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Source: Suzuki Kanamono-ten (スズキ金物店), "History of Tools" (道具の歴史), misyuku-suzuki-kanamonoten.com Author: Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭), Representative Director, Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店)

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This file translates three complete essay series from the site, batched together because they share subject matter (saws and planes):

  1. "A Study of Maebiki Saw Production Centers and Maebiki Saw Blacksmiths in the Early Modern Period" (近世における前挽き鋸産地と前挽き鋸鍛冶職人についての考察) — 5 pages (kindainiokerumaebikinoko1–5.html): Introduction, sections (1)–(4), and references. Dated Heisei 27 / July 2015. The author states this is the first nationwide survey of maebiki-saw production centers and their blacksmiths ever attempted in Japan. Note: pages 4 and 5 of the site carry sections (3) and (4) respectively; the page-3 header on the site reads 近代 ("modern") where every other page reads 近世 ("early modern") — apparently a typo by the site author, retained silently here.
  2. "On the 'Ura-Suki' of Japanese Chisels and Planes" (日本の鑿・鉋の「裏スキ」について) — 4 pages (nimaibakannanosyutugen1–4.html): Introduction, sections (1)–(2), and conclusion. Dated Heisei 25 / January 2013. (Despite the URL slug meaning "emergence of the two-blade plane," these pages carry the ura-suki essay.)
  3. "On the Period of Emergence of the Two-Blade Plane" (２枚刃鉋の出現時期について) — 3 substantive pages (nimaibakannanosyutugenjikinituite1–3.html; page 4 is an empty stub containing only navigation). Dated Heisei 23 / September 2011. This is the essay in which the author overturns the accepted theory that the chipbreaker (two-blade) plane appeared in the late Meiji period.

Ambiguities and cautions:

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In Japan, saws have been excavated from 4th-century kofun (burial mounds), but these are small crosscut saws for fine work. As for when rip saws (縦挽き鋸) began to be used: according to Yoshikawa Kinji (吉川金次), in his book Mono to ningen no bunkashi / Nokogiri (ものと人間の文化史／鋸, "The Cultural History of Things and People: The Saw"), a small saw with gagari-me (ガガリ目) rip-teeth has been excavated from a 6th-century kofun, so we know rip-sawing began around that time.

Judging from the size and shape of these rip saws, they were not tools used by builder-craftsmen but saws for fine work — what we might call ancient rip saws (Note 1).

(Note 1) Yoshikawa Kinji holds that the saws excavated from 6th-century kofun and 8th-century dwelling sites have rip-teeth, and — although he can find no evidence in documents or paintings — he argues from saws preserved at temples and shrines, and from surviving saw marks, that the rip saw, small at first, developed through the Heian and Kamakura periods into a large rip saw in continuous use. He thereby casts doubt on the accepted theory that Japan had no rip saw until the Muromachi period. (Yoshikawa Kinji, op. cit.)

After that, virtually all excavated saws are hakoya-me (箱屋目) saws for crosscutting only. To turn logs felled in the mountains into boards, wedges were driven into the log to split it apart. For this reason, boards were extremely precious at the time.

Eventually, from 15th-century Muromachi-period sites, large "leaf-shaped half-cut" (木の葉半切型) saws appear whose teeth are ibara-me (イバラ目), serving both rip and crosscut work. These are large saws with blades over 60 cm long.

Furthermore, around the middle of the Muromachi period, the large two-man rip saw called the ōga (大鋸), a push-pull saw for lumber production with gagari-me teeth, arrived in Japan from continental China (Note 2). Its blade was about 2 m long and about 9 cm wide. The ōga's form had a wooden handle about 80 cm long at each end of the blade, and — to keep the blade from flexing — a bamboo strut the same length as the blade and a thick cord fixed to the handles at both ends.

(Note 2) Against this, it has been pointed out that in the "Rokudō-e" (六道絵, "Pictures of the Six Realms"), a depiction of hell held by Gokuraku-ji temple in Hyōgo Prefecture and painted in the late Kamakura period, there is what appears to be an ōga, so the ōga's arrival from the continent might possibly be pushed back about 100 years. However, it is also argued that this ōga is not a rip saw but a crosscut saw. It is further suggested that the painter may have somehow known of the ōga before it was used in Japan and painted it for some reason. (Tsuchiya Yasumi and Ishimura Migu [石村美具] , "Rokudō-e no ōga" [六道絵の大鋸, "The Ōga in the Rokudō-e"], Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum Research Bulletin No. 3.)

At first, imported ōga were used, and because they were extremely expensive they were owned not by the individual soma (杣師, woodcutter-foresters) and kobiki (木挽き, sawyers) engaged in lumber production, but by temples, shrines, and the like.

Toward the end of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, the maebiki-noko (前挽鋸) — a large one-man saw dedicated to rip-sawing — was born. Its teeth are of course gagari-me, but the teeth become progressively smaller from the tip of the saw toward the handle.

According to the paper by Hoshino Kin'ya (星野欣也) and Uemura Masako (植村昌子), "Kinsei–kindai ni okeru maebiki-noko no hensen ni tsuite" (近世・近代における前挽鋸の変遷について, "On the Evolution of the Maebiki Saw in the Early Modern and Modern Periods"), which surveyed the maebiki saw's form historically, the earliest examples were narrow, with the back parallel to the toothed edge, a squared tip, and the komi (コミ, tang) to which the handle attaches bent at nearly a right angle; typically the saw was about 60 cm long with a blade width of about 33 cm.

Later, as time went on, the back became curved, the blade wider, the tip changed from square to slanted, the neck grew longer, and the komi changed from a right angle to a gentler angle, the authors note.

At the beginning of the 16th century — the middle of the Muromachi period — commercial Japanese steels called Chigusa steel (千草鋼) and Izuha steel (出羽鋼) began to be made. Izuha steel was the material used, but as a steel it was not of good quality: it was a troublesome material whose manufacture produced good pieces and bad. In the late Meiji period, saws were made using imported Western steel.

Because the maebiki saw is so large, it weighs some 3–5 kg, and this weight was exploited in cutting. The standard method, sawing with the timber propped upright, was called tate-gaeshi-biki (立て返し挽き, "standing-return sawing"); but there was also a method called sukui-biki (すくい挽き, "scooping cut"), also known as Ōsaka-biki (大阪挽き), in which the log lay flat and was sawn from the side — this spread from the Kansai region to the Tokyo lumberyards (Kiba) in the early Taishō period. Because sukui-biki could be done seated on a stool rather than in a half-crouch, long work sessions were easier.

