Making Shoji

by Toshio Odate, Laure Olender (Photographer)

Learn to make traditional Japanese sliding doors and screens for your home! The construction of shoji—Japanese sliding doors and screens—requires great skill and attention to detail. However, the task is within the reach of amateur woodworkers, and the results will add grace and serenity to any interior. With Toshio Odate’s help, woodworkers can tackle this traditional craft with confidence.  Odate, who served a craftsman’s apprenticeship during his youth, unites traditional insight and technical mastery in a way that anyone can understand. Making Shoji includes step-by-step instructions, illustrated by photos taken at every stage of the work, give detailed information on how to prepare materials, lay out joints, cut the parts, and assemble two shoji projects: the common sliding screen with hipboard, plus an intricate transom featuring the beautiful asanoha pattern. Building on this foundation, Odate gives construction details and notes on eight shoji variations. Technical chapters cover the Japanese mortise-and-tenon joint, shoji paper, and homemade rice glue. Drawing upon his unusual life, Odate includes richly moving stories of his sometimes harsh apprenticeship in post-War Japan, an era almost incomprehensibly far from our own. These revelations help put traditional Japanese woodworking techniques and attitudes into their cultural context. Odate’s authentic account thus will enhance every woodworker’s library.

Genres: Woodwork, Japan, Reference, Crafts

119 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2000

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Build some shoji with those cool Japanese tools you've acquired and fixed up using Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit and Use. Odate apprenticed with his father. which was a bit sad, because apprentices weren't treated well. He felt that he had lost his father. I think there's one other book in English not counting the web but this is the best overall.

If you're interested in tansu, Clark has a book on repairing them using Western tools, Japanese Antique Furniture: A Guide to Evaluating and Restoring, there's enough info to build one and there's some hardware available outside of Japan.

[Koen Crolla · Rating 5 out of 5]

What it promises to be: a relatively brief exposition of the tools and techniques of the tategu-shi, explained through a few representative practical projects you can either follow along as-is or pillage for ideas. Not for complete beginners, though, and having read Odate's previous book will be helpful if not absolutely vital.

[David Hallard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tardis 2.