Monthly Archive for January, 2006

I’ve watched these videos of people chiseling away at wood and the wood seems to melt like butter off of their chisels. Well, even when I sharpened all of my chisels, it was still tricky and difficult working with the wood. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it. It was interesting (in a good way) working with it ’cause I knew I was getting experience but it was a bummer and very dissapointing when I worked on a piece for a while and then it split. But the main thing was I never got that same “wood melting off the chisel” feeling that I saw in the chiseling videos.

Well, today, I practiced on the really good Russian Maple that my friend gave me. *whistle!* That is a real treat to work with! I mean it was very hard and held together and the wood melted off my chisel. I never thought my chisels were sharp enough when I used it on the mediocre wood but when I brought it to this stuff, I knew this was the way it should feel like. I mean it was actually fun to chisel it out.

Finally! After . . . quite a while, I finished the gi! I first made the gi top which came out very good. I would even say, “pretty proffesional.” There was a little hole under “the pits” but we managed to put a little canvas under that. Throughout the whole construction, I never had to sew any of it by hand. Mind you, I was sewing through 5+ layers of 13.43 ounces of duck canvas! Under normal circumstances, the machine would probably freeze through that much but I found out that you had to get it going at a good speed before going over very thick parts. But I did it! I may have broken 5 needles but some experimentation was done and those needles were well broken (like money well spent). I fit on perfectly and was actually a bit heavier than the other gi (which is a plus).

After I finished the top, I was wanting to get the pants done before Karate class in two days so I worked non stop/all day and I got it done 20 minutes before the class. I was worried about the pants splitting (I mean who wouldn’t?). I wouldn’t be dissapointed but wouldn’t care too much if the top split but the pants, that would be embarassing! Fortunately, it didn’t and the whole thing turned out great. I think that’s one of the only projects that have turned out exactly the way I wanted it. I think that’s because my standards weren’t very high set on the gi. But on the other hand, it did turn out really good. almost nothing needed to be fixed or changed. usually with most projects or something it never turns out really good. I mean it does turn out fine but there’s usually some flaw or some mistake or something that I made that, while it doesn’t hinder the useability, each time I see that mistake or blemish, I think, “it can never be perfect can it?” Well, this time it was! Kewl.

Next project, the Shamisen!

After that, the Bluegrass ‘N Stuff Book!

I’ll post some pics later.

I finally got in touch with my friend who’s a cabinet maker. I asked for some scrap maple wood to practice on. This morning, he gave it to my sword teacher (they know each other) which he was gonna take to the class. I went down to class to pick it up. After waiting a little bit for him to warm up the class, we went outside to his car and he pulled out a beautiful big piece of some sort of Russian maple which is like Birds Eye maple