Homemade Nankin Kanna (Japanese Spokeshave)

I find myself in a familiar situation. It sure would be helpful if I had a ... spokeshave.

Of course I didn't find one in the pile of old tools, and they don't sell them anywhere nearby. I checked...

The Japanese version is called a Nankin Kanna and it's much like a regular Japanese plane in terms of set-up, thus wooden body and angled cut-out for the plane blade.

For my first go I decided to use a little hobby plane blade for the design. I've found the blades to be very decent for the cost, so I just need the spokeshave body to go around it.

I decided to reverse engineer one based on drawings and partial specs I found on a tool-maker's website. So lots of measuring, taking proportions, doing arithmetic and such. I'm enjoying making my old arithmetic brain functions work again after many years of non-use.

I'm in the midst of it now. This will be my first hand-made plane.

I'll post some more pics as I progress. I need to progress fast because I need the tool pronto!

There are a few youtube videos on making nankin kanna, but recently I don't have the free screen time to watch videos, but you now have the keywords if you're interested in videos.

I found the spec sheet from this link - http://kurayuki.abeshoten.jp/blog/2951

Today I roughed out a blank slightly oversized and very much not flat. I also dug out the hobby plane blades I bought for this project ages ago.

Come to think of it this project has been on the back of my mind for over a year... I'm glad I'm finally getting to it.

Before I get to where I am now... Let me back up a bit.

We have some kitchen chairs from the 1980s. They were falling apart when I moved in. I rebuilt them and reupholstered the cushioned seats twice. I'm a total amateur DIYer though with no real woodworking training. So when rebuilding them I didn't do a good job. I have rebuilt them a few times since then, but as time goes on they are just becoming harder and harder to repair.

SO. I need new kitchen chairs (unless we go even more minimalist before I get there). I've been wanting to make chairs for a long time. So I needed a shaving horse (check), some axes (check), a drawknife (check), and a spokeshave - and here we are.

Today,

So I've got the blank roughed out, and I'm ready to get it into the appropriate shape for cutting out the space for the blade. Fortunately I have a planing board I made! But oh no... it's not flat anymore. That's okay, I can true it up with my hand plane in a jiffy. Except wow, my plane blade is dull. Time to sharpen it (Hey there's a BB for that).

Yikes, The last time I sharpened this thing I put a really weird multiple angle bevel on it. I also don't have a flat whetstone rougher than 400# right now, so I'm grinding at this thing for ages and it is very slowly getting flat. But I'm taking a break to let my hands get some strength back. I need to save future me a lot of time and buy a 150/600 diamond stone to complement the 400/1000. I have a rough grit whetstone, but by virtue of the kind of work I do on it, it gets out of flat very very quickly. I have a flattener, but It's kind of a pain in the neck to flatten whetstones.

I am getting a lot better at sharpening. I used to try to use honing guides, but as I improve I find that I do a better job with just using my muscles to hold a consistent angle. I don't think there is a shortcut to acquiring this skill though. You just need to know what you're looking for, build muscle memory, finger strength, and learn a few tricks like letting part of your hand brush your counter top or work surface to maintain a consistent hand height.

I'll try to post more about sharpening in my BB post when I submit it.

This is the way of my life as an insistent DIYer - a never ending chain of I need to make this before I make... the next thing, I need to learn this skill before I can learn the next one.

150/600 grit diamond stone purchased. I believe this will pay itself off in terms of time saved pretty quickly. I'm sure my fingers will thank me too.

After lots of annoying challenges with my plane, I bought a new one for the time being.

Moving forward to cutting the block for the Japanese spokeshave to its proper dimensions.

I started by cleaning up the faces so they sit flat and register against the planing stop on my bench hook.




Then I marked up the dimensions and started removing waste.




The squared up block looks like it's big enough to potentially give me two spokeshave blocks (or a back-up in case I royally screw up)



I wanted to preserve the dimensions of one more carefully though, so I sawed clear of the line consistently for the most part (though I may have cut through it a little - yikes)



Anywho, I cleaned up the resulting pieces and put the blade up to see how it will look.




That's as far as I got today. And now I either have a sore throat from either saw dust... or it might be another more anxiety evoking reason... *sigh*