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It's been five days or so since I posted about the carving tool project, and we've got a lot done in that time. Some of the progress has been smooth, and some has been less so.

We received the first samples of actual blades around a week ago. They are good, but they are 'not ready for prime time'. We have no problems with the steel - they seem to take an edge very well, and we'll give them a good workout over the next little while. It's the sharpening that is not acceptable. They - of course - know how to sharpen their own blades, but what they don't understand well is the requirements of a wood-block cutter. The shape and bevel they have put on these tools is what one might expect in a tool to be used by a carpenter. The bull-nose aisuki chisels need to have the corners knocked off, and a gentle curve shaped on the front edge, but these are perfectly square. Those sharp corners would cause havoc on one of my blocks ...

We had half expected this, and rather than try to explain in words how we want them shaped, we will simply put these on our stones, form them to our requirements, and send them back as models.

In the meantime, I have spent the past few days building jigs for making the handles. Rather than show photos of the chaos in the first basement at this stage, I'll wait until I get the set finished, and will then shoot a 'step by step' series of shots showing the process from raw plank to finished handle.

And speaking of raw wood! Let's have a few snapshots from a trip I made with Sato-san this afternoon to the massive lumber distribution market at Shin-Kiba. You've all heard of the Tsukiji Fish Market - the place where vast amounts of seafood products are traded early every morning. Well, there is a similar market zone for lumber. It used to be in the Kiba district of Tokyo, an area criss-crossed by small canals (used to transport the logs, of course), but was moved out to an area reclaimed from Tokyo Bay some 50 or so years ago. It's gigantic; it would take all day just to walk around it. Sato-san and I rode his motor-bike around, trying to hunt down the 'best' place for a permanent supply of wood for our tool handles.

It took us a while, following a 'chain' of introductions and recommendations, but just before noon we pulled up in front of this place:

Looks good! And when we saw these planks sitting outside, we got our hopes up even higher:

And then when we got inside, talked to the young man running the place, and had a look around, it was pretty clear that we had found it. This is all cherry! The Mother Lode!