A maebiki saw made to special order for Fukagawa Kiba in Tokyo by Nakaya Hensaku II (２代目中屋辺作), the master saw smith of Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, was about 2.27 m long and weighed about 12 kg. Using the maebiki saw was thus extremely heavy labor for the kobiki sawyers and consumed enormous stamina — they were said to eat three times as much as an ordinary person.

Hardening and tempering the maebiki saw could not be done directly because of its great size; instead an indirect method was used, gripping only the toothed edge with tongs heated glowing red — indirect hardening and indirect tempering.

Unlike the saws used by carpenters or woodcutters, the maebiki saw, being so large, involved great technical difficulty in manufacture, required the then-precious iron and steel, and demanded much labor: it could not be made without close to ten people. It is noted that when Western steel came to be imported in the Meiji era, three or four people sufficed, unlike in the days of Japanese steel (Yoshikawa Kinji, The Cultural History of Things and People: The Saw).

Accordingly, as for price: in the latter half of the Edo period the sum at which Miki saw smiths delivered a maebiki saw to wholesalers in Miki, Osaka, and Edo was 2.3 to 2.5 ryō (calculated by the present author from materials in Kuwata Masaru's book, cited below). The value of 1 ryō varies by period according to gold content, but one benchmark calculation puts the Edo-period average at about ¥66,000 in today's money; the retail price would have been about three times [the wholesale figure], so we may infer it was quite an expensive saw.

I had long intended to attempt a historical study of the maebiki saw on a national scale, but the materials would not come together and I could not write it up. Then Nakaya Takijirō V (５代目中屋瀧次郎, personal name Itō Mamoru [伊藤守]), saw smith of Kawagoe, Saitama, sent me the lecture materials from the commemorative lecture meeting for the national designation of the "Kōka maebiki saw," hosted by the Kōka City Board of Education, Shiga Prefecture, in May of Heisei 27 (2015), which he had attended. From these I was able to learn the outlines — previously unknown to me — of maebiki saw manufacture and the saw smiths in Kōka, and the membership of the early-modern Kyoto maebiki-saw smiths' guild (株仲間).

The maebiki saw was used by soma foresters and kobiki sawyers; it is not a carpenter's tool. But since it is, after all, a saw, there is common ground; so let us take up this saw, which developed in the early modern period, on a national scale, and examine in detail in which production centers and by which saw smiths it was manufactured, and what became of it all after the Meiji era began. So far as I know, all previous research on the maebiki saw has treated production centers and smiths only piecemeal; a nationwide study of the production centers and the saw blacksmiths such as this one is the first attempt of its kind in Japan.

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In commerce among merchants and artisans of the early modern period — that is, the Edo period — one cannot properly understand how trade worked without knowing of the kabunakama (株仲間) guild system. To explain it, we must first speak of the za (座), the associations that merchants and artisans formed from the Kamakura through the Muromachi periods to secure market monopolies and increase profits.

The za was a kind of trade association: unless one belonged to a za, one could not trade freely, and its members controlled production and distribution. To maintain this monopoly, they paid over a portion of their profits as myōgakin (冥加金, license fees) to the court nobles and temples and shrines, who then held great power and served as patron-protectors of the za.

Warring-states daimyō such as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, aiming to invigorate commerce and industry in their domains and enrich their finances, abolished the privileges of the za and implemented the rakuichi-rakuza (楽市楽座) policy of allowing new merchants and artisans to enter and trade freely in the markets. This policy did not, however, mean complete liberalization; many za were left intact at the discretion of the daimyō ruling each domain. The rakuichi-rakuza policy also carried the meaning of transferring control of trade within the domain from the nobles and temples to the daimyō.

The policy continued into the Edo period, but during this time merchants who had lost their za secretly formed unofficial trade associations called nakama (仲間) to avoid excessive competition and mutual ruin and to secure profits.

Under the 8th shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, came the Kyōhō Reforms (1716). To prevent surges in the price of rice and other goods and to bring prices down, the shogunate officially recognized the formation of guild organizations by merchants and artisans and, in exchange for permitting monopoly of trade, made them pay myōgakin — in effect a monopoly business tax. This was the birth of the legalized kabunakama.

The kabu (株, "share" or "stock") here is the right to monopolize production, manufacture, or trade. The number of members in a kabunakama was fixed; new entry was difficult, and one who obtained a member's share by purchase or transfer was admitted only after set procedures.

Further, in the era of the 10th shogun, Tokugawa Ieharu (1760–1786), when Tanuma Okitsugu was at the center of the shogunal cabinet, the formation of kabunakama was recognized on a wide scale. The aim was to control, through the kabunakama, the commodity production and distribution then developing remarkably around the Kinai region, and to increase myōgakin revenue for shogunal finances.

However, in the Tenpō Reforms (1841) under the 12th shogun, Tokugawa Ieyoshi, monopolies by kabunakama were judged to obstruct the smooth circulation of goods and to raise prices, and dissolution orders were issued to the majority of the kabunakama. The result was the opposite: distribution fell into confusion and prices soared, and ten years later, in 1851, wholesalers' associations (問屋仲間) without myōgakin obligations were officially recognized to stem the disorder. In 1857, at the very end of the era of the 13th shogun, Tokugawa Iesada, the kabunakama were revived and myōgakin payments to the shogunate resumed. But the number of shares was increased beyond before, new merchants and artisans were absorbed, and, unlike before, monopoly rights over manufacture and trade were greatly restricted.

Then, in Meiji 5 (1872), the kabunakama system was abolished by the Meiji government. It became possible to manufacture and trade freely.

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The maebiki saw appears to have been born around Keichō 1 (1596) to Keichō 3 (1598), at the very end of the Azuchi-Momoyama period in the late 16th century (Hoshino Kin'ya and Uemura Masako, "On the Evolution of the Maebiki Saw in the Early Modern and Modern Periods").

It is thought to have originated either in Osaka, then the leading region of Japanese saw production, or in Kyoto, but the truth is unknown. My own hypothesis: since the saw smiths who made maebiki saws were concentrated in the Kyoto district where many kobiki sawyers lived, I suspect it was devised by the saw smiths of Fushimi in Kyoto, then an advanced center and major production area for saws.

