Day 01
The kanna that I scored on ebay arrived today. See here for details on the score. I thought I would document the tuning of my first kanna, so I could get advice as I go along. I have watched a whole bunch of videos and read broadly but I am sure folks can still help me out as I get stuck along the way.
This is what the kanna looked like in the beginning. It was sold as used however the blade did not sit all the way into the dai and the blade and backing iron were covered in some kind of waxy film. Therefore confirming my suspicion that it was new old stock. The dai was without any cracks or defects. There were a few darkish marks almost like grease marks. I tried too turps them off however I found that some pumice powder mixed with camellia oil remove most of these dark spots.
01.jpg
Here are some markings found on the dai. The front of the day 4th photo has what I assume is the dai makers mark. It should also be noted that the end grain is planed clean. no saw marks, another sign of a quality and something that is nowadays limited to the most expensive kanna, as is my understanding.
The characters under the 1500 yen 現金正価 says Cash Price.
The characters in the third photo:
厶 = I
勹 = enclosure
佳 = beautiful; excellent; good;
佐 = a stand; pedestal;
The word for plane body google often translates as stand. So I guess it means excellent plane body.
04.jpg 03.jpg 02.jpg
The blade is 71.5 mm wide and the cutting width is 64 mm. When I purchased the item there was no details about the size and the photos gave no indication of scale. So I would have been not surprised if I got a block plane. So I am happy.
08.jpg 07.jpg
Here you can see the rust that has attacked one corner probably from the blade being stored in the dai.
05.jpg 06.jpg
This is what the blades looked like after I removed the rust took me an hour to carefully clean up the rust. I tried first on a #2000 stone. But I needed to go down to a #700 grit stone in the end. I finished at the #2000 grit stone, so the blade is blunt. However I have halted the rust. The finished honing will come on the weekend.
10.jpg 09.jpg
Here you can see that the blade did not go all the way in.
11.JPG
I used a pencil to mark the front of the blade.I then inserted the blade to see were the blade was sitting high.
12.jpg 13.jpg
I had an old file that I ground to a radius, it worked a treat scrapping the scuff marks / high spots. After every scraping I would apply graphite to the blade inserting then removing the blade and scrape again. It took me only 5 such cycles to get the blade to sit all the way in.
15.JPG 14.jpg
Here is a photo of the blade, just poking through.
16.jpg
Comment:
The kanna is heavy, unbelievable heavy at 1.250 kg, I have used HNT Gordon planes made from much denser wood. In comparison the HNT Gordon with their massive blades are a kids toy next to a kanna. The blade just ads a huge amount of mass that I was not expecting.
Even with a blunt blade I managed to hog off some material.
The initial setup was retaliative easy. I think I lucked out on the scraper.
The next step is to get the backing iron to mate with blade it rocks a little at the moment.
The only negative point is that blade is not a kamaji wrought iron blade but a mild steel. It gives the blade a sticky feeling when your honing the bevel.
Only the plus side the backing iron is laminated and is as sturdy as I had hoped it would be.
Questions:
The kanna that I scored on ebay arrived today. See here for details on the score. I thought I would document the tuning of my first kanna, so I could get advice as I go along. I have watched a whole bunch of videos and read broadly but I am sure folks can still help me out as I get stuck along the way.
This is what the kanna looked like in the beginning. It was sold as used however the blade did not sit all the way into the dai and the blade and backing iron were covered in some kind of waxy film. Therefore confirming my suspicion that it was new old stock. The dai was without any cracks or defects. There were a few darkish marks almost like grease marks. I tried too turps them off however I found that some pumice powder mixed with camellia oil remove most of these dark spots.
01.jpg
Here are some markings found on the dai. The front of the day 4th photo has what I assume is the dai makers mark. It should also be noted that the end grain is planed clean. no saw marks, another sign of a quality and something that is nowadays limited to the most expensive kanna, as is my understanding.
The characters under the 1500 yen 現金正価 says Cash Price.
The characters in the third photo:
厶 = I
勹 = enclosure
佳 = beautiful; excellent; good;
佐 = a stand; pedestal;
The word for plane body google often translates as stand. So I guess it means excellent plane body.
04.jpg 03.jpg 02.jpg
The blade is 71.5 mm wide and the cutting width is 64 mm. When I purchased the item there was no details about the size and the photos gave no indication of scale. So I would have been not surprised if I got a block plane. So I am happy.
08.jpg 07.jpg
Here you can see the rust that has attacked one corner probably from the blade being stored in the dai.
05.jpg 06.jpg
This is what the blades looked like after I removed the rust took me an hour to carefully clean up the rust. I tried first on a #2000 stone. But I needed to go down to a #700 grit stone in the end. I finished at the #2000 grit stone, so the blade is blunt. However I have halted the rust. The finished honing will come on the weekend.
10.jpg 09.jpg
Here you can see that the blade did not go all the way in.
11.JPG
I used a pencil to mark the front of the blade.I then inserted the blade to see were the blade was sitting high.
12.jpg 13.jpg
I had an old file that I ground to a radius, it worked a treat scrapping the scuff marks / high spots. After every scraping I would apply graphite to the blade inserting then removing the blade and scrape again. It took me only 5 such cycles to get the blade to sit all the way in.
15.JPG 14.jpg
Here is a photo of the blade, just poking through.
16.jpg
Comment:
The kanna is heavy, unbelievable heavy at 1.250 kg, I have used HNT Gordon planes made from much denser wood. In comparison the HNT Gordon with their massive blades are a kids toy next to a kanna. The blade just ads a huge amount of mass that I was not expecting.
Even with a blunt blade I managed to hog off some material.
The initial setup was retaliative easy. I think I lucked out on the scraper.
The next step is to get the backing iron to mate with blade it rocks a little at the moment.
The only negative point is that blade is not a kamaji wrought iron blade but a mild steel. It gives the blade a sticky feeling when your honing the bevel.
Only the plus side the backing iron is laminated and is as sturdy as I had hoped it would be.
Questions:
- Should I remove the stickers they are starting to peel?
- Should I use some fine sandpaper to clean up some surface marks on the dai?
- The sole has two contact point in front of the mouth and on the Japanese rear plus the hollow in between, should I flatten the sole and redo the hollow and have three contact points I read that it easier to use a kanna with three points of contact?
- Should I sharpen the backing iron. I just cleaned it up?
- Why do the Japanese laminate the backing iron what benefit is their in having a hard edge, is it just for durability of said edge?
- The ears of the blade are just a little wider then the mouth opening. Should I grind them back? See the last photo.
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