A couple of days ago, I showed a photograph of my workbench covered with case parts ... Having my table saw go out of commission put a bit of a dint in the plan for the next day, but the router table came to the rescue, and the final work on getting all the parts ready for assembly was finished late last night:

The tops are all jointed, glued up, and grooved for the stand, and the small pieces for the front of the case have been split on the bandsaw at a 5 degree angle; this will be the 'lip' of the case opening. (These parts are taped together so that the pairs won't get separated.)

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 ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:25 AM | Comments (3)

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!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:43 AM | Comments (1)

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!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:46 AM

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!)

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:47 AM | Comments (0)

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 ...)

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:04 AM | Comments (1)

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!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:44 AM | Comments (3)

We don't need much explanation today ... just three more stages in the crowd of gradations on the kimono. First is a light murasaki on two of the fans:

Then a pale green on three of them:

Then a blue on two:

More of the same tomorrow ... (if I can uncross my eyes from these hundreds of pretty small-scale impressions!)

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:00 AM | Comments (0)

Another two today ... they're getting a bit 'complex', so it's difficult to get three full runs in a day ...

This one needs no particular explanation - a nice gradation to put the two men into proper 'space':

And with this next one, we can see just why I said a short while ago that we were only around halfway through the number of impressions. There are rather a lot of empty spaces on that kimono pattern, and we're going to fill them all with gradations, in a selection of various tones!

Let's use vermillion for the first group ... I do all three in the group at once, of course - trying to get the second and third ones brushed on before the first one dries ... Keeps me busy!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:05 AM | Comments (2)

As I predicted in the previous post, there was only time for two colour impressions today. Actually that's not completely true - there were two impressions, and there seem to be two 'colours', but I had only one bowl of pigment on the desk, and these two both came straight from it, with nothing else mixed in.

First, a tone for one of the kimono layers on the dancer:

And next, the area of the background that will become the cartouche (after the borders are printed):

There are two things to note about the two tones here: one is that the light one is achieved without the addition of a white pigment - Japanese traditional work lightens colour by gradually thinning the pigment so that the substrate (usually 'white' paper) shows more clearly, thus achieving the same effect. The second point is that both of these tones are overprinted on the base colour that was printed back in step one, but in the case of the deeper red, that is hardly noticeable. The lighter one though, lets the underprinting show through more clearly, resulting - in this case - in a more 'peach-like' final tone.

Ten impressions to go, I think ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:25 AM | Comments (0)

Another three impressions today. First up is a green tone on the clothing of both men, and I have to confess 'cheating' somewhat, because I think (I'm not quite sure) that these two areas on the original print have slightly differing green tones. But my version is so reduced in size that I rather suspect such a subtlety would be lost, so we'll go with 'one size fits all' in this case.

You'll have to look closely to see this next one (or check the enlargement). It's a light grey, covering both some areas of its own, and as an overtone on some of the green.

This next one needs no hunting around to find. Keeping the white areas open was difficult, as the scale is so small ...

Not a bad day's work, I think (there are 120 sheets in the batch, so this is 360 impressions ...) Tomorrow probably won't see another three, but will perhaps be two, as a number of interruptions are expected ... we'll see.

And I might perhaps add something else. If any of you who are watching are thinking that we are coming into the 'home stretch' ... I can note that we are now approaching ... halfway!

As a little 'bonus', here's a photo I took from my 'picnic sheet' as I ate lunch down in the river. This particular spot isn't right below my window, but is about a two minute wade downstream ...

I haven't been able to convince the ladies to be this 'adventurous' yet - they resist anything that requires wading - and they've been having lunch up there in the workroom. Perhaps once the weather warms up still more, I'll be able to entice them to 'lunch' down there among the greenery ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:16 AM | Comments (0)

Here's our first 'layering' impression. The skin tone also covers part of the yellow on the umbrella, to provide a third tone ...

Because of the reduced scale of this print - mine is far smaller than the original, which was a double sided album page - some of the fabric patterns turn out to be pretty small, and easy to clog with paste when printing. It's a fair challenge to keep them clean ...

As there are some other small areas carved on the same block as the blue 'trousers', I did one of those on the same pass through the stack, using two brushes and two pigment bowls ... And I didn't mix them up even once ... (this time!)

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:48 AM | Comments (0)

So - after a break of nearly three months (!), I'm back at the printing bench, baren in hand, for the beginning of real work on the new Arts of Japan series.

But the first impression of the first print certainly isn't very interesting! (These progress images will all be linked to enlargements ...)

It's a blank block, printed with a base tint for the entire image area. I didn't use this for the test prints that I made, and they came out far too bare and 'clean'. This will give the print a pleasant kind of 'tone', once it's done.

Next up is what is known as the 'ji-zuri' - the key block on which all the rest will be based:

Those two steps were actually done yesterday, and this morning saw the first colour go into place:

I have no idea how many impressions this is going to take. There are ten block faces for this print itself, and three more that will be used for all prints in the series. But many of the blocks will be used more than once ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:25 AM | Comments (0)

Assistant Lee-san's production line is now in full swing, and stacks of his pre-cut parts are getting glued up into real box form at last!