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With the start of the Edo period, the maebiki saw spread throughout the country. As smiths manufacturing maebiki saws in Kyoto in the Genroku era (1688–1704), under the 5th shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, six names appear in the lecture materials of Itō Masayuki (伊藤誠之), member of the Kōka City history compilation office, "Kōka maebiki-noko no tanjō — hakken sareta maebiki-noko kaji no komonjo kara" (甲賀前挽鋸の誕生―発見された前挽鋸鍛冶の古文書から, "The Birth of the Kōka Maebiki Saw — From Newly Discovered Documents of Maebiki Saw Smiths"):

Name Location
Tennōjiya San'emon (天王寺屋三右衛門) Horikawa Sanjō
Kariganeya Heiemon (雁金屋平右衛門) Horikawa Nijō
Kariganeya Chōemon (雁金屋長右衛門) Horikawa Oike
Kariganeya Ichibē (雁金屋市兵衛) Horikawa Oike
Kariganeya Shichirōzaemon (雁金屋七郎左衛門) Fuyachō Shijō
Kariganeya Jin'emon (雁金屋甚右衛門) Nijō Shinchi

San'emon, Heiemon, and Chōemon — these three trained under Kariganeya Jirōemon (雁金屋次郎右衛門) of Marutamachi Ogawa in Kyoto; Ichibē, Shichirōzaemon, and Jin'emon trained under Kariganeya Saburōemon (雁金屋三郎右衛門) of Horikawa Sanjō. From this record we know there were eight maebiki saw smiths in Kyoto.

The shop name (yagō) Kariganeya is a Kyoto smiths' yagō; but among these men is one bearing the yagō Tennōjiya, which was used by smiths descended from the Shitennōji smiths of Osaka — so he may be a saw smith of that lineage.

I surmise that these men later formed the Kyoto maebiki-saw smiths' guild (京都前挽鋸鍛冶職人仲間) — a kabunakama officially recognized by the shogunate under the 8th shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, holding monopoly rights.

Later, as Kyoto maebiki saw smiths of Bunsei 6 (1823), under the 11th shogun Tokugawa Ienari, five names are recorded in the archives of a maebiki saw sales agency in Wakayama, Kishū, which at that time bought maebiki saws from Kyoto (Itō Masayuki lecture materials) — from which we can see that they were the members of the Kyoto maebiki-saw smiths' guild:

Name Location
Kariganeya Jirōemon (雁金屋次郎右衛門) Marutamachi Nishinotōin
Kariganeya Shichirōemon (雁金屋七郎右衛門) Marutamachi Aburanokōji
Kariganeya Heiemon (雁金屋平右衛門) Horikawa Nijō
Tennōjiya San'emon (天王寺屋三右衛門) Horikawa Sanjō
Nakaya Shōzaemon (中屋庄左衛門) Ogawa Takeyachō

In this document, five of the Genroku-era Kyoto smiths — Kariganeya Saburōemon, Kariganeya Shichirōzaemon, Kariganeya Chōemon, Kariganeya Ichibē, and Kariganeya Jin'emon — have disappeared, and two new names, Kariganeya Shichirōemon and Nakaya Shōzaemon, have been added, making five.

Besides the smiths resident in Kyoto, the Bunsei 6 (1823) membership list of the Kyoto guild records five more: Tennōjiya Kuzaemon (天王寺屋九左衛門) of Ōmi Kōka, Yamatoya Heizaemon (大和屋平左衛門) of Osaka, and Maebikiya Gorōzaemon (前挽屋五郎左衛門), Yamadaya Iemon (山田屋伊右衛門), and Ōsakaya Gon'emon (大阪屋権右衛門) of Banshū Miki. Thus at that time the Kyoto maebiki-saw smiths' guild was constituted by these ten men.

Ten years later, in the "Shōnin kaimono hitori annai" (商人買物獨案内, a merchants' shopping directory) of Tenpō 4 (1833), the same five Kyoto-resident maebiki smiths of the Bunsei 6 list — Jirōemon, Shichirōemon, Heiemon, Shōzaemon, and San'emon — are again listed (Hoshino and Uemura, op. cit.).

In the Bunka era (1804–1818) under the 11th shogun Tokugawa Ienari, the Miki-machi maebiki-saw smiths' guild began making imitations of Kyoto maebiki saws, and Miki maebiki saws came to be shipped in volume toward Edo and Nagoya. Kyoto-made maebiki saws were gradually pushed aside and declined steadily; around Tenpō 10 (1839), under the 12th shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi, within the Kyoto guild the shares of Kariganeya Shichirōzaemon and Kariganeya Heiemon were transferred to Ōmi Kōka, and the share of Kariganeya Jirōemon (Note 1) to Tango, then called Tanshū (Kuwata Masaru, op. cit.). Tango had a thriving forestry industry and was a lumber-milling region supplying timber to Kyoto.

(Note 1) According to the Itō lecture materials cited above, Kariganeya Jirōemon's share was taken over by Tamaya Sahyōe (玉屋左兵衛) of Teramachi-dōri Bukkōji in Kyoto. What accounts for this discrepancy is unknown.

In Tenpō 12 (1841) the kabunakama dissolution order was issued, whereupon saw smiths in various regions began making maebiki saws. Sixteen years later, in Ansei 4 (1857), the guild-revival order was issued, but maebiki saws from outside the Kyoto guild were already in circulation, and the guild's control was ceasing to be effective.

Thus toward the end of the Edo period, maebiki saw manufacture in Kyoto declined, and in its place Ōmi Kōka and Banshū Miki became the centers of maebiki saw manufacture in Japan; the saws became the special products of those regions.

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Maebiki saw manufacture began in Ōmi Kōka (present Shiga Prefecture) after the mid-Edo period. Drawing on the Itō Masayuki lecture materials cited above and on materials published on the internet — "Shiga-ken yūkei minzoku bunkazai no bu" (滋賀県有形民俗文化財の部, "Shiga Prefecture Tangible Folk Cultural Properties"), "Kōka no maebiki-noko / Kōka-shi" (甲賀の前挽鋸／甲賀市), "Kōka no soma to umoregi / Kōka" (甲賀の杣と埋もれ木／甲賀), and others — let me describe maebiki saw manufacture in Ōmi Kōka.

Tennōjiya Kuemon (天王寺屋九右衛門), who had trained under the Kyoto maebiki smith Tennōjiya San'emon yet, because of the kabunakama system, could not make maebiki saws in Kyoto, returned in Hōreki 1 (1751), under the 9th shogun Tokugawa Ieshige, to his home region of Kōka and made maebiki saws there — and with this, it is said, maebiki manufacture in Kōka began. Kuemon (who died at 68) was then 44.

Kuemon's home region of Kōka had since antiquity supplied timber to the capitals of Nara and Kyoto; in this part of the Edo period, too, it was a timber-supplying region with many kobiki sawyers engaged in milling, and they used maebiki saws.

