I came to the workshop in the afternoon today. It seems that not many people have started Golden Week yet, so the traffic was about the same as usual. There have been some days that feel like summer already this year, but overall, this is a very comfortable and pleasant season. Once we get into May, the spring storms become less frequent, and we usually have calm days until the rainy season begins.
As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the sliding key of the 3-sun 18-steps puzzle boxes can sometimes interfere with other parts of the sliding key panel, making the movement feel tight. In this batch, I made two types of side panels (sliding key panels), and most of this issue is happening with the walnut type. This has happened before, and I have also seen it occasionally in 4-sun boxes made with walnut. One reason this happens with walnut is that it is a hard wood, and when cutting it, it does not always cut exactly as intended. This can sometimes be improved by using sharper tools or adjusting the thickness of the blade, but since it is natural wood, it does not always behave exactly as expected.
For that reason, since this year I have been making fewer puzzle boxes that use natural wood for the side panels. I am making them this time because I received a request, but otherwise I probably wouldn’t have made them. I know that boxes using walnut are popular and in demand, but as a Japanese puzzle box material, it is not very suitable. It does not match well with the structure of the mechanism used in Japanese puzzle boxes. Japanese puzzle boxes have relatively weak movement force, and the motion is very small, so lighter and softer woods are more suitable. That’s why softwoods and Japanese woods such as magnolia (Ho) and katsura have been used traditionally.
I was able to return all of the slightly stiff sliding keys to normal movement, but this kind of adjustment is very difficult, and in most cases, it would be impossible to fix. Depending on the box, some can be adjusted and some cannot, but this 3-sun 18-steps type is one that can be corrected. The photo shows the box during the adjustment, and it looks almost like it’s broken 😆, But this is the only way to fix it, so I wouldn’t recommend doing this. Because of this, for the walnut type in this batch, only one will remain for sale on my website, and the rest will be shipped to shops overseas.