We're gluing the cases up three at a time. Making a larger jig than this was not practical, nor was doing them one at a time. Three is just about right:

Once the carcass is dry, he does an initial fitting of the top:

They are flowing through the system in groups of three, all numbered and matched with their top and other small associated parts:

We haven't quite yet figured out what we are going to do with them as they build up. We're rapidly running out of space in which to keep all the parts, jigs and tools in proper order. I asked my neighbour a few weeks ago if we can perhaps rent part of his (completely unused) basement, but he hasn't yet 'got back to me', so I suppose that means his answer is probably 'no' ...

And while Lee-san has been busy with this, I've finally begun printing work on the print itself. I'll be posting colour steps as I go along, starting tomorrow ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:19 AM | Comments (3)

A week without an update! Whatever 'flock' of readers the Woodblock RoundTable may have gathered have probably wandered away in search of more reliable blog content! But it can't be helped, I'm afraid; the work has to come first, and writing about it sometimes just has to wait ...

I've been spreading myself around a number of projects over this past week; the most important of which (although the one that actually got the least amount of time) was moving forward on getting this print done. I ran off a couple of quick proof copies on the block set I finished last week,, mostly just to confirm that there were no major errors in carving, and that there was indeed a print 'in there' waiting to come out. With that done, I began to get the batch of paper ready for next week's printing - starting as always with the sizing:

This went particularly smoothly this time, whether because of the weather (clear but not too dry) or because of my gradually accumulating experience, I can't say. I ended up with a stack of very smooth sheets. Printer Tsushima-san was here in the afternoon of that day, and although we didn't try it this time, at some point in the not-too-distant future, she'll have to be trying this for herself ... (I didn't tell her when I hired her last year that she would end up 'in the kitchen'!)

Another job taking up a good many hours this week was the preparation of the spring issue of the newsletter. It's almost ready to go to press, and the final copy should be pasted into place later tonight, and it'll be off to the printers in the morning:

The next major 'time sink' was the case construction project - building the storage boxes for the upcoming print series. Some recent posts have covered our progress so far, but this week Lee-san and I found ourselves getting bogged down. We've been 'tooling up' as best we can, but are finding it difficult to draw the line between the construction steps that need special jigs and tools, and those that simply have to be done one-off by hand. It's kind of an 80-20 rule - around 80% of the work can be done in 20% of the time, but getting that final 20% done properly eats up 80% of the time. We've got to find a way to improve the accuracy of the initial steps in order to reduce the need for so much final 'detailing'.

And we're running out of time to get this thing up and running, so we have to get these details worked out over the next few days. While Lee-san was off this weekend, I snuck down into his workspace and made my own trial run of our production line, pushing his work to one side and making a batch of three cases:

They turned out 'OK', but not as good as I would like. I think Monday will be a final day of planning, and we'll then have to just swallow hard, clear the decks, and press the big button to start the line operating ...

But that short recounting of things I have been involved with this week certainly isn't enough to account for all the 'missing' time. For that, you'll have to wait for tomorrow evening's update over on the Mokuhankan Conversations blog!

[By the way, there's a bit of 'bonus detail' in that last photo for those who look for it!]

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:24 AM | Comments (3)

So the full set of blocks for this print is now done. There are five pieces of wood, all used on both sides, and with a few of them containing areas for more than one tone. I'm not sure at this point how many actual impressions will be necessary, because some of those might be 'ganged up' - with two brushes being used at the same time for a single pass of the paper. We'll see.

Here they are, laid out on the bench ... one side:

... and flipped over:

The next step is of course proofing, but I'm afraid that won't be possible for at least a couple of days. Tomorrow morning will see the full complement of Mokuhankan staff showing up - Tsushima-san will be starting a new print for the catalogue, Yasui-san will be catching up on Mystique series back number mounting, Lee-san will be back at work on the paulownia cases - and ... we'll have a new member arriving. A young man recommended by printer Numabe-san will be down in the workroom, for his first day of printer training.

We don't have enough benches to go around, so the new guy will use Tsushima-san's bench, she'll use mine, and I'll be left wandering the decks - working with the new printer on his first training, with Tsushima-san on the colour testing of her new job, and with Lee-san on the next stage in case assembly.

Tuesday will see a repeat of all that, and then Wednesday - when Tsushima-san is not able to come because of family committments - the next would-be printer trainee, a young woman from Saitama, Ms. Fujii, will be showing up for her first session ...

Somewhere in the middle of all this I have to get the spring issue of the newsletter written, edited, and published, and then ... I have to deal with the upcoming Spring Festival of the local shrine. Given the circumstances, I would tell them I'm just too busy to help this year, but I can't do that. It's my turn to be 'block leader' for a year, starting today:

The festival is on the 14th~15th, and is a very big deal. It's intensely competitive - with each neighbourhood trying to produce the most lavishly decorated carts and the most intense festival music - and not to help out would be simply impossible.

The larger companies in the area donate both money and staff to the preparations, but I am in no position to do either. All I can 'donate' is me.

Here's a series of festival photos taken shortly after I moved into this place - the weather cooperated that year, and the blossoms were out too. Not sure how we'll do this time ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:23 AM | Comments (1)