However, in the period from Hōreki 9 (1759) to Meiwa 1 (1764) — from the end of the 9th shogun Ieshige's era into the beginning of the 10th shogun Ieharu's — no manufacture took place. This was doubtless because the Kyoto maebiki-saw smiths' guild, holding the monopoly on manufacture and trade, had issued an injunction stopping production. At the end of Meiwa 1, Kuemon's family, the Fukumoto (福本) family, was formally admitted to the Kyoto guild — the kabunakama for maebiki manufacture — and manufacture could at last proceed openly.

From An'ei 2 (1773) on, under the 10th shogun Ieharu, the name of Tennōjiya Kuzaemon (天王寺屋九左衛門), evidently Kuemon's successor, can be confirmed, and the saws he made circulated under the mark "Tenku" (天九). The rules of the Kyoto guild were strict; they record:

  1. Observe the dimensions of the Kyoto-style maebiki saw — length 1 shaku 8 sun (about 54.5 cm), width 1 shaku 2 sun (about 36.4 cm);
  2. Stamp a maker's mark on each product;
  3. Pay 5 pieces of silver to the guild each year;
  4. Do not let apprentices, workmen, or relatives practice the maebiki saw smith's trade;
  5. On violation, the full set of tools and the share are to be confiscated.

In Tenpō 10 (1839), under the 12th shogun Ieyoshi, the share of Kariganeya Heiemon of Kyoto passed to Shioya Seibē (塩屋清兵衛) of Minakuchi in Kōka district (Itō lecture materials), and afterward the share of Kariganeya Shichirōemon (Note 2) passed to Nakanishi Shichirōzaemon (中西七郎左衛門) of Sanbonyanagi, Kitasoma village, Kōka district (Hoshino and Uemura, op. cit.). In the late Edo period the maebiki saws made by Kariganeya Shichirōemon were known as first-class articles.

(Note 2) The Itō lecture materials say that around Kaei 2 (1849), under the 12th shogun Ieyoshi, the share of Kariganeya Shichirōzaemon moved to Sandaiji village in Kōka district; I surmise that this Kariganeya Shichirōzaemon was the successor of Kariganeya Shichirōemon.

With these two shares, the maebiki-saw smith shares of Kōka district — adding Tennōjiya Kuzaemon of Sanbonyanagi, Sandaiji village, who had been manufacturing all along — came to three, the same as Banshū Miki. As a result, from the Bakumatsu period into the Meiji era, Ōmi Kōka maebiki saws circulated widely and became a Kōka specialty.

The Nakanishi family, which had taken over Kariganeya Shichirōemon's share, later came to serve as head of the Kōka District Maebiki Saw Manufacturers' Association (甲賀郡前挽鋸製造業組合) in Meiji 33 (1900).

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According to Kuwata Masaru's (桑田優) book Dentō sangyō no seiritsu to hatten — Banshū Miki kanamono no jirei (伝統産業の成立と発展―播州三木金物の事例, "The Formation and Development of a Traditional Industry — The Case of Banshū Miki Hardware"), based on his survey of old documents preserved by Miki's hardware brokers and wholesalers: in Banshū Miki, in the 2nd and 9th months of Hōreki 11 (1761), under the 10th shogun Ieharu, Yamadaya Iemon (山田屋伊右衛門) petitioned the Miki office to open business as a maebiki saw smith, and at the latest by Hōreki 14 (1764), three years later, maebiki manufacture had begun in Miki.

The petition being granted, three maebiki saw smith houses opened: Yamadaya Iemon, Maebikiya Goroemon (前挽屋五郎衛門 — whose original yagō was Ōsakaya), and Ōsakaya Gon'emon (大阪屋権右衛門), and manufacture began. On opening, they joined the Kyoto maebiki-saw smiths' guild and formed the Miki-machi maebiki-saw smiths' guild, with Yamadaya Iemon as representative (sōdai), keeping in communication with the Kyoto guild.

That they could now join the hitherto closed kabunakama was owing, as noted above in the section on the guild system, to shogunal policy in the Hōreki–Tenmei era of reorganizing the various kabunakama to strengthen the distribution apparatus and increase myōgakin revenue.

Under these circumstances, saw smiths and knife smiths from Miki also joined the Monju Shirō smiths' guild (文殊四郎鍛冶職人仲間) of Osaka — the kabunakama of edge-tool smiths — around Tenmei 4 (1784), under the 10th shogun Ieharu.

Until then Miki maebiki saws had been sent to Edo through Osaka wholesalers, but in Kansei 10 (1798), under the 11th shogun Ienari, direct dealing with Edo wholesalers began.

In the Bunsei and Tenpō eras under the 11th shogun Ienari, rises in the price of iron and charcoal brought recession. Ōsakaya Gon'emon's house, which had continued from the birth of the Miki maebiki saw, fell into debt to the wholesalers; he passed the headship to his son Riemon (利右衛門) in Bunsei 13 (1830), and then to Riemon's son Tsunezō (常蔵) in Tenpō 7 (1836); but in the end, unable to repay, in Tenpō 10 (1827) [sic — as written in the original] the rights to the share passed to Yamadaya Yajiemon (山田屋弥次右衛門) of Miki.

None of Miki's maebiki saw smiths was financially comfortable, but because the special character of the product gave it market value, they were supported thereafter by Miki wholesalers and wealthy families of the surrounding countryside, and survived beyond the Meiji Restoration.

How large was maebiki saw production in Miki in the early modern period? On this, Kuwata's book contains trading records between Miki smiths and one representative Miki hardware broker-wholesaler from Tenpō 6 (1835), at the very end of the 11th shogun Ienari's era. As Professor Kuwata notes, one cannot infer the whole of the Miki hardware industry from one wholesaler's records, but for a rough sketch they present no problem.

The number of smith households this wholesaler dealt with was 215, with total purchases of about 1,693 ryō (calculated by the present author at 1 ryō = 150 monme of silver, the late-Edo value):

Trade Households Purchases (approx.)
Maebiki saw smiths 3 223 ryō
Saw smiths 64 686 ryō
Chisel smiths 7 40 ryō
Plane smiths 13 38 ryō
Razor smiths 26 126 ryō
Carpenter's-square graduation cutters 8 16 ryō
Carpenter's-square blank makers 8 19 ryō

The hardware wholesaler's purchases from the smiths represent only a part of each smith trade's total production at the time.

In this wholesaler's records, purchases from maebiki saw smiths (13.2%), saw smiths (40.5%), and knife smiths (15%) account for about 70% of the wholesaler's total, and in sales, maebiki saws (21.4%), knives (24.8%), and saws (30.8%) account for about 80% of total sales. From this we can roughly infer that these products were Miki's principal commodities at the time.

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With the Meiji era, in Meiji 5 (1872) the Meiji government abolished the kabunakama system, which until then had held monopoly rights over manufacture and trade. Maebiki saw manufacture and commerce thereby became free, and many maebiki saw smiths appeared. Let me describe this as well.

