Hi all. I don't have many posts because I suffer from "Squirrel, squirrel!" complex and cycle in and out of way too many things. So I have now, uh, 3 routers, a Porter Cable I keep mounted on a table saw wing, a Bosh with a plunge base I use for hand held, and a newly purchased Makita trim router. This got longer than I'd intended, but I figured it would help to provide background.
What I'm working on is mounting a Japanese pole weapon blade in a shaft. I've done a fair amount of research on English language boards, my never that great 40 years in disuse Japanese not being up to the task of Japanese language research. Too keep the pieces straight, I've called the long one the pole, and a short piece the dowel. Even Sr. practitioners of the art admit there isn't much written. Techniques were passed master to apprentice. If you want to see a method that doesn't work, Forged in Fire, Season 3, episode 14, The Naginata. The armorer tried end drilling the pole and it left way too much slack around the tang. Catastrophic failure. As good as Mr. Doug Marcaida may be, he didn't use a naginata strike technique from any school I'm familiar with.
I've figured out that the most common method is to rip the pole off center the thickness of the tang to a, pick your length, longer than the blade tang. A dowel is ripped full length the same and the larger piece is used to account for the kerf. Then the tang is inset into the pole and and the dowel worked down to match the pole with the tang inset into it. Traditional arms would then have one of several methods used to secure the two pieces together. From bronze bands to wet rattan that shrinks in place. I'm working with 1-11/16" hickory and ash poles to be sanded down later to a teardrop profile.
I've done my first rehearsal with the hickory by making a sacrificial sled, sadly I didn't note where I found the technique, to hold the dowel/pole to rip on the table saw and cross cut out the piece with a hand saw. Cut too deep, but I know there are many practice pieces still to come. I then hand chiseled, after considerable time spend sharpening and polishing my chisels, and then more, the inset for the tang. Doing hickory by hand is interesting . . .
OK, so with that background, "if" you were to think of a power tool method to try to speed up waste removal, thoughts? I've thought of using a Forster bit to take out most of the waste or putting the dowel in a planing type jig with a template to remove most of the waste. Ideas?
Thanks anyone and everyone for ideas and input. It all gets passed forward in my basic bicycle maintenance classes I teach as a volunteer. Over 100 students to date. Or to anyone else with interest in making an ebu.
Ron
What I'm working on is mounting a Japanese pole weapon blade in a shaft. I've done a fair amount of research on English language boards, my never that great 40 years in disuse Japanese not being up to the task of Japanese language research. Too keep the pieces straight, I've called the long one the pole, and a short piece the dowel. Even Sr. practitioners of the art admit there isn't much written. Techniques were passed master to apprentice. If you want to see a method that doesn't work, Forged in Fire, Season 3, episode 14, The Naginata. The armorer tried end drilling the pole and it left way too much slack around the tang. Catastrophic failure. As good as Mr. Doug Marcaida may be, he didn't use a naginata strike technique from any school I'm familiar with.
I've figured out that the most common method is to rip the pole off center the thickness of the tang to a, pick your length, longer than the blade tang. A dowel is ripped full length the same and the larger piece is used to account for the kerf. Then the tang is inset into the pole and and the dowel worked down to match the pole with the tang inset into it. Traditional arms would then have one of several methods used to secure the two pieces together. From bronze bands to wet rattan that shrinks in place. I'm working with 1-11/16" hickory and ash poles to be sanded down later to a teardrop profile.
I've done my first rehearsal with the hickory by making a sacrificial sled, sadly I didn't note where I found the technique, to hold the dowel/pole to rip on the table saw and cross cut out the piece with a hand saw. Cut too deep, but I know there are many practice pieces still to come. I then hand chiseled, after considerable time spend sharpening and polishing my chisels, and then more, the inset for the tang. Doing hickory by hand is interesting . . .
OK, so with that background, "if" you were to think of a power tool method to try to speed up waste removal, thoughts? I've thought of using a Forster bit to take out most of the waste or putting the dowel in a planing type jig with a template to remove most of the waste. Ideas?
Thanks anyone and everyone for ideas and input. It all gets passed forward in my basic bicycle maintenance classes I teach as a volunteer. Over 100 students to date. Or to anyone else with interest in making an ebu.
Ron
