Practical craft guides
Understand materials, construction and care through specific, sourced reader questions.
Ceramics
- Porcelain casting: the mould and the firing do different jobs
How can a mould produce both open dishes and narrow-necked vessels?
- Hagi pottery changes through use: what nanabake describes
Does Hagi’s nanabake mean seven fixed colour stages?
- Pinch or slab? Two pottery workshops begin differently
What changes when a pottery class says pinch forming rather than slab forming?
Knives & sharpening
- A knife’s handedness involves the edge and the handle
Can a knife’s name alone tell a left-handed reader whether it fits?
- Whetstone thickness: separate the abrasive from the backing
Does a whetstone’s total thickness tell you how much is abrasive?
- A flat whetstone needs more than a clean surface
What does a pencil grid show when flattening a Shapton whetstone?
- Clad knife construction: what a layer count leaves unanswered
Separate materials, joining process and layer count when reading a clad knife specification, using TOJIRO's technical reference.
- Reading a Shapton whetstone label: grit, water and storage
How to distinguish grit labels, initial wetting advice and storage restrictions in Shapton’s current guidance.
- Carbon-steel knife care: separate washing, drying and storage decisions
A maker-grounded guide to daily carbon-steel knife care, with separate cleaning, drying and storage checks.
Lacquerware
- Urushi curing: why the workshop controls humidity
Why does an urushi workshop manage humidity during curing?
- Wooden lacquerware care: brief cleaning, careful drying
How do brief cleaning steps differ from permission to immerse or heat wooden lacquerware?
- Gold on lacquer: maki-e and chinkin describe different work
What changes when a gold lacquer pattern is described as maki-e rather than chinkin?
- From bowls to boxes: reading Echizen lacquerware history
Why does Echizen lacquerware include boxes and trays as well as bowls?
- Echizen lacquerware: read the body and coating separately
Does an Echizen lacquerware label tell me both the body material and the coating?
Metal craft & ironware
- Copper raising: why hammering alternates with annealing
Why is heating part of making a hammered copper vessel?
- How a Nambu iron kettle’s pattern begins in the mould
Is a Nambu kettle’s surface pattern made at the same stage as its colour?
Outdoor equipment
- When water beading fades, check the cleaning first
Why can rinsing matter before adding another water-repellent treatment?
Textiles & kimono
- Tsuzure weaving: why the warp disappears from view
How does tsuzure form an image without exposing its warp?
- Kumihimo stands: follow where the braid is going
Does the name of a braiding stand determine the cord’s shape?
- Kurume kasuri: the pattern begins on yarn
Why does a kasuri description discuss tying yarn before it discusses weaving?
- Before weaving the pattern: what loom setup involves
Does a weaving course spend all its time passing weft through the loom?
- Bashofu begins before the loom: splitting and joining fibre
What does hand-joining fibre mean in a description of Kijoka bashofu?
Woodworking & basketry
- Hakone yosegi: a thin patterned surface or a patterned body?
Does a yosegi pattern run through the object or form its surface?
- Blade thickness and kerf answer different saw questions
Why are plate thickness and kerf listed as different saw dimensions?
- A saw’s cut direction starts with the grain
How do grain direction and tooth geometry change the meaning of a saw label?
- An oke’s sidewall is assembled from staves
What do the staves, hoops and bottom contribute to a Sanuki oke description?
- Beppu basketry: a weave name is not a product shape
Does a named Beppu bamboo weave identify an object’s shape or intended use?
Workshop & artisan tools
- A print studio’s tool list is not a beginner’s class
How should I read a shared print studio’s equipment list before booking?