Kumiko Sampler - #1 The Beginning

I have subscribed to Fine Woodworking for a long time and in their February 2017 issue they had an article on a Japanese form of latticework called Kumiko.  After reading the article it sounded like something that I would like to try sometime in the future so I set the issue aside in my “maybe-to-do” stack.

Well, with the Covid-19 restrictions in place I found myself in self-enforced seclusion here in the desert.  Normally we take some time off to visit a cooler climate during the hottest part of the summer but that was not going to happen this year.  As the shop cools off at night and is comfortable for a few hours in the morning I decided to try and see if I could make a small section of the Kumiko latticework called asa-no-ha.

First off, as usual, I drew up a 3D model in SketchUp which looks like this.  The lattice itself is about 4” by 8”.

With the model done I wondered what I could do with the piece when it was finished.  Putting it in a cabinet as a decorative inset came to mind but we really don’t need another cabinet.  Then I remembered a 3D optical illusion piece my dad had done several years ago and given to us as a gift. 

Taking a cue from that it was back to the 3D model to put the lattice in a small self-contained display case.  This is what that looks like using a black matt board background and cherry as a frame.  Right now, it’s designed as a roughly 7” by 11” wall hanging.  Now that might change as the project progresses.

There are a couple of jigs the build will require so I decided to start with those.  Recently I was gifted an oak fireplace mantel along with its supports.  The supports had mounting holes in them along with some face glued pieces that were also nailed on so they were not pristine pieces but would certainly be usable for the jigs.  Below is one of them to give an idea of what I started with.  To locate the nails for removal I used a rare earth magnet (circled in red) marking each one as I went.  The nails had been set and filled which made their removal a little more challenging.   One thing this assembly clearly shows off is what happens when wood is glued up with the grain running at 90 degrees to each other.  All of the face glued pieces were split as clearly shown here.  Wood does not change much at all when the humidity changes along the grain but it can change a lot across the grain.  When you have wide piece like this glued and nailed to another piece where the grain does not align then somethings got to give.  In this case the thinner piece of wood split to release the stress. 

In order to get to the nails, I put a plug cutter in the drill press then drilled a plug centered on each nail.  Here you can see the setup, some cut plugs and the remaining nails to be cut circled in pencil.

Once the plugs are drilled a cold chisel is used to split the plug from the nail.   After the waste is removed a pair of wire cutters are used to pull the nails.  I used a cold chisel rather than one of my good wood chisels because if one of the nails were hit it would have damaged the wood chisel’s edge.

Next is to cut face glued pieces flush with the underlying 2” thick oak.  That’s done on the bandsaw and the new blade made quick work just gliding though 1 ½” of old red oak like it was nothing.

Cutting the legs free from each other along their joint is next.  After a careful check for any screws or nails I used the bandsaw to cut the joint.  Unfortunately, when I looked at the just made cut, I saw two shiny pieces of freshly cut steel and that’s never a good sign in woodworking.   

At that time, I no idea what had been hit only that my new bandsaw blade wasn’t new anymore.  After splitting the face glued oak off the second oak support I found out what I had hit.  It was a pair of corrugated steel fasteners, one on each side of the 2” thick oak.  They were not visible when looking at the face glued pieces and were too deep in the wood to be found with the magnet.  All that’s left now is to ascertain how much damage was done to the new bandsaw blade.

I had planned on cutting off the face glued pieces with the bandsaw but was a little paranoid if any other surprises were hiding.  Splitting off the face glued pieces resolved that but sure did leave a surface in poor shape as in the top photo.  A little work with the hand plane gives me a flat surface to work from.

Here are all four pieces flattened and ready to be run through the thickness sander.  The notch on the left end of the upper two pieces are where the corrugated steel fasteners have been cut away.

The photo below shows the two pieces I will use for the jigs after they were run through the thickness sander, ripped to give clean square edges and have had the ends trimmed on the chop saw.  The lines on the jigs are marked for the different angles needed for cutting the ends of the lattice pieces, 45, 67.5 and 22.5 degrees.  Fortunately, I have a steel protractor that has marking slots at all the needed angles including 67.5 and 22.5 degree. 

At this point I am going to set the jigs aside for a bit to see if the wood is stable and start on the lattice material.

Next Up – Prepping Lattice Blanks & More Jig Work