The terrible strong winds we had until yesterday are finally over, and today the weather is calm and sunny. I came to the workshop a little earlier than usual this morning and did some work. The daylight hours are slowly getting longer again. The sunrise time has not changed much yet, but in the evening it stays bright a little longer. Even so, when I arrived at the workshop this morning, it was still completely dark 😅
I had a small errand to take care of in the afternoon, so I finished my work around 3 p.m. After that, I came back to the workshop again in the evening (now). Today, I mainly worked on 5-sun puzzle boxes. At the moment, the top and bottom panels have already been glued on, and the boxes are held in place with clamps. This helps keep the boxes straight and stable. Since I am not making a very large number this time, the work is moving along fairly quickly.
After that, I worked on making the sliding key panels for these boxes. The boards with yosegi sheets glued on were already well dried, so I processed them today (photo). I am not sure how other craftspeople make these panels, but I think everyone has to be very careful when cutting this panel into three parts. The movement of this sliding key is very delicate, and I think it is quite difficult to make it in a uniform, mass-production style. The small wooden parts inside and the yosegi panel move together, and this area must not be too tight, not too loose, and must move smoothly. In many kinds of work, if something is too tight, you can simply shave it down. However, this panel has a yosegi sheet glued on the surface. That means if you shave it, you also shave away the pattern. In other words, you cannot remove very much material. If you do, the joints of the pattern become unnatural, and the position of the sliding key becomes too obvious. Because of this, I can only shave it very lightly with a sharp tool, or gently touch it with sandpaper.
I have spent a very long time—about 20 to 30 years—experimenting with this part. My current method is not perfect, but it has slowly evolved as I have solved problems one by one. Even so, there are still times when it does not turn out well. This sliding key panel process is the very last step in assembling a puzzle box, so if something goes wrong here, it is quite painful…🤣
