It is not just making of hashi pieces, but coming up with ideas and in particular how is what I am talking about.
Some people talk about their experience in a bath tub. Others may form their ideas while riding a bus. There is perhaps no end to this kind of story. However, my own experience is that I need my physical body to be unperturbed, best in bed, in fact.
I think it is simply the matter of conscious concentration, looking at the same issue from half a dozen different angles, sometimes even trying to blow up the whole issue itself, wanting to forget about it all...
Preliminaries apart, I came up with a brilliant idea this morning while I was lying still in my bed re hashi making. Up until now, my hashi making has been one of grinding (on my belt dander) hashi-to-be pieces to their final dimension and shape.
One TV programme I saw about a year ago changed all that, well, at least potentially... I had been wondering how other people actually made their hashies. The answer, and it really was revelation, like a thunderbolt to me, was to use a planer.
If you come to think about it it makes sense. Sanding down an initial piece of wood to a tapered final hashi shape is a very time consuming business. A lot of heat is also generated and it is a slow process. Why not plane them... has been on my mind ever since.
However, I have been constrained, somehow, by a stupid thought that all four sides must be equally planed. This morning I was finally freed from that idea. I will be planing only two sides. This is important because:
1. Planing all four sides runs into the problem of holding a single piece against the planer, which is not easy and even dangerous.
2. Once two sides have been planed the remaining two sides will not produce a lof of areas to be sanded and less heat will be generated.
3. Planing initial two sides coincides with working with the two opposite faces of a single plank and therefore easily leading to cutting out half a dozen individual pieces, in one go, for further processing.
So, the remaining question is one of holding the plank an an angle, how to push it along on my planer, and when and how to stop pushing it any further.
I now have a very good idea and will be trying it out during the course of today, before popping into my gym...
Some people talk about their experience in a bath tub. Others may form their ideas while riding a bus. There is perhaps no end to this kind of story. However, my own experience is that I need my physical body to be unperturbed, best in bed, in fact.
I think it is simply the matter of conscious concentration, looking at the same issue from half a dozen different angles, sometimes even trying to blow up the whole issue itself, wanting to forget about it all...
Preliminaries apart, I came up with a brilliant idea this morning while I was lying still in my bed re hashi making. Up until now, my hashi making has been one of grinding (on my belt dander) hashi-to-be pieces to their final dimension and shape.
One TV programme I saw about a year ago changed all that, well, at least potentially... I had been wondering how other people actually made their hashies. The answer, and it really was revelation, like a thunderbolt to me, was to use a planer.
If you come to think about it it makes sense. Sanding down an initial piece of wood to a tapered final hashi shape is a very time consuming business. A lot of heat is also generated and it is a slow process. Why not plane them... has been on my mind ever since.
However, I have been constrained, somehow, by a stupid thought that all four sides must be equally planed. This morning I was finally freed from that idea. I will be planing only two sides. This is important because:
1. Planing all four sides runs into the problem of holding a single piece against the planer, which is not easy and even dangerous.
2. Once two sides have been planed the remaining two sides will not produce a lof of areas to be sanded and less heat will be generated.
3. Planing initial two sides coincides with working with the two opposite faces of a single plank and therefore easily leading to cutting out half a dozen individual pieces, in one go, for further processing.
So, the remaining question is one of holding the plank an an angle, how to push it along on my planer, and when and how to stop pushing it any further.
I now have a very good idea and will be trying it out during the course of today, before popping into my gym...