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When, in the second decade of Meiji (late 1870s–1880s), Western steel came to be imported in the form of flat and plate steel — replacing manufacture from Japanese steel (wakō) as raw material — the manufacturing process could begin from the forming stage and was greatly shortened.

Consequently, according to the "Shiga Prefecture Tangible Folk Cultural Properties" materials, by around Meiji 35 (1902) thirteen maebiki saw smiths had arisen along the Somagawa river from present Sandaiji, Minakuchi-chō, Kōka City, to Kōnan-chō (Note 1), and saw smiths making maebiki saws had appeared in other parts of Kōka as well.

(Note 1) According to the Kōka maebiki saw manufacturers' association of Meiji 35 (1902), the members were 13 men living in Sanbonyanagi, Ushikai, Somanaka, Morijiri, Fukawa, Fukawa-ichiba, Ryūbōji, and Terashō, among them Hachiri Heiemon (八里平右衛門) of Morijiri, Imamura Shōkurō (今村庄九郎) and Kagata Jin'emon (利田仁右衛門) of Fukawa, and Morita Shōnosuke (森田庄之助) of Noda. ("Shiga Prefecture Tangible Folk Cultural Properties")

In Meiji 40 (1907), said to be the peak of the maebiki saw in Kōka, shipments were 25,000 saws; in Meiji 41 (1908), 27,000 — shipped nationwide and also to Karafuto (Sakhalin), Korea, and Taiwan, then territories of Japan. Kōka had become truly one of Japan's great maebiki saw production centers.

Maebiki manufacture, which had developed as Kōka's local industry, declined rapidly in the Shōwa era with the nationwide spread of large electric circular-saw milling machinery introduced from the middle of the Meiji era onward.

However, because sawing with the maebiki saw — though slower than machine sawing — gives a cleaner cut surface and can mill boards more efficiently [with less waste], the maebiki saw continued to be used by kobiki sawyers in various regions for high-grade timber and precious woods until about the latter half of the Shōwa era.

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In present-day Miki City, Hyōgo Prefecture — the other maebiki production center of the Bakumatsu period — the number of maebiki saw smiths did not grow in the Meiji era as in Ōmi Kōka: there remained only the three houses, while smiths of construction and forestry saws multiplied greatly. (Note 2)

(Note 2) Though the periods differ, for reference: in Bunka 12 (1815), under the 11th shogun Ienari, there were 61 saw-smith houses, but by Shōwa 3 (1928) saw smiths had increased to 256 (my book Daiku dōgu bunkaron [大工道具文化論, "A Cultural Theory of Carpentry Tools"]).

Miki-machi's production in Meiji 28 (1895): maebiki saws, 10,800 pieces, production value ¥22,100; the highest unit price at which smiths delivered to wholesalers was ¥3, the lowest ¥1.2.

For comparison, production of construction saws, forestry saws, and the like was 315,000 pieces, value ¥94,500, with smith-to-wholesaler unit prices from ¥1 down to ¥0.15. It is fair to reckon that retail prices of maebiki saws and carpenters' saws came to about three times these figures after tooth-setting and sharpening (metate) and the like.

The maebiki saw, Miki's leading product in the Edo period, had by Meiji 28 (1895) fallen sharply to 7.4% of Miki hardware production value. Saws other than maebiki were 31.6%; planes 15.5%; chisels 12.5%; shears 14.0%. (Note 3)

(Note 3) Smith-to-wholesaler unit prices: planes, highest ¥0.2, lowest ¥0.09; chisels, highest ¥0.2, lowest ¥0.04. With blade sharpening, fitting of plane bodies (dai-ire), and fitting of chisel handles done on the wholesaler's side, retail prices came to about three times as much. A carpenter's daily wage in Meiji 28 (1895) was 54 sen; 1 yen was 100 sen.

This was because, nationwide, the method of milling boards from logs was shifting from human power with the maebiki saw to large electric circular-saw machines. In the Miki-machi hardware production statistics of Taishō 10 (1921), twenty-five years later, the maebiki saw has vanished. We may say the maebiki saw smiths of Miki had ceased to exist.

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Though no other region grew into a great maebiki production center like Kyoto, Ōmi Kōka, or Banshū Miki, records survive of saw smiths in various places who made maebiki saws. Let me describe them.

According to the town history of Tosa-Yamada, once known as a region of thriving forestry and smithing in Shikoku: at the end of the Bunsei era (late 1820s), in the last years of the 11th shogun Ienari, a smith named Odachi Danji (尾立団次) of Tajima in Tosa went to Tano village in Aki district, eastern Kōchi, to learn maebiki saw manufacture, returned home, and was the first to make maebiki saws in Katachi village of that region.

By tradition, the saw smith who made maebiki saws in Tano village, Aki district, was Nakajima Chōzaemon (中島長左衛門), said to have been originally a swordsmith. In those days Tosa still had no maebiki smiths and the two-man ōga was in use; he is said to have learned maebiki-making technique from the saw smiths of Miki and begun making them.

In the mountains of the Chūgoku range in northern Hiroshima Prefecture is an old town called Chiyoda (千代田). Here a single saw-smith house made maebiki saws; the region's forestry flourished. The founder, Mikami Shinzaburō I (初代三上新三郎), is said to have established the business in Tenpō 3 (1832), though smithing began in earnest only in the Meiji era. Generation after generation they were dedicated maebiki saw smiths; at the peak around Shōwa 15 (1940) there were about 30 workmen, and when they forged a maebiki saw of length 6 shaku (about 60 cm) [sic] and width 1 shaku (about 30 cm), seven men swung the sledgehammers. The house continued to the 4th generation; in Shōwa 46 (1971) the forge fire went out (Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum, "Maebiki-ōga no shūen" [前挽大鋸の終焉, "The End of the Maebiki-Ōga"]).

In Kanuma, Tochigi Prefecture, there was also a saw smith specializing in maebiki saws, Nakaya Tomisuke (中屋富助). When he began making them is unknown, but the kobiki sawyers of the region called Kanuma-made maebiki saws "Kanuma dōgu" (鹿沼道具, "Kanuma tools"). He made the tooth-side portion of Japanese steel and the back, neck, and tang of soft iron, but closed the business around Meiji 30 (1897) (Yoshikawa Kinji, op. cit.).

