Ronin Daiku: 2015

Last of the Curly Koa Puka Wood

Been some time since the last post.....

It's been a great year and much has been happening in and around the shop.

The shop moved about a year back or so to a larger space near the Port of Hilo.

I will post some images in the near future of the shop......

In the meantime I thought I might show you some images of this years past work

by starting with the most recent and working back in future posts.

The new piece features the last of the curly koa puka wood. I found one amazing plank of beautiful curl that had tons of character and used it for three chests. It's one of those boards that make you wonder what ever happened to the rest of the tree

So it's sad to see it go I suppose. Maybe I'll find more of it some day.....

it is a small island after all.

The new tansu is an isho yaro similar to the other two in the series with the curly koa puka wood.

The Isho Yaro are a single piece clothing tansu. There were many differing drawer configurations some implementing safe doors and drop fit doors such as this one.

The small drawers also allow for areas to hide secret compartments and boxes known as hesokuribako. Which loosely means belly button chestnut box .....

This piece is made with the last of the curly koa puka wood.

It measures 18.5x36x42.

Here it is at The Harbor Gallery in Kawaihea Harbor, Hawaii.

The tansu is currently showing and exclusively available at the Harbor Gallery.

As with the others, the top and sides were made from single wide koa boards. These are amazing

(and hard to find). I was able to use book matched sides. Both with the same mineral patterning . Just beautiful.

The top has a few bark enclosures that compliment the drawer fronts.

The whole work is fully joined with dovetailed carcass and drawers.

All the major partitions are joined to the carcass with 6 pairs of tenons and two sword tip tenons, backed with yet more tenons lol.

Hard to believe there are more than 90 mortice and tenon joints in the piece.

The cut-outs in the tansu sides draw inspiration from the mokko pattern.

Drawers were made with figured Silky Oak and Port Orford Cedar drawer bottoms

The drawer fronts were veneered with a shop sawn veneer.

The veneers are thick enough to finish plane the faces like solid wood.

To make the design unique from the previous versions, I added a kendon buta ( drop fit door) .

Here is a pic of the door fitted and the bead detail carved in.

Inside is a pair of small drawers made from a very tasty Stress Curl Koa. It actually came from the same tree as the sides of the tansu.

Then behind drawer number two we find a hidden box made from Milo

Then there is one more hidden box behind a larger drawer.

The boxes are designed to fit dollar bills.

This one here is made from Kamani.

The handles are custom cast

The castings get cleaned up and edges filed smooth.

Here are the backplates in the different stages oif fabrication

From back to front, we have the laser cut blank, then after it was hammer finished,next is with the edges all hand filed to a neat bevel and finally oil blackened.

Here is the whole suite prior to installing...

The finish I have been using most exclusively for some time is a french polish.

I use a high grade German refined dewaxed shellacs. The finish has high clarity with a deep luster and adds a bit of warmth like an analog recording. The finish is then finally rubbed with a homemade bee's wax polish. It's quite water resistant, no white rings. And it patinas nicely.