Took some kids out to Hakone - a beautiful Japanese Garden in the
foothills
of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It has a nice Koi pond, with HUGE
beautiful
Koi - and plenty of turtles, a water fall and plenty of paths for kids
to explore
(and see critters - mainly lizards and an occasional skink). It also
has
several traditionally built with traditional lumber - the craftsmen and
the
lumber imported from Japan, the parts made in Japan and assembled on
site. One of these buildings is a woodworker's delight - details galore
and
amazing grain selection, probably unnoticed by most visitors.

Now one of the things about kids is that they want to explore - and
often in places You're Not Supposed To Go, though not specified as
such. And if you join their journey of exploration you often are
rewarded.
In this case they weren't interested in the inside of the little
building,
but rather the outside, and underside of the building, it being built on
a sloping hillside overlooking the Koi Pond and the rest of the garden.

Sometimes you find hidden little gems tucked back in the most unlikely
places. In the tight little space between the back of the building and
the down sloping hillside there's a narrow "cut through" path, no
doubt created and maintained by curious kids who want to step off
the beaten path for "adults" in order to see "what's back there".

And that's how I found this interesting texturing technique which
I may use on something - someday.

Now I don't know if this is a traditional Japanese thing - adding a
little extra something to an otherwise very simple - looking -
structure - but I'm glad they did that on this little building.

It seems as though the craftsman took straight quarter sawn
boards, made saw cuts acrossed the grain every couple of inches,
then charred the surface, burning off some of the softer grain
and darkening the harder grain. The edges of the saw cuts
were burned away more than the flat areas, creating a pillow
effect which looks like a woven surface - invoking the look of
the tatami mats on part of the floor inside the building - a subtle
yet striking effect.

Some of the boards were riff sawn with some of the grain
at maybe 50-60 degrees. The technique, applied to these
boards, produced a really interesting texture reminding me
of a mix between alligator skin and a 3-D contour map - a
really fascinating look that begs for your attention - like
a sumie painting - engaging your eye and mind to fill in the
gaps with your imagination.

Now I'd done some "charring" textures on redwood boards
or an A/C compressor "surround" next to my little Japanese
garden. Lay the boards flat, sprinkle pebbles of various
sized on the surface and propane torch the surface. The
pebbles protect the wood underneath from the flame, leaving
untouched high spots in the resulting surface. By charring
more in some random areas, the depth of the texure was
increased. A lot of careful wire brushing, first with steel
bristles to remove wood, and then with brass bristles to
burnished the surface, the effect was interesting.

But the idea of cutting lines never occured to me. Gonna
have to play with this technique - and perhaps use it for
a piece of furniture.

What would you do with this idea?

charlie b