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From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

As a starting point in understanding Japanese tools, it’s probably best to examine how they are made. And even before looking at how they are made, it’s good to look at steel, and how steel works. In its simplest form, steel is a combination of iron and carbon. Pure iron consists of atoms of iron that arrange themselves naturally into a cubic structure. This cubic structure is not rigid, however. The cubic structure can move, which is why pure iron is malleable, and can be hammered and shaped into forms that are useful for us.           Carbon happens to be just the right size so that if it is able to get into the gaps of the...

From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

From the M&T Daily Dispatch 

Using the sloyd involves a handful of grips that are somewhat modified depending on the circumstances. As each comes up in the process, I will break it down, but from that point on I will simply refer to it. The first and probably most important of these is the hand squeeze. Some people refer to this as the thumb push, but I’ve moved away from that name because it’s actually misleading. It’s not pushing with the thumb that makes this cut powerful and controlled, but rather closing the hand holding the spoon itself that pulls the spoon back against the knife edge. If you push with your thumb, you’ll have a fraction of the power and will eventually damage your...

From the M&T Daily Dispatch