Japanese Woodworking Tools Special Edition – Odate

To celebrate Toshio Odate turning the young age of 90, Linden Publishing has produced a limited, special edition of his book Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit and Use .This edition is the original 9″ x 12″ size, but with a hard cover, dust jacket and slip case. Each book is numbered, signed, and stamped with the Odate family crest. There is a new preface by Toshio.

Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit and Use is a fascinating look at a unique woodworking culture and philosophy. Odate’s apprenticeship as a tategushi, or sliding door maker, during his boyhoood in Japan is the basis for a personal and insightful look at each traditional hand tool in the Japanese woodworker’s tool box; reflecting on their origin, manufacture, and details on their care, use and maintenance.

Traditional woodworkers can learn much from Japanese Woodworking Tools with its comprehensive study of the history, development and use of Japanese tools. It provides detailed, first-hand information on how each tool is finished, tuned, sharpened, maintained and repaired by the craftsman who owns it. An all-time favorite.

At age 90, I started to think one more time about the role of the shokunin andhis life with his tools. Scholars, scientists, and historians can catalog, document,and analyze traditional Japanese tools, but who will preserve the elements thetools played in protecting and supporting the craftsman’s life? Only the craftsmanwho uses the tools knows that. That experiential knowledge, which I knewintimately and intuitively, I preserved in this book. Today, nobody makes a livingwith hand tools alone, and therefore nobody can write a book like this ever again. —Toshio Odate

ISBN

200 pages.Hardcover.

Additional Information

Review: Japanese Woodworking Tools Their Tradition, Spirit and Use by J. Norman Reid

Author Toshio Odate: Making Shoji by Toshio Odate