below. (The site is rather difficult to photograph as it slopes steeply, sorry!)

Danish carpenter Ulrik has been enjoying learning this technique today and I hope to find out more about it from him later in the week. One lovely feature of the work site is the large trough where the carpenters can sharpen their tools. This has water diverted from a nearby stream running through it:

Here is some video available here which shows one of the carpenters sharpening and a panoramic view of the site. At the top is the European work area where the carpenters are busy hewing and under the blue tarpaulins further down is the Japanese work area... more video of this tomorrow!

Preparing timbers

The journey here took us the best part of 36 hours solid travelling and we arrived at 2am local time. After a much-needed Japanese-style bath and a lie-in until 9am, we were taken to the work site which is about 20 minutes from where we are staying up a twisty mountain road.

The Japanese carpenters have made a good start preparing timbers both for their own tea house and our pavillion and the work site is busy, but well organised. There will be more pictures and maybe some video tomorrow when I am less tired and more organised, but in the mean time here are just a few of our team getting started with some hewing...

 Tomorrow morning we shall be leaving for the work site at 7.30am so I must get some sleep!

We're here!

We arrived late last night and have just had our first day on the work site. More images of that soon but to start with here we all are on arrival in Japan.

 

Ready to go

We are all packed and ready to go. I have been avoiding knowing how long the flight to Japan will take but couldn't help noticing as I checked in online this afternoon. Firstly 6.5 hours to Dubai then another 9.5 hours on to Tokyo ... pure hell, but I am so looking forwards to getting there!

I expect the first shock will be the change in climate. The UK Peak District is currently cool and damp, around 15C and Tokyo is hot and humid, around 32C. All being well I should be able to provide regular updates over the next 2 weeks as our buildings progress.