Kezurou-Kai #39

Summary

Last weekend I went to the 39th annual Kezurou-kai event in Itoigawa, Niigata. It was my first time going to the event here in Japan, and it was such a blast. For those who are unfamiliar with kezurou-kai, it’s an event where people compete to take the thinnest shavings of wood using Japanese planes. But more than that it’s really a gathering of people who are passionate about woodworking and carpentry, sharpening and hand tools, who are pushing their skills to the absolute limits of what is possible. The event takes place over two days, with preliminary planing running all through the first day, and ending around mid-day on day 2. Throughout that time competitors have three chances each day to bring a plane shaving up for official measurement. 5 individuals with the thinnest shavings then go on to the final planing contest toward the end of the day on day 2. The main contest required using 70 mm kanna, and the material was limited to hinoki at 55 mm wide by 1800 mm long. Hinoki has become the standard wood for thin planing, since it cuts beautifully and can be planed down to an extreme level without breaking up. For preliminary planing each competitor or group was required to bring their own material for planing. The final contest however involved planing material selected by the event organizers, with the final 5 competitors all planing the same board. The event took place in a gymnasium which was filled with planing benches shared by teams and individuals. When I arrived on day 1 I met up with my friends from Somakosha and we pretty much started taking shavings right away. Here’s Yamamoto-san getting things started.We all came with a few different planes, and myself I brought 2 kanna, an old Ishido blue steel blade and another from an unknown maker which I’m pretty confident is some type of white steel. We also had a Mitutoyo digital micrometer for measuring our shavings. Given than none of us had been doing any kind of practice our shavings on day one were prett...