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Plane shaving competition. Wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Ad6tB ... r_embedded

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Mike Lindstrom

I'm not that amazed by the planing, rather by the fact that several thousand(evidently) people turned up to watch!!!!

wow....weird but very cool. apparently my stuff is dull too! unless thats balsa they are using

Evidently this is the type of thing that gets their rocks off. No wonder they almost took over the world.
We have hot dog eating contests. With televised coverage and "sports announcers".

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Old growth, shmold growth!

......and there's a japanese guy who wins those, too!

Actually Joey Chestnut won, with 68 dogs stuffed into his gullet.

I almost puked just watching this thing.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

It looks like they were planing pine or other softwood, which honestly isnt hard to do as long as you keep the blade sharp. Its harder to do that with rosewood..

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Humans...we'll compete at ANYTHING! Yeah the crowd was an amazing thing to watch.

Can you imagine waking up one morning and seeing a planing competition taking place in your town and saying to the wife and kids in a super excited, only another woodworker would understand little girls scream, "Hon, pack the car, get the kids, we're going to a planing competition. Let's do this thing!!" Only in Japan?

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Thank You and Best To All

And this is why old "cheap" guitars made in Japan are sought after - these fellers take their work to the next level.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I agree that these competitions are a bit much but think this shows the perfectionist nature of humans. Typically these competitions aren't just to see how thin a shaving one can make, they will have other demonstrations as we do at our woodworking events. Making a shaving this thin really isn't a practical exercise in woodworker but does demonstrate how in tune with their tools they can be which is always a good thing.

I believe the wood to be a cypress of some sort, similar to Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Obviously not exactly sure what it is in this video.

They were measuring thickness of 9 microns.

9 microns!!!

Do you realize that a mature erythrocyte measures 8.2 microns across? (That's a red blood blood cell)

These guys are planing basically one cell layer off at a time, and you're not impressed?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I can set this up so it will just make a fine powder, looks like sanding dust. But really, shavings any finer than this serve no point.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

The guitarwhisperer’s observation is spot on. Early in my career, I spent hours identifying one celled algae called diatoms, and it was necessary to view them through microscope using an oil immersion lens at 1000x to identify them, often making measurements at the 10 micron level or less. I’m impressed that the micrometer they used could even measure the thickness of the shavings, and even more impressed that the shaving actually holds together. Only wood would be so versatile. Although I’m fairly certain I could not get my wife or kids excited about attending such an event, the sharpness of these hand tools is amazing. As for myself, I may only be 0.02" on a good day ; that is why I need a drum sander. Mark me impressed.

I'm impressed, positively for the planes, negatively for the hot dogs. Eewww....

I've seen some video of these competitions before and have always been impressed, especially with the wider planes (for really fine woodworking in Japan they finish a surface with a plane that is capable shaving full width in a single pass, even on large beams).
I found this while reading various stuff on the web:

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... than-yours

According to this guy they're using PO cedar and the record is somewhere around 3-4 microns. That's nuts!

Their pursuit of perfection goes another level beyond excellence. I saw this everywhere when we lived there. We saw a kimono works in Kyoto that was staffed by octogenarians, the only people they could find who were good enough. There was a traditional kimono being painted by hand. It was a strip of cloth about 40 ft. long and was to be folded, not cut, into its final shape. The scenes being painted on it were done in such a way that all the graphics matched up perfectly. I remarked to our host how masterful their work was. His remark, translated to me, was something like, "it is the only way to do it."

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

If you like good documentaries, check out "Jiro Dreams of Sushi". It's a nice glimpse into that kind of perfectionism. And a good movie too.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

How you measuring that?

The Japs are using an optical microscope gauge thing (not sure what it's called) which would be necessary when measuring something as small as an erythrocyte.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Sheesh...those Japanese can take anything to extreme and crazy levels. How bored would you have to be to go watch a planing competition?? Just imagine the poor guy who had to edit this video....he had to watch all the parts that were too boring to show on a planing competition

I can set up my plane to shave thin full width shavings, but not for long... after a short while I have to resharpen it again. Maybe I was doing it wrong...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Oh now common Todd! I'm glad you can do it, but we're talking competetion level shavings, JAPANESE competetion level shavings! It's not 'just another day at work'!

Just about nobody around here can make .0007" shavings, and that doesn't mean the rest of us are 'sharpeningly challenged'.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

Oh great, last night I dreamed I was in one of those plane shaving competition, and I made really thick shavings just because I pushed too hard.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

From what I recall in watching some of the technique and tool demos on these. The Japanese planes have an incredibly sharp, thick, laminated blade. The plane bodies are concave for most of their length and the small flat area in front of the blade allows it to raise a microscopic "bubble" of wood that allows the blade to take the thinnest possible shavings.

Japs????

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Oh geez, is everything offensive now?

I just shortened the word "Japanese".

Had no idea it was an ethnic slur, since the Japanese foreign exchange students I knew in highschool called themselves Japs.

But looked it up on Wikipedia, and so it is!

Sorry.

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Old growth, shmold growth!