31-Oct-2024
Today was a rare sunny day amidst a string of rainy days. With the humidity at around 50%, it’s perfect for working on puzzle boxes. That said, today’s task wasn’t particularly critical for this wether—applying marquetry sheets to panels, something I’d normally save for rainy days..haha😅
The photo shows the Yosegi sheet for the side panel of the triangular Japanese puzzle box I’ve just started working on. Typically, each puzzle box size has its own custom yosegi sheet. For example, a 4-sun box would have a sheet crafted specifically for that size, prepared by a specialist in Yosegi-sheet. Likewise, a 5-sun box has its own custom sheet. This applies to traditional yosegi boxes where the top, bottom, and side panels are fully covered in yosegi-sheet. However, for this triangular puzzle box, there’s no dedicated yosegi sheet. Though I could commission one, this particular box design isn’t produced frequently enough to justify it, as the custom sheet would likely go unused.
Instead, I’m using a larger, multipurpose yosegi sheet, like the one in the photo, which is around A4 size. With this larger sheet, I can cover three rows of panels at once, matching the width of the triangular box’s side panels. Today, I adhered the yosegi sheet for these side panels, prioritizing it because the wood for this panel requires thorough drying.
By the way, this yosegi sheet isn’t mine; it belongs to a Hakone supplier. I’m crafting this triangular puzzle box at their request.
The other photo shows the top and side panels of a natural wood 5-sun 27-step puzzle box that I’m also making in parallel. This is the only one of its kind this time (sorry), as I hadn’t planned to make it. I ended up with one extra set of materials for the 27-step box frame, so I decided to create this piece unexpectedly. The yosegi sheets I’d planned for the original batch have already been allocated and adhered to panels.
I plan to continue working on these tasks over the coming days😄