Saitama Prefecture also had saw smiths who made maebiki saws: Nakaya Tomekichi (中屋留吉) of Chichibu and Nakaya Hensaku (中屋辺作) of Kawagoe. Of Nakaya Tomekichi's career nothing is known. Nakaya Hensaku I was famed for his maebiki saws among other work, and died in Meiji 43 (1910) at 47. His son, Nakaya Hensaku II, made in the early Shōwa era a super-large maebiki saw of length 7 shaku 5 sun (about 227 cm) and weight 3 kan 200 monme (about 12 kg). Hensaku II also made carpenters' saws and other tools; he gave up saw-smithing in Shōwa 55 (1980) at the age of 88 (my book Zoku: Nihon no daiku dōgu shokunin [続・日本の大工道具職人, "Japan's Carpentry-Tool Craftsmen, Continued"]).

(End)

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(Written on an auspicious day of July, Heisei 27 [2015]) Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. — Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)

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Japanese chisels (nomi 鑿) and plane blades (kanna 鉋) have a hollow in the center of the back face (uraba 裏刃), the side to which the steel is forge-welded. This hollowed portion is called the "ura-suki" (裏スキ). With the ura-suki, the back of a chisel or plane blade can be ground truly flat right up to the cutting edge, producing an edge that cuts well. Without the ura-suki, it is no easy matter to grind the entire back truly flat to the edge.

There is also the saying, "the plane takes an ito-ura, the chisel a beta-ura" (鉋は糸裏、鑿はベタ裏) — a maxim among carpenters meaning that on a plane blade the flat land at the back of the edge should be finished as fine as a thread (ito-ura, "thread back"), while on a chisel the flat at the edge should be finished fairly wide (beta-ura, "full back").

Why is the ito-ura good for planes? The answer goes back to the Edo period, when the plane was still a single-blade plane. So that it could cut even against the grain, the single-blade plane's mouth was made as narrow as possible, and the blade was bedded so that the wear (kobagaeshi 木端返し) and the blade's back were parallel. Shavings therefore jammed easily in that gap. Making the back an ito-ura meant that, thanks to the ura-suki, the space between the wear and the blade widened, and the shavings passed through more easily. With the two-blade plane, the chipbreaker (uragane 裏金) handles cutting against the grain, so the extreme ito-ura of the single-blade plane became unnecessary, and it was no longer necessary to make the wear parallel to the blade's back.

In the case of the chisel, when the chisel is struck into the timber with a mallet, if the back is not a beta-ura the cut follows the hollow of the ura-suki and comes out convex rather than straight. Wide chisels especially have this tendency. Wide chisels are sometimes given a mitsu-ura (三つ裏, triple back); the mitsu-ura then acts as a straightedge, so the chisel drives in and cuts straight.

Thus the state of the ura-suki differs between plane and chisel; and there is a theory that this ura-suki is uniquely Japanese. Is that true? And if it is, from what period did chisels and planes come to be given the ura-suki?

This essay presents the results of my inquiry into these questions. Honorifics are omitted below.

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From kofun built between the 4th and 6th centuries, many chisels have been excavated along with iron woodworking tools such as axes, adzes (chōna 釿), awls, and hammers. From the Kanakurayama kofun (金蔵山古墳, Okayama Prefecture) of the early 5th century, several chisels for fine woodwork have been excavated. These are not construction chisels struck with a mallet, but single-bevel chisels pushed forward to cut. The remarkable point is that they have the ura-suki (Yoshikawa Kinji, Mono to ningen no bunkashi / Ono, Nomi, Kanna [ものと人間の文化史／斧・鑿・鉋, "The Cultural History of Things and People: Axe, Chisel, Plane"], Shōwa 59 [1984]).

Yoshikawa Kinji writes: "If a blade is single-beveled and has the ura-suki, its function as a chisel improves, but the edge is weak. If it were soft iron, the edge would simply roll over and be unusable. Hence it was very likely tsukebagane [steel forge-welded on]." And of a heavily corroded chisel: "the tip suggests delamination at the weld. I have seen a great deal of weld delamination in old edge tools, and this looks exactly like that state" (op. cit.). He thus argues strongly that steel had probably been forge-welded on.

Possession of the ura-suki means these excavated chisels were very likely single-beveled and steel-laminated.

From the Hyōge No. 6 tomb (兵家６号墳) and the Tsukayama kofun (塚山古墳) in Nara Prefecture, also of the 5th century, wide-bladed chisels with flared shoulders have been excavated. These are clearly construction chisels, of two types: tang-type (nakago-shiki 茎式) chisels whose iron is set into the handle, and socket-type (fukuro-shiki 袋式) chisels whose iron is worked into a socket into which the handle is inserted (Note 1). Reconstructions of these are displayed as ancient chisels at the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum. Examining their backs, one clearly sees the ura-suki.

(Note 1) The socket chisel is a woodworking and construction chisel devised in ancient China; one grips the handle and presses it into the wood to cut a hole, or strikes it with a mallet to cut mortises. In Japan, tang chisels and socket chisels were used side by side until the Heian period. According to Yoshikawa Kinji, in the Heian period the tang chisel's handle acquired an iron ferrule (kuchigane) and hoop (katsura) (Yoshikawa, op. cit., 1984), enabling it to withstand stronger mallet blows, and the socket chisel, weak under striking, fell out of use.

In Japan, iron implements arrived together with bronze from the Korean peninsula in the early to middle Yayoi period (from around the early 3rd century BC). Iron tools and iron stock imported from the peninsula and China were reworked, and small-scale iron smelting was attempted in various places. Iron production certainly began from the late 5th century, in the Kofun period.

Since iron slag indicating steel refining has been found in sites of the first half of the middle Yayoi period, we may infer that small-scale steel production was already being carried out in Japan. It follows that the chisels excavated from these kofun may very well have been made in Japan. The next question is whether the practice of giving blades this ura-suki was transmitted from continental China or the Korean peninsula, or devised independently in Japan.

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According to the internet articles "Kodai seitetsu no kigen ni semaru" (古代製鉄の起源に迫る, "Approaching the Origins of Ancient Iron Smelting") and "Chūgoku no seitetsu gijutsushi" (中国の製鉄技術史, "A History of Chinese Iron Technology"): in ancient China, iron objects were made from meteoric iron from around the 14th century BC, but — after passing through the Bronze Age — true smelting began around the 7th century BC. At first this was a low-temperature process (about 1,000°C): the bloom, in a semi-molten state, was taken from the furnace and forged into implements. This method yielded only small quantities; metal products of the time were still chiefly bronze, made by casting.

Around the 5th century BC, tall furnaces were built and a high-temperature process (about 1,500°C) with forced draft was developed, making it possible to mass-produce iron in liquid form; this became the mainstream. Iron implements accordingly shifted from forging to a casting method, built on Bronze Age casting technique, that could produce them in quantity. Hence the saying, "the greatest characteristic of ancient Chinese metalworking technology is that it began with casting" (Hua Jueming [華覚明], professor, Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences). The discovery of annealing, which overcame the hardness and brittleness of quenched cast iron, also came around the 5th century BC.

Around the 3rd century BC came the method of decarburizing pig iron to make steel and recasting it into implements; in the 2nd century BC, the chao gang technique (炒鋼, "stir-frying steel": blowing air into liquefied pig iron and stirring to remove carbon); and in the 2nd century AD, a carbon-adjustment technique (mixing liquefied pig iron with wrought iron to produce steel of the desired carbon content). These methods were strictly controlled by the Chinese emperors, who guarded them against export. What reached ancient Japan was China's early low-temperature process, which developed independently in Japan into the tatara smelting method.

In China, with this metallurgical history, bronze chisels have been excavated from the Bronze Age and iron socket chisels from the Iron Age. In ancient China many chisels were made by casting and forging, but they were all-steel chisels (chisels without laminated steel — the cast or forged whole was quenched to harden only the surface). Moreover, the Tiangong Kaiwu (天工開物), the Chinese treatise on industrial technology written in 1637 — the middle of the era of the 3rd shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu — says "for chisels, forge wrought iron and set steel into the tip"; and since the chisels used today in China and Korea likewise have no ura-suki, we may infer that the ura-suki was never devised in ancient China.

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Among Yayoi-period (c. 4th century BC – AD 300) excavated objects there is a blade like a spear point, with total length under 20 cm and a cutting portion of about 3 cm. Blades of this shape have been excavated in China and Korea from the Spring-and-Autumn / Warring-States era (8th–3rd centuries BC); in China it was called a xiao (削, "scraper") and was a tool for shaving off miswritten characters on wooden and bamboo writing slips (Okimoto Hiroshi [沖本弘], "Yarikanna ni tsuite" [ヤリカンナについて, "On the Yarikanna"], Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum Research Bulletin No. 9, June 1997).

This blade has been excavated from Yayoi-period sites in Japan — and, it is reported, with both a ridge (shinogi シノギ) and an ura-suki (Okimoto, op. cit.).

Okimoto's paper does not say whether the blade was made in Japan or came from the Korean peninsula, but according to the blog "Tanzō no rekishi: Nihon-hen" (鍛造の歴史　日本編, "The History of Forging: Japan"), small forged blades such as little yarigana and arrowheads were being made in the Yayoi period. The yarigana spoken of here is the blade the ancient Chinese called xiao; from this we may well say the small spear-point-like blades excavated from Yayoi sites were probably made in Japan. Why give them an ura-suki? Doubtless so they could be ground to a keen, well-cutting edge. Possibly the ura-suki even derives from the making of arrowheads.

Around the Asuka period, when Buddhist temples were being built, this blade evolved into the yarikanna (ヤリカンナ, spear plane), with a blade around 10 cm long and, with handle, a total length of just under 90 cm; and until the arrival of the bench plane (dai-tsuki kanna 台付き鉋) in the Muromachi period it remained the carpenter's principal woodworking tool for smoothing the marks left where timber had been hewn with the adze (chōna 釿).

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The appearance of the bench plane, which shaves timber flat, goes back to the middle of the Muromachi period. It came from continental China as a single-blade push plane with handles on both sides of the body. In China and on the Korean peninsula, to cut hard woods such as pine, one grasped the handles on both sides of the plane body with both hands and pushed with all one's strength; the surface was afterward finished with coating. There seems to have been no aesthetic of planing thinly and prizing the beauty of the planed surface itself. The Tiangong Kaiwu, the Chinese treatise introduced earlier, records that planes, like chisels, were made with steel set in; but since the blades of planes of the same type used today in China and Korea show no ura-suki, we may infer they had none then either.

Afterward, in Muromachi-period Japan, a pull plane was devised and used alongside the push plane; by the Edo period, all Japanese planes were pull planes. In Japan the soft woods hinoki and sugi were much used, and there was an aesthetic that valued the planed surface of the wood; it appears the pull plane won out because it allowed careful, thin shaving.

Edo-period planes almost all had a cutting width of 1 sun 4 bu (42 mm); from around the Bakumatsu, planes of 1 sun 6 bu (48 mm) began to be used; and in the Meiji era plane widths grew — 1 sun 8 bu planes, 2 sun planes, and so on. Also, in the early Meiji era, under the influence of the Western-style two-blade push plane with handles, which cuts cleanly even against the grain, the Japanese two-blade plane appeared (my book Nihon no daiku dōgu shokunin, Heisei 23 [2011]). The Western push plane, too, has no ura-suki.

Within this history of the bench plane, when did the Japanese plane blade come to be given the ura-suki? It was, I believe, from the time bench planes began to be made in Japan. As with the chisel, the ura-suki was put on the plane blade so that it could be well ground and finished, and could shave thinly. We may fairly say the ura-suki is a distinctive device, invented in Japan.

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This time I have discussed when, and in which country, the ura-suki of chisels and planes was devised. In the course of the inquiry I read my way through histories of ancient Chinese iron technology, histories of ancient Japanese forging, excavation reports, and papers and studies on carpentry tools. Also, when I visited the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum in November of Heisei 24 (2012) for this research, I was kindly allowed to examine in detail the chisels, planes, and yarikanna displayed there, from antiquity to the present, and was thus able to complete this essay.

The conclusion: the source of the ura-suki is the spear-point-like blade of the Yayoi period with its 3 cm cutting edge, and its adoption into chisels and planes is uniquely Japanese — this I was able to confirm. Besides chisels and planes, the ura-suki is found on all traditional Japanese forged blades: the single-bevel kitchen knife, the Japanese razor, and the Japanese grip scissors (nigiri-basami), among others.

(An auspicious day of January, Heisei 25 [2013]) Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. — Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)

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Around the middle of the Muromachi period, the bench plane (dai-ganna 台鉋) for shaving timber flat came to Japan from China. The plane of that time was single-bladed, with handles on both sides of the body, and was used by pushing. Before this, to smooth timber in Japan, two tools were used: a kind of woodworking rasp called in Tang-dynasty China the gokō-kanna (蜈蚣鉋, "centipede plane") — also written 百足鉋 because its blades sit in a row like a centipede's legs — and the yarigana (槍鉋, spear plane).

The yarigana is a tool with a curved, spear-point-like blade on a long handle, used by drawing or thrusting to shave timber; it is unique to Japan. According to Watanabe Akira (渡邊晶), chief researcher of the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum, tools of this form appeared in the Yayoi and Kofun periods; in the Yayoi period most were under 20 cm in total length, and in the Kofun period examples of 50–60 cm appear, but in both cases the blade portion is 3 cm or under — small tools unsuited to timber-frame construction, he notes.

To shave the posts and boards of buildings requires a blade of 10 cm or more and a total length of about 1 m. The appearance of large yarigana of this kind had to await the arrival, from the late 6th century onward, of the advanced timber-building technology of the Buddhist temple, transmitted from the Korean peninsula. From then until the arrival of the bench plane, large yarigana were used to shave timber.

The centipede plane, though written with the character for "plane," does not cut the wood but is a kind of woodworking rasp that abrades it. It was used until the Meiji era in making the bodies of kotsuzumi drums for Noh and other woodwork.

When, then, did the two-blade bench plane with chipbreaker (uragane 裏金) — the plane as we see it today — appear? Its date of emergence has been variously discussed up to now; but through an unexpected encounter with a certain document, and detailed investigation of it, I have been able to overturn the accepted theory. Let me present that here.

This essay draws on Watanabe Akira, Daiku dōgu no Nihonshi (大工道具の日本史, "A Japanese History of Carpentry Tools," Heisei 16 [2004]); Yoshikawa Kinji, Ono, Nomi, Kanna (斧・鑿・鉋, "Axe, Chisel, Plane," Shōwa 59 [1984]); Wikipedia; the Morikawa Masahiko website; and other websites. Honorifics are omitted below.

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Until now, the appearance of the two-blade plane with chipbreaker has been dated as follows. Tsuchida Ichirō (土田一郎), in Nihon no dentō kōgu (日本の伝統工具, "Traditional Japanese Tools," Shōwa 64 [1989]), writes that it was the latter half of the Meiji 20s [c. 1892–1896]. Yoshikawa Kinji, in Ono, Nomi, Kanna (Shōwa 59 [1984]), writes that it appeared and spread between the end of Meiji and the early-to-middle Taishō period.

The website of the plane smith Usui Kengo (碓氷健吾) says: "In the latter half of Meiji 37 [1904], to prevent tearout against the grain, a chipbreaker was fitted to the plane blade. Its spread was delayed, surging at a stroke with the building boom after the Great Kantō Earthquake."

Further, "The History of Miki's Plane Smiths" on the website of the Yamamoto Plane Works of Miki says: "Around Meiji 38 [1905] the two-blade plane began to be used."

The Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum's website introduces it thus: "In the latter half of the Meiji era, the two-blade plane (awase-ganna), with a restraining blade inserted to prevent tearout, was devised and became standard."

The stated dates are thus scattered, but interpreting broadly and looking for common ground, we could say "from the latter half of the Meiji era onward." But is that really when the two-blade plane emerged?

In a Yahoo web search result, "Kanna no rekishi" (かんなの歴史, "The History of the Plane"), I found the following (in summary): in the Meiji era Western culture and technology influenced all manner of Japanese tools; the Japanese plane was among them, and, imitating the Western plane with its restraining blade, it went from one blade to two.

This claim intrigued me, and searching the internet for "early Meiji craft textbook," I reached the Shōgaku Gagaku-sho (小學畫學書, elementary drawing book) compiled by the Ministry of Education in Meiji 6 (1873). Examining the book's contents, I discovered a picture — not of a Japanese plane, but of a Western two-blade push plane. By Meiji 6 (1873), then, the Western two-blade plane had already arrived in Japan.

Then I recalled the tool illustrations in a paper I had read some time before, Funabiki Etsuko's (船曳悦子) "Ryōba-noko no shutsugen jiki ni tsuite" (両刃鋸の出現時期について, "On the Period of Emergence of the Double-Edged Saw"), published by the Architectural Institute of Japan, and accessed it again online to look at its Figure 3. Figure 3 contains drawings of an adze (chōna), a double-edged saw with V-shaped head, a single-edged saw, and two bench planes — one with the blade set vertically, one with it set at a slant (both are Japanese bench planes).

Moreover, the figure's source was given as: "Morse's diary, Meiji 10, September 8 — Tokyo." Morse is Edward S. Morse, the early-Meiji professor of zoology and evolutionary theory at the University of Tokyo — the discoverer of the Ōmori shell mound.

Looking afresh at the two bench planes drawn in Figure 3, both appeared to have something like a chipbreaker. Enlarging the image on my computer screen to check carefully: yes, chipbreakers were fitted. It was just as I had imagined it might be. This proves that the two-blade bench plane already existed in Tokyo in Meiji 10 (1877). That the emergence date of the two-blade plane could be established from a figure in Funabiki Etsuko's paper on the emergence of the double-edged saw was an unexpected turn.

From the above, we may conclude: the two-blade plane with chipbreaker appeared in Tokyo in the very early Meiji era, and it went from one blade to two under the influence of the Western plane with its restraining blade.

However, this plane took years to spread widely. The reasons were attitudes among carpenters such as: "The two-blade plane holds down tearout, but a single-blade plane gives a better luster than a two-blade plane"; or "Coopers cannot use the two-blade plane — the planed surface is ugly"; and, further, older carpenters' resistance to new tools.

Nevertheless, the two-blade plane gradually spread from Tokyo to the provinces; from the latter half of the Meiji era, as timber with wild grain and knots came to be used more and more in construction, the two-blade plane's convenience won broad recognition, and it began to spread rapidly region by region. If we interpret the emergence and the spread of the two-blade plane in this way, the reasons for the scattered datings also become clear: until now, the period of its emergence and the period of its spread have been confused with one another.

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In closing this essay, let me touch briefly on two questions: why the push-type bench plane with handles, which arrived in the mid-Muromachi period, lost its handles in Japan and became a plane used by pulling; and when and why the working posture changed from seated to standing.

First, the change from push plane to pull plane. In China and Korea the push plane was used because hard pine was widely employed in building and woodwork: pushing lets one apply force more easily and work efficiently. And the planed timber was mostly finished with coating.

In Japan, soft hinoki and sugi were widely used in building, and there was a distinctive aesthetic that prized the plain, uncoated white-wood finish just as planed, so effort went into shaving the wood's surface to a mirror. As a result, I believe, planing came to be done not by pushing with brute force but by drawing the plane carefully toward oneself.

It seems the pull plane was made soon after the push plane's arrival; pictorial sources show bench planes used both ways — push and pull — up to the early Edo period, and from about the middle of the Edo period practically all planing had become pull-planing.

Next, the change in working posture. In pictures of woodworkers up to about the beginning of the 19th century, planing is done seated; in pictures after that, planing is increasingly shown done standing. The chief reason for the change from sitting to standing, I would suggest, arose from the drive to raise the efficiency of building work.

(An auspicious day of September, Heisei 23 [2011]) Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. — Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)

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