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Thanks for the googling for rabbit holes. The joinery in traditional Japanese construction is remarkably impressive in its craftsmanship. I've heard it was bor
by duped 4y ago
Thanks for the googling for rabbit holes.
The joinery in traditional Japanese construction is remarkably impressive in its craftsmanship. I've heard it was born from a combination of expensive and poor quality iron for nails (although the same could be said in European construction - hence the phrase, "dead as a door nail") and the desire to be able to relocate Shinto shrines without damage (which required joints that could sustain serious loads without nails or glue). The ingenuity of design, and craftsmanship in their manufacture is something to behold. You can stare at a joint, chiseled by someone hundreds of years ago from fine hardwood and appreciate the care and expertise put into it.
I wonder sometimes what we build that people look back on and will see the same quality of work.
- Danieru 4y agoMore important: earthquakes. Large ancient style Nails are a poor choice for a building which over the next 50 years is will experience a 100+ earthquakes. Joined wood is a mechanical connection which would require a house to be disassembled from the top down. The wood would sooner rip than come loose. Edit: also joinery is not dead. Even modern Japanese houses have most of their connections a joinery. Then reinforced up with nails, cross braces (wood and now metal), and metal pins. Every dozen or so years Japan adds a new method for further earthquake proofing wooden homes. Stuff built now is expected to survive a Shindo 7 earthquake. Japan has only had 8 Shindo 7s in the past 100 years.
- lostlogin 4y agoI thought ‘dead as a door nail’ was a reference to dead nailing. Dead nailing being the bending over of the nail to lock it in place. Is this practice somehow related to poor quality nails? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_as_a_doornail https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_as_a_doornail
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pineaux 4y agoFor an excellent video about the use, history and ethymology of a dead door nails: https://youtu.be/1JOwfKLdRt8 https://youtu.be/1JOwfKLdRt8
- bluGill 4y agoIron was expensive in Europe, before mass production a nail had to be made individually by hand which took a long time. Which is why until around 200 years ago nails were used only when nothing else would do.
- viciousvoxel 4y agoI imagine it would have been even more expensive and unobtainable in Japan -- they historically had no source of quality iron and most was laboriously refined from iron sands and was of poor quality. This is also what necessitated the development of advanced metallurgical techniques such as repeated folding and blending of different steels to compensate.