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The rest of the time today was spent working with Tsushima-san on her 'Yoshida' proofing, and running up to the woodshop every time my little timer told me that a batch of glue was ready to unclamp. I'm trying to get the next batch of cases done, and am laying up the laminated paulownia tops. This time, I'm also mixing in the first bunch of cases for the Mokuhankan 'Hangaclub' project, so that we can perhaps get that underway without too much more delay ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [4]

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And Lee-san - who is here for a couple of days this week - got right to work on the spraying. You can see where we haven't yet had time to knock out those breeze blocks separating the two rooms:

This 'spray booth' is a lot more pleasant than the one he got stuck with last week ...

And of course, the light is much better ...

After the testing last week, we decided to go with two coats of a fairly simple water-base varnish, giving the cases a pretty vigorous sanding between coats:

We're not attempting a 'super gloss' professional finish like the one on the previous Mystique series cases; we just don't have the experience or the resources to do that, and as we haven't used wood filler, the grain is fairly 'open'. The finish on these cases thus has a sort of 'natural' look, and we think it's quite attractive.

Putting the two coats on this batch was one very long day!

The cases then went back upstairs to the woodshop for final polishing, checking, and this important step - what is Tsushima-san doing?

Levelling the feet of course! She's working on a doubled glass plate, which is about the only way we could create an absolutely flat surface:

We'll temporarily skip the next couple of photos, which show the cases being 'loaded' with the first print, stand and acrylic panel (because they 'reveal' the interior and opening mechanism). But it all ends up looking like this:

It's a basically simple item, but we think it has turned out pretty well, and Lee-san and I shook hands in congratulations this evening at the conclusion of the work on this batch.

As for the other aspect of this - whether making the cases ourselves was actually a good idea from a business point of view ... this is perhaps something we can leave for another day. I don't want to spoil the mood tonight!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [2]

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... and this scene is also familiar, I think ...

But this one has a different aspect. What's with the collection of small bottles and jars?

Getting ready for the finishing stage, of course! Here's our ultra-modern, highly-appointed, 'super clean room' spray booth!

That's Lee-san doing the spraying; he's here for two days ... And although that spray booth may not look very appetizing, it does the job!

Meanwhile, the boss was upstairs in the woodshop, busy with one of the more unpleasant stages of the work (and very noisy, too ...)

And the boxes keep building up and up ... There isn't any printing being done here this week, so my printing alcove is pressed into service as a 'drying room'. Here are a bunch of cases, and a number of the 'stands' ...

Note the highly imaginative use of the large flat file as a drying rack!

Here is one of the first ones to come out the far end of the production line ... This is actually one of the same cases shown in the photo above (and the next one) ; under various illuminations it looks completely different. I have no idea what actual colour it will appear to you in your own home ...

And here it is, seen in the wild, in its natural habitat!

That's one down, only 199 to go!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]

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Who needs a table saw to cut the tops to perfect 90 degree angles, when you can do it this way on the router?

So with all the preparation work done, I got to work early this morning on getting them all assembled - Henry Ford look out!

Young printer trainee Fujii-san showed up unexpectedly part-way through the morning, but she has now progressed enough that she can do productive practice without me helicoptering around, so she spent the day down in the printing room by herself doing stacks of practice prints. I only had to drop in occasionally to see how she was doing, and check the paper moisture, etc.

So I kept at it all day long, and by knocking off time this evening, all those parts had magically become boxes!

I then began the step of fitting all the tops, and that part of it takes a bit of time, because no matter how carefully I made all the individual parts, fitting the tops accurately is a matter of sanding and fiddling with each one to get it to 'feel' just right ...

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]

After another long day at the router table, the parts for the next batch of 50 cases are almost ready:

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [1])

After another long day at the router table, the parts for the next batch of 50 cases are almost ready:

Meanwhile, over on another shelf, the stack of 'finished' (actually 'un-finished') cases grows into the distance ...

They are coming out quite nice. These earliest ones show some slight gaps in the final fitting of the tops; at that point we hadn't yet got our system quite worked out perfectly ... By the time we've made all 200, we'll be experts!

And looking at that case reminds me to mention that as we have moved along with this project, every time we have a visitor to the workshop, we put a case in front of them and ask them to open it.

Almost nobody can. At least not without quite some investigation, poking around, and trying this and that ... We're beginning to get a bit concerned that when the cases arrive at their destinations, most people won't know what to do with them, so we're planning to put a paper wrapper around them, with some basic instructions on 'How to get started' ...

And yesterday evening, our newest tool arrived ('special delivery' from the home center on the back of my bicycle), and you know what this means - tomorrow will be the first tests of the staining/finishing stage!

And just where are we going to do all that spraying? Easy! In the 'brand-new', 18 year old, 25+ square meter extension to our workroom! More on this when we get the sledgehammer busy in a couple of days!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [1]

While the printing crew is busy up in the woodshop working on the cases, Yasui-san is alone down in the workroom steadily getting the prints themselves ready for shipping.

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No time for anything but a skeletal blog update tonight ...

While the printing crew is busy up in the woodshop working on the cases, Yasui-san is alone down in the workroom steadily getting the prints themselves ready for shipping. As you can see from this photo, for this series, we've found a solution to that problem of having the shape of the photo corners showing through the thin print paper!

Each print on its mat gets folded inside a sheet with a small descriptive story about it:

This batch will be posted in the morning, to that batch of collectors who have 'volunteered' to have their cases shipped later ...

And meanwhile, back upstairs, they're still at it. Drilling the case bottoms for the finger holes ...

... and then sanding the results:

It didn't take her long to think of a 'better way' to do it ...

And when we had a moment to look up at the view outside the window, this is what we could see!

'Shrink' back down ...

I haven't been reporting on the progress of the case construction over the past week, because I myself was busy with making the print itself ...

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I haven't been reporting on the progress of the case construction over the past week, both because I myself was busy with making the print itself, and because Lee-san hasn't been here, as he's got 'other things to do' these days ... Because we weren't able to offer permanent full-time work, he of course has had to keep other options open, and has gone off to do something else. He'll be back for the odd day here and there next month.

So that leaves just me ... (and, as we will see further down the page ... some more faithful helpers!):

The router table I built is getting a huge amount of work making these parts. This is a new tool for me, and when planning what I would need for this project I hadn't even considered such a thing at first, assuming that a table saw would do most of the heavy lifting. But after the table saw that I ordered turned out to be such a dud, I studied up, learned about this 'new' way to use a router, and since then, this has become the 'go to' tool for almost any job we can think of. I'm never going to do without one again!

Here it is, putting some rabbets on a stack of 100 side pieces. It's no more fooling around - I'm making a batch of 50 cases this week, do or die!

Over the weekend, while dressing stock for all the smaller parts, I also laid up the laminated sections for 50 case tops, setting a timer for the glue set each time I did one, then moving over to other work before coming back to do the next one when the timer rang.

And here are those 100 side pieces ...

They are quite complicated little pieces, with rabbets all around, and two slots.

But after the basic rectangular piece is ready, it still takes 10 cuts to make these. The paulownia is extremely fragile, and I had to do shallow rabbets first, then deepen them in stages, as the wood would simply shatter or chip out if I attempted it in one go, no matter how I varied the speed/pressure of the feed.

Meanwhile, over in another corner of the shop, the previous batches of cases - the early trials, and the first run that Lee-san started last week - are now approaching completion, getting the final dress-up before the stain/lacquer goes on.

As you can see, with our entire printing team now occupied here in the woodshop, there isn't any printmaking at all getting done here this week ...

(Actually, that's not completely true. Lynita-san, if you are reading this, you should know that Fujii-san is doing just fine, and completed some nice work over the weekend. I'll post about it soon, when I get a minute!)

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [0]

The print is finally finished ... and looks very nice, indeed!

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The final two steps use blocks that will be applied to all prints in the series - first the border lines and series title:

And then the Plum Blossom embossing for a decorative border:

This embossing is similar to the one I carved for the previous Mystique series, but has an interesting difference. There are ten Japanese characters 'buried' in it, reading: 版画玉手箱 日本の美術 (Hanga Tamatebako - Nihon no Bijutsu), which is of course the name of the series in Japanese.

So we're done! To see a larger image, and the story that goes along with it, please visit the Arts of Japan website. And while you're there, don't forget to check the Subscription Page!

And now, I'm going to take off my printer's hat for a week or so, strap on my tool belt, and get busy on the case production line ... (I'll post an update on this tomorrow ...)

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [1]

Four impressions done today ... nearly there!

'Stretch' to read the full entry | Separate page (with discussion [3])

Four of the blocks carrying gradations for the fans are now done, and here's the next one - orange on three of them:

A couple of weeks back - during the carving - I prepared five of these gradation blocks, simply following the patterns of the original print. But when I finished this orange impression, it was clear that we have a problem - the three untouched fans look silly. This is how the original was made, and I had blindly followed it assuming that it was the original makers' intention to have three of them 'blank'. Now that I see it though, I realize that this almost certainly wasn't the case - it looks far too bare. The original print was clearly a very low-budget production, and I suspect that somebody slipped up a bit at the carving stage, and by the time they got to the printing stages, it simply wasn't considered worthwhile to go back and prepare another block.

But I have all the time in the world :-) so I got the carving tools out and prepared a block for the three missing fans. A light brown should do nicely ...

Now we're really in the home stretch. Next comes a little filigree pattern to add a bit of 'something' to the fan:

And the next one would perhaps go un-noticed if I didn't point it out. Look up in the inside of the umbrella - we have a tiny block putting in some of the inner construction of the umbrella:

So we're now within striking distance ... tomorrow will see this thing done!

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [3]