Japanese Joinery

[Chris Watson]

So a question here.

Is anyone currently or have you ever worked in Japanese joinery?

Is it really so well fitted glue and nails are not needed?

There seems to be almost zero actual technical information on any of their joints. But they are certainly very interesting to me.

Chris

[jestrada]

I haven't tried any Japanese joinery yet. I plan on trying some out just for fun but not necessarily on any particular project. They are interesting and seem to be challenging. As far as technical information, what type of information are you looking for, process, strength, use of? There are several books and resources on the subject. Chris Hall has a blog on traditional Japanese carpentry and joinery and Daiko Dojo site has several references to Japanese woodworking books.

http://thecarpentryway.blogspot.com

http://www.daikudojo.org/Archive/gallery_books/

[srv52761]

I am unsure what you mean by Japanese joinery.  How it different than working with dovetails, mortise and tenon, lapped, splines, etc.,?

[Hank Knight]

There are literally hundreds of Japanese woodworking videos on You Tube, and here are two more books that you can order on the Internet that deal specifically with Japanese joinery and Japanese woodworking. Google is your friend.

[Chris Watson]

I've seen the videos, seen those books on amazon but they don't go into how to make the joints. Which is what I meant by technical information.

[TimmyGriffin]

While the craftsmen obviously do most of the carving with hand tools—no machine exists that can the kinds of stepped mortises in the video. After a woodworker has cut his/her joinery, prior to final assembly they'll do a dry fit to make sure everything fits correctly. This can be challenging depending upon how complicated the piece is; the more tenons and mortises there that need to be lined up, the more swearing you'll do during the process.


Not only is the joint complicated and huge, designed to connect two timber-frame beams end-to-end, but they're using a traditional method of tapered pegs to smoothly connect—and disconnect—the pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1pvUlQgYtk

Check out this dry-fit where two beams are joined inside of a third piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1oMZKYuSI8

[Chris Watson]

That is what blows my mind

I know most of these videos show techniques for doing construction of buildings. But I've seen a few fascinating ones for furniture making too.
I think most of these techniques, despite the technique being called Japanese joinery, probably originated in China. But that's just a guess. I'd love to find more of the furniture making techniques. Using no glue or nails appeals to me for the same reasons hand woodworking vs power tools does.

[Steve N]

I think you will get better information if you name a specific joint, and ask how it is made. Japanese Joints, American, English, German, or French will often be the same joint, it's often how "most" wood workers in those countries set about making them. An American translation to a "Japanese" joint will mostly include instruction of the different tools involved. Plenty of other countries have wood workers making multi stepped M&T joints, not just Japanese. We have multi page discussions here about how to do some fairly simple things, all of this falls under the number of ways to skin that particular cat, usually there are many. For a complex. multi stepped M&T I imagine either it would get no responses, or be Biblical in length.

[Chris Watson]

The first that caught my eye I want to try is a 3 way miter joint.

The book I have on joints does not list it. And I only see it referenced regarding Chinese furniture or Japanese joinery. Except one article in FWW describing the authors fascination with after seeing Andrew hunter talk about it.

[Steve Altman]

You might want to look at a book called "Chinese Domestic Furniture" by Gustave Ecke, especially the drawings at the back of the book.