Part 1, (Part 2,) Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5, Part 5
Pulling off the rings, you can see the gummy glue remains on the bases of the tools.
One part of this process is going to be giving myself a better stub to put the ring on.
After removing a few rings,
I find that some of the rings are a bit large and some are amazingly tight. So I am going to have to do a bit of rigging to get these rings on perfect. For a smaller hand, or someone who prefers a shorter handle, this would be fine, but I like a long handle. I think it gives me more control, despite a lot of other folk that feel a short handle give them more control. As it is, I may have to remake a few of the handles or rings to have these suit my tastes. So once again the ergonomics issue rears it’s head with these tools. Fabulous, tools so far, and I am tempted to leave off the rings and round the handle to fit in the palm. This would solve everything, and they seem to work quite well as push tools.
The heating of the rings was taking too long, sixteen tools is a lot to process. So I doubled up.
The next part is to deal with the tool shape. I went straight to work on that. I have made so many different styles of handles, that I have a good feel for what works well for me.
Nothing too complex, but with the rounding of the edges and having the front blend into the same angle as the blade, the indention between the metal and the wood gives me a good feel of registration when I hold it, and it is relaxed and comfortable instead of the rough and inflexible feel of the original shape.
Now I really like the feel of it all. I may reduce the length just a bit and put the ring on, so I can pound it and still have it fit to the palm. I suspect that the average Japanese woodworker would take a half inch off of these as a matter of course, so that would be no problem. The glue might upset them a bit, but I suspect these were made specifically for the American market.
More later on this process as I get further along on the task